Imprint of the SFCB: Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine

November 20, 2010

My Imprint crew and I at the San Francisco Center for the Book are proud to be collaborating with artists Amy Franceschini and Michael Swaine of Futurefarmers to create ERRATUM: Brief Interruptions in the Waste Stream, a letterpress-printed sculptural artists’ book on the themes of art, environmental activism, and social change. ERRATUM is the sixth annual Artist-in-Residency edition published by the Imprint of the SFCB and is issued in two signed and numbered versions: a deluxe ‘Book + Brick’ edition of 40 copies and a trade edition of 100 copies.

Two bricks in molds on the ERRATUM exhibition's title wall.

The deluxe ‘Book + Brick’ edition is designed as a joined pair of wooden Egyptian brick molds. One of them contains a hand-made brick composed of toilet shards pulverized by the artists in a performance piece; the other holds a letterpress-printed book of cards with calls to reverse society’s erratum. Indoor plumbing and waste processing systems are targeted as objects of scrutiny and allegory in addressing the effects of waste on our ecology. Configured as a vessel for new ideas, self-reliance, and regeneration, ERRATUM is offered up by the artists as a “reverse ready-made” in one of the project’s many reverential nods to Marcel Duchamp.

Deluxe 'Book + Brick' edition components on display in the SFCB gallery.

Continuing the Duchampian reference, the artists designed ERRATUM’s trade edition as a letterpress-printed chessboard poster onto which a smaller sheet of 32 perforated ‘chess pieces’ is sewn. The double-sided 18″ x 24″ poster draws on the deluxe edition’s content, including writing contributions by Renny Pritikin, Director of the Richard L. Nelson Gallery and the Fine Arts Collection at the University of California, Davis.

Amy and Michael elucidate on the installation at the exhibition opening.

Amy Franceschini is an artist and designer whose personal work deals with themes of gardening, public space, technology, and social change. In questioning and challenging the social, cultural and environmental systems that surround us, Amy’s projects reveal the ways that local politics are affected by globalization, while articulating perceived conflicts between humans and nature, a dominant theme in her work. In 1995, she founded Futurefarmers, an international collective of artists and designers that make work that is relevant to the time and space surrounding them. In 2004, Amy co-founded Free Soil, a consortium of artists, activists, researchers, and gardeners working together to propose social, political and environmental alternatives. She holds an MFA from Stanford University and is a 2010 John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.

Original working drawings.

Michael Swaine is a multimedia artist, inventor and designer. He has collaborated with Futurefarmers since 1997 and is referred to as the analog anchor of the studio. Michael is dedicated to working in the community and is well known for his “Reap What You Sew” Generosity Project in which he navigates a mobile treadle-operated sewing machine on wheels through San Francisco’s blighted Tenderloin District, offering his services as a street tailor. Michael is currently an MFA candidate at UC Berkeley and teaches at the California College of the Arts.

Studies for the ERRATUM edition.

Come celebrate Amy and Michael’s publication party with us at the San Francisco Center for the Book on Friday December 10th from 6 to 8 P.M. Copies will be available at the pre-publication price that evening, and at the regular price afterwards online along with the Center’s other fine Imprint publications.

Wall installation detail.

Concurrent to launching ERRATUM the book, the SFCB is hosting ERRATUM the exhibition currently showing in the Center’s gallery space pictured in these photos. Elements of the exhibit include performance, sculpture, video and the printed word, designed to document the making of the edition as well as provide an entry point and tools for the audience to imagine and participate in altering the effects of pollution by initiating systemic change. The exhibition runs through January 16, 2011.

The project's conceptual evolution and technical process on display.

The SFCB is at 300 DeHaro Street (entrance on 16th Street) in San Francisco.
415-565-0545 | www.sfcb.org | [email protected]