Transcript for Episode 155 – Executive Director of the San Francisco Center for the Book, Jeff Thomas (California, USA)

Recorded February 12, 2021
Published March 16, 2021

Full recording here: https://wisefoolpod.com/executive-director-of-the-san-francisco-center-for-the-book-jeff-thomas-california-usa/

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Matthew Dols 0:12
My guest today is the executive director of the San Francisco Center for the Book, Jeff Thomas. And I have a long history with them not really long. Actually, I have a long history as far as like, a long time ago. But I did my master’s thesis at the Center for the Book in San Francisco, I did a polymer played book production and use their vandercook presses. I absolutely love this place. And I hope that you love this place and everything that Jeff is all about, and gain a better appreciation for the book. The wise fool with me, Matthew Dols, as your host is supported in part by an EA grande from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would like to also thank our partners humped kassner in Prague, Czech Republic, and Quincy center in a in Norgay in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes. Could you please pronounce your name correctly? For me?

Jeff Thomas 1:27
Jeff Thomas,

Matthew Dols 1:28
you are the executive director of the San Francisco Center for the Book be correct? Yeah. How long have you been there?

Jeff Thomas 1:37
I started there in the fall of 2012.

Matthew Dols 1:41
Prior to that, you were in the business world, the we’ll call it versus nonprofit world right to end Doing what?

Jeff Thomas 1:49
I had a stint at a nonprofit before that. But yeah, I worked in finance for the bulk of, you know, post college up until about the age of 40. I was in I was working in finance. And yeah, it was, it was fine. I worked, I worked in Boston on a trading floor for a number years. And then I moved out to California, and worked in public finance, the bond market, I was a credit analyst for Moody’s for many years. I think if there was going to be a kind of niche in the finance world where I was somewhat happy it was it was there because it was primarily people who done Political Science degrees, liberal, liberal arts degrees, and were very interested in the workings of government. And so this was helping governments raise money to do their projects. But the issue was that who invests in in municipal bonds, it’s very wealthy people, or institutions, who we never see. So I was writing these really dry reports on, you know, the credit quality of a sewer district, for wealthy people who wanted to save investment. So, you know, it was interesting, I like to do, I like to learn things, I like to kind of just dive in and figure them out, like their puzzles. And certainly finance was something that, you know, I’m not, I’m not so much a numbers person. But there was, I’m enough to find it interesting. And so there was certainly plenty to learn there. But once I’d done that, I just know, I remember sitting at my desk and seeing like the years of deals coming across my desk that I just did the same thing over and over again. And it started really get to me. Yeah, so I kind of it took a long time for me to really take the leap. And in fact, I ended up just saying, I don’t know what I’m doing next. I’m done. I’m taken. Thanks, everyone. I’ll see you later, and took a couple years off. And in that time, sort of made the decision that, you know, I was going to is working for some sort of arts nonprofit was the way to go or at least, it’s the thing that appealed to me. And I just started to build relationships and connect with people. So that’s kind of how I made that initial shift away from that world.

Matthew Dols 4:34
But like, I always joke that artists get into being artists because they don’t have a business mind. Like they’re just not good with business. So I’m I’m wondering because you come from a business background. Does that actually benefit you? So did all your years of being in a business industry is that helping run a nonprofit?

Jeff Thomas 4:58
Yes, I am. I think so. I mean, I don’t think anyone can do it. Not that I’m special. But you know, I think that you certainly have to have a genuine interest in what you’re going into. I mean, that was a bit of the issue when I first the first nonprofit I worked for was a was an orchestra. I grew up with playing instruments and was introduced to classical music, but I never really, it was no, you know, it was interesting. does have no passion. Yeah, that’s, that’s one of my favorite words when it comes to careers. Like, compassion. Sorry.

