Where: California Historical Society's Headquarters, 678 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105

Admission: $5 General Public/CHS Members receive free admission for themselves and one guest

Please join us Thursday, September 6th for a discussion surrounding Dimensions 3, a new book co-published by Colpa Press, The Aesthetic Union and The California Historical Society.

Dimensions 3 features the artwork of Sarah Hotchkiss, Jon Sueda and Davina Semo, as well as a foreword by Vivian Sming. Inspired by the 1961 Spring issue of Dimensions, a quarterly publication produced by the Lee Paper Company and featuring the artwork of Norman Ives, Dimensions 3 is a collaboration between printers and artists in the form of a Risograph and Letterpress printed 32page booklet.

The presentation will begin at 5:30pm with a look inside the California Historical Society’s Kemble collection, featuring the original issues of Dimensions. We will then move to the gallery, where each artist featured in Dimensions 3 will present their work, and will be later joined by Luca Antonucci of Colpa Press, James Tucker of The Aesthetic Union and Vivian Sming of Sming Sming Books for a short discussion around the publication.

Schedule for the Evening

About our Speakers:

The Aesthetic Union is a letterpress print shop specializing in custom work and original editions. They offer letterpress and foil printing and in-house design services for those seeking one-of-a-kind results. But They are more than ink on paper. They believe in encouraging a creative workspace. They believe in collaborative projects and community involvement. They believe that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. That’s why they are proud to carry well sourced selection of writing tools, art materials, notebooks and studio supplies. That’s why their gallery features collaborations with artists that push the boundaries of letterpress printing.

Colpa Press (founded 2010, San Francisco, CA) is the collaborative publishing practice of Luca Antonucci and David Kasprzak. Together they publish limited editions, working with artists in a variety of formats.

Vivian Sming is a Bay Area-based artist and writer who uses text, image, and new genres to engage in posthuman discourse. She is committed to fostering dialogue between art and other fields through publications, programming, and alternative pedagogical formats. Sming is currently the Editor in Chief of Art Practical, published through the California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and Editor of nonsensical, an annual journal of critical and experimental writing by visual artists. Sming produces a wide range of artists’ books through her publishing studio Sming Sming Books. She holds an BA in Art from UCLA, an MFA from CalArts, and was a 2016-17 Fellow at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

Sarah Hotchkiss is a San Francisco-based artist and arts writer. Most recently, her work was on view in bus stops as part of the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Art on Market Street program. She has attended residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, ACRE and the Vermont Studio Center. She watches a lot of science fiction, which she reviews in the semi-regular publication Sci-Fi Sundays. She is the visual arts editor for KQED.

Davina Semo (b. 1981, Washington, D.C.) completed her MFA at the University of California, San Diego in 2006. She received her BA in Visual Arts from Brown University in 2003. Semo has had solo exhibitions at Jessica Silverman Gallery (San Francisco), Marlborough Contemporary (New York), ribordy contemporary (Geneva) and White Flag Projects (St. Louis). She has participated in group shows at San Francisco Arts Commission, the Sculpture Center (New York), Greene Naftali Gallery (New York), Hannah Hoffman (Los Angeles), and the 2011 Bridgehampton Biennial, curated by Bob Nickas. Semo is represented by Marlborough Contemporary, New York and London, Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco, and ribordy contemporary in Geneva. She lives and works in San Francisco.

Jon Sueda is originally from Hawaii. Sueda has practiced design everywhere from Honolulu to Holland. After earning his MFA in Graphic Design from CalArts in 2002, he did an internship in the Netherlands with Studio Dumbar. In 2004, Sueda founded the design studio Stripe, which specializes in print and exhibition design for art and culture. In 2007, Sueda relocated to the San Francisco area where he served as Director of Design at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts for seven years. He is currently the Chair of the MFA Design program at California College of the Arts. Sueda was the curator of the exhibition All Possible Futures (SOMArts, San Francisco, 2013), and was recently selected as a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale.