The Special and Area Studies Collections at University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries are thrilled to announce the Coffey Residency Artists for 2021: Denise Bookwalter (https://denisebookwalter.com/home.html) and Paul Shortt (http://paulshortt.com/). As the residency was not offered in 2020 due to the pandemic, we decided to offer the Coffey Residency opportunity to two artists for the 2021/2022 academic year. The program is now “low-residency”; the artist will live and work in their own town for the majority of the residency period.
Each artist will spend one week doing research at the Special and Area Studies Collections at University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries during Fall 2021. Upon completion of their artist’s book project, each artist will provide a public presentation and a workshop to be held at the University of Florida in the Spring 2022 semester.
Initiated in 2015, The Coffey Residency provides an opportunity for a selected artist to access materials from the Special and Area Studies Collections (SASC) at University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries as the impetus for the creation of an artists’ book edition. During the residency, the artist has the chance to interact with the collections, librarians, curators, faculty, and students across the university. Production of the project involves periodic consultation with the facilitator of the program, Ellen Knudson, Associate in Book Arts.
Over the years, the residency has transitioned from a six-week summer residency (2015 and 2016), to a semester-long Fall residency (2017, 2018, 2019) to the present updated form for 2021 — an eight-month (academic) year-long, residency that does not require the artist to reside in Gainesville.
The Coffey Residency has become nationally recognized in the book arts community and the artists’ books produced from the residency have been well and widely acclaimed. Some of the collection placements of books created as part of the Coffey Residency are as follows: University of Iowa, U.S. Library of Congress, Bodelian Library (UK), Victoria and Albert Museum (UK), University of Washington, Ringling College of Art and Design, University of South Carolina, Miami University, Smithsonian Institute Library.
You can read and see more about the Coffey Residency Program and Projects at http://coffeyresidency.domains.uflib.ufl.edu/.