Matthew Dols 5:40
You’re welcome to cuss like a sailor, it’s gone. Yeah,

Jeff Thomas 5:45
yeah, I have issues. We’re passionate, but it could just because it’s a distraction. So I was not. I just was not bought into bought into that. But I was really, it was a period of learning. So yeah, you know, it’s, it’s funny, you, you come into a nonprofit. And I think that there is a way having having been fully immersed in corporate culture for an extended period of time, and how you approach things in almost the business, not in the money, but in the sort of attitude of approaching the way you approach things and authority and rules and regulations. I mean, frankly, the most eye opening thing about working in finance was this moment where that oh, my God, this is all, they’re just making it up. as they go along. It’s all made up. And it’s all in agreement. And so they can just do whatever they want. And if people go along with it, you know, or it works right on. So that was really eye opening for me and sort of changed the way I thought about things. I mean, not 100%, but certainly influenced me. So coming into a nonprofit, I was really much, you know, running meetings and having agendas, and, you know, sort of toning down the emotion of meetings and trying to get things to get things done was was was helpful, because, you know, I think that nonprofits, not all of them, but they can trend to be a little time consuming in a way that doesn’t it doesn’t need to be time consuming, I guess. So, you know, that helped me to kind of just bring something to the organization that might not have been there, you know, the organization doesn’t have to be that. But having that sort of influence can make some things happen. So I think that really helped. I think there was this attitude of, you know, it’s like, yeah, those are the rules, but we can do whatever we want. I mean, that I brought over, and I think sort of freed people up to think different lead to say, Oh, yeah, we were doing it this way. But we don’t necessarily have to continue doing it that way. Not that you want to change everything all the time, but you know, it frees you up and also, you know, frankly a bit of I don’t know if aloofness is the right word, but to sort of sometimes aloofness can sort of grease the wheels, you don’t get caught up in certain things. And so I think it did prepare me in those ways. That being said, I mean, I did what drew me to the Center for the Book, Park, among other things, was I had this choice of do I want to go bigger, organizationally, and specialize in what I wanted to do? Or do I want to go smaller, or stay the same because it was a largest orchestra, progress smaller, and being more of a jack of all trades, really get into the detail of what was going on in the day to day, I just really felt like I want to go smaller. I really like Like I said before, learning a lot of things and just figuring out how things work. And so that was that was an appeal and I’d done I’d done that sort of specialized, large organization type of thing, right?

Matthew Dols 9:23
Where you’re just on a subcommittee of a subcommittee that just does one single part of the entire exactly it all kind of thing.

Jeff Thomas 9:31
Exactly. Or you’re a director that so has all the people under you or are doing it doing the work and you’re just sort of managing and doing digital work and and stuff

Matthew Dols 9:46
Those are my my father’s a priest Reverend. I don’t know what the right term is. I’m so bad with that. But he and I remember being a kid and they would have their love what they call vestry meetings which is basically the the board of Directors basically of that church. And they would get such heated arguments over the stupidest things like I remember, one argument that went on, it went on for multiple meetings, like I think it was like, whether to put like, asphalt or concrete down for like, some paved area, and they were just like, at each other’s throats over whether which one nm? I mean, the passion is great. That’s lovely. But like, yeah, there’s a line where like, you do have to sort of just say, it’s just asphalt, like, come on.

Jeff Thomas 10:39
yeah, I mean, that crops up in, in a lot of places. But I think it’s especially fertile ground for that to arise in those settings, because, I mean, you have people who were who’ve, who kind of their careers were all in in nonprofits, or they were artists, who wanted to do something that was a little steadier work, or enjoyed at present for some reason. So they wouldn’t have that kind of more formal corporate experience.

Matthew Dols 11:12
I ran the nonprofit, I told you this before we recorded but I’ll say it for the listeners. Like I ran a nonprofit, and I did a piss poor job at it, it was absolute horror, I went in with all the passion in the world, but with zero concept of what running a nonprofit actually means. Because only like it took me 10 years to figure it out. And I literally like figured it out in the last six months before I finally just said, fuck it, I’m out. It’s all about finding like minded people. I mean, it’s a nonprofit is really about building a tribe of people that support and will promote at all and or invest, whether it’s time, money, resources, whatever, in the the idea and the motivation and the mission of that nonprofit. It’s not just have a thing, sell the thing, you know, like run a workshop, earn the money, you know, have a facility had people come in and use it. I mean, there’s so much more to a nonprofit than there is to a for profit business.

Jeff Thomas 12:19
Right? Yeah. And the board model, Board of Directors model for a nonprofit, you know, is nothing like a corporate board model. And to me, that was that was probably the biggest cultural, organizational cultural element. That was just so foreign to me when I when I walked into a nonprofit was, was working with a board working with board members working on committees, understanding how committees work who, you know, how, you know, because there’s so things are so different from nonprofit to nonprofit as well. I mean, there’s a loose structure of things, but depending on the size and type of organization, the committee structure is very different. Of course, changing one board member changes the culture of a board. So that to have something that is so changeable, and it kind of is probably the biggest presence, and certainly executive directors life is that the board relationship and you know, it’s in a lot of ways. Currently, I have just pretty much always at the center of had a fantastic board. But it can be horrible. It can really be horrible. And one person can just sort of take over everything. And yeah, the horror stories I’ve, I’ve heard so. Yeah, that was that was really the biggest thing. And of course, dealing with donors, and fundraising. Initially, when I decided to start to try working for non nonprofits. I said, I don’t want to do finance, because I get that and it’s too reminiscent of what I what I was doing. And I couldn’t imagine doing marketing. Because I’m just not the type of person that Well, I mean, those are the three those you either you’re either doing finance, some sort of marketing, communications, or fundraising for the program, the actual program work. So I said, Well, I can’t hurt to learn fundraising. So that’s what I that’s what I did. And yeah, that was that was that was eye opening.

Matthew Dols 14:40
That’s really I mean, that’s schmoozing is really all that is like easy. It’s like because when even when I ran my nonprofit Well, I mean, I can go back to I remember my dad, basically trying to schmooze sounds really bad, like that, but like schmooze people to basically give money to the church, but in the same way, I tend to try and smooth people to get Money. I mean, the hardest part is like you can work and work and work and work. And you can be best friends with these people, you could hang out with them all the time, you could do everything. And in the end, it’s it’s up until that last minute when they actually write the check, like, and until that, like, it’s really hard. It’s very emotionally draining because like, you’re so scared the whole time that like, you might say one thing wrong, and all of a sudden, they’re like, Nope, not giving you money anymore.

Jeff Thomas 15:27
You’re like, what

Matthew Dols 15:28
did I say wrong? I don’t even know what I said wrong.

Jeff Thomas 15:32
Yeah, I’ll say that. The donors in the book artworld are, are very different than the donors I experienced in the orchestra world, which were very more old school is the right word. But philanthropy, people did it because it was this a bit of a status thing and hadn’t many more expectations. Whereas on the book, art side, you know, I feel like people just love this whole book arts thing, they really want to support it, you know, they love the organization, and are willing to give, so that’s made. I think that’s made the process a lot easier for me, of course, it’s pretty rare that someone actually loves asking for money. I think what is most people are pretty scared of it. And executive directors, development directors, board members, when it comes down to it, you know, it’s it’s uncomfortable. And I think it’s taken me time to change my thinking about it, and realizing what it is, is really relationship building. And knowing what it is that the donors are interested. Yeah. So I think shifting from focusing on these one on one relationships, whether or not you’re going to be asking them for money for a specific thing is more doable, more manageable, seems easier than having to like, sit down and ask for money. Because once you’ve done that, it’s a little easier to say, Hey, you know, Mike, for working on this project, is that something you’d be interested in is a lot easier to do that, then something that feels more like a cold call. But you know, I’m also this organization is very different than a larger organization. So that doesn’t speak to what development is everywhere.

Matthew Dols 17:44
One of the things that I’ve noticed about nonprofit industries, sort of even NGOs in Europe and other places, it’s insanely easy. Okay, I shouldn’t say easy, but it’s relatively easy to find money for programs, events, special things, all this good stuff. But it’s very difficult to find funding for operating costs. Like just that. That’s everybody. Everybody loves to you know, grants are great with programs and events and things like that, but they grants will not give money to operating costs. And same thing, even with donors and stuff like this. It’s very hard to find people that will basically just support keeping the doors open.

Jeff Thomas 18:29
Yep. I think that i think that’s true, I think, during the pandemic, there has been a push, I started an executive directors group of small to medium sized arts, nonprofits, and mostly in San Francisco. And once the pandemic hit, we were, we went from being like, there was like, 18 people in the group to now they’re 38. And we meet, we were meeting weekly, but now we’re meeting every other week. So I was more tapped into the general visual art scene in San Francisco in the Bay Area. And certainly the funding related related to that, and there’s very little general operating funding available except for Grants for the Arts, which is city and county support from their hotel tax fund. So there was this push, people felt like there’s this moment of saying, look, foundations are making it so onerous to apply for and use, funding and really controlling how organizations are using their funding versus trusting the organizations to use it wisely. And use it in the way that they need and not have the process of applying for funding. Be basically many plays at least a halftime job. So, yeah, it’s, you know, I think that there has been more of a shift, more of a general shift in that to provide general operating funding. But, you know, I wonder how long it’ll last? And we’ll, we’ll see. I mean, I haven’t. We don’t get a lot of foundation funding. So I don’t have that much experience in that, but we’ll see if it stays that way, or continues to head in that direction.

Matthew Dols 20:34
Okay, well, we jumped ahead a whole bunch of things. Let’s go back a step. For the listeners who may not know anything about the Center for the Book. Could you give like a little overview of what you all are?

Jeff Thomas 20:45
Yeah, the center was founded by Mary Austin and Kathleen birch back in 1996. And it really started, they were both had been printers and worked in the book arts and printing in various forms before that. And they were both very interested in artists, books, contemporary, contemporary artists who were using the book form as their, their medium. And there were a lot of organizations that supported book art, and artists books, but there was very little in the way of brick and mortar spaces that was showing this work. So it started really as a gallery or exhibition space to show this work. And we’re going to talk about artists books later, or whenever, because it’s a it’s a bit of a complicated topic. But that was their goal was to show this to show and they had to be contemporary artists, living artists who were producing new work, and getting this medium in front of people. So that’s how it started. Eventually, they had sort of developed the idea of starting to offer classes as a way to fund the exhibition program. And then the workshop program became really kind of its own sort of successful thing. So they kind of grew up along next to each other. We’ve been in three locations in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco, on the same block, which has been very easy ish for for moving except for all the presses that we have. I mean, we do right now, our schedule is three to four major exhibitions a year, when we were doing in person classes we were doing between 350 classes a year to a couple of 1000 students in letterpress printing bookbinding, some paper making some calligraphy, we have quite an array of presses in our print studio. And so some of it is we train people on those presses so that they can then come in and use them for their own work. We have a fairly substantial binary and exhibition space. And then also in pretty active, just general events schedule where we’re talking about artists having artists come in and having celebrating exhibitions. And we have a big street festival every year called roadworks, where we have a antique steamroller brought down from Willits in Northern California and print three foot by three foot linoleum blocks on the street with a bunch of vendors every year. And that’s some of some people really just know us for roadworks, we’ll be celebrating our 15th year of that. So yeah, I mean, it’s a pretty substant these are substantial programs, we’re celebrating our 25th year we were started, we opened on a blue moon, July 30, and 1996. And so we’ll be having a celebration of one of a number of celebrations at the end of July. But that’s kind of a rough overview of the programming and

Matthew Dols 23:57
but you also have imprint publications.

Jeff Thomas 24:00
Yeah, that has, it’s very we have a larger artists in residence program in the arts, late arts, that the goal was to bring in contemporary artists who had not worked in the book form to come up with a concept of an artist book. And then with a team of volunteers produced that book, and we had some beautiful work came out of that fact you can see some of it’s still and it was an addition. So actually confusing. I can certainly remember what the additions they may have varied from piece to piece but so those were really fine works of art and they were priced as such. So you know the range from 500 up to $2,000 per book. We then we had a had a parallel program called small plates, also kind of an artist in residence program. Where we would invite artists to submit ideas for books that were four inches by four inches and had to be. That was the one requirement and we were going to sell them for $44. And it had to be an addition of 100. We had funding, so we would pay the artists to offset their materials costs. And then they would be able to keep up a portion of the addition. And we would keep the rest. And this sort of fits into one of our missions, which is to try to support production of new work, but also support artists and craftspeople who are working in book art. So the small blade still continues, we’ve been doing roughly three editions a year. And it’s everything from a very, almost fine press the little bookbinding book to sort of like an origami Chinese sewing box sent down from aliens filled with things that they picked up on a visit to Earth, you know, tucked in little origami enclosures inside. It’s been a fun way to engage with artists and have them working in our space and creating the work. I’m now interested to go back to the thing we pinned, which is the definition of an artist’s book. Oh, yeah. Well, let me tell you, they’re extraordinary. The difficult thing people who’ve never experienced artists books, is that there’s a lot in the way of being able to really comprehend what it what it is, I think people think of a couple things. They think of altered books, where you’re taking an existing book, and cutting it up or making it into something up carving yet, creating some sort of structure out of it. I mean, that’s its own thing, and certainly part of the book arts world. But that’s an artist’s book is something different. And I’m gonna do a little disclaimer here. Because it is somewhat complicated. there is disagreement on the scene in terms of language definitions, and actual words and apostrophe usage. When it comes to artists books, that I’m not an expert. And I have been immersed in this for about eight years, I’ve learned a lot and I really believe in it, admire in it admire at all, but I apologize in advance to all the scholars out there. But I will say, so there, there are different streams of things. There’s there’s altered books, there’s fine press books, where the you are creating an edition of some sort some text, that’s largely, the focus is on the fine printing and the fine binding of the of the piece. Artists books are more along the lines of there being some sort of unique artistic content that also uses the elements of the book to convey that artistic message. So it uses not only the text, but the type, possibly the ink, that paper that’s used, the structure that’s used, they may have, and they may be using different levels of doing things by hand, from everything down to actually making the ink themselves. But really, the book structure itself is part of the artistic message. And it can range from an addition to one of a kind book, something that has a more sort of what what would be more viewed as a trade edition version of the book that’s less expensive and less elaborate. And a deluxe version of the book that is, you know, just in 17 extraordinary boxes with, you know, covered in gold, but the gold mean something within the context of the message of the book. So, yeah, I think it’s, I think until you actually see them, and experience, the variety and how artists have used all of the elements. It’s strangely hard to understand what it is and I think that’s a hindrance unfortunately for artists books, because people and the reason that Marian Kathleen started the center to get these books in front of people and for them to be able to touch them because in large part it’s a it’s a tactile experience as well. Unlike 2d, visual arts. Mostly you’re meant To ideally meant to hold them, you know, there’s the white glove crowd who insists that with these fine books that you need to be, have your white gloves on before you touch them. And then there’s the non White Glove crowd that who think, you know, this is a democratic thing, people should be able to have it in their hands not have anything between their senses and the feel of this book, because that’s part of what’s being part of the message that’s being conveyed.

Matthew Dols 30:29
I’m a white glove person or Yes, well, unless you own it, so that it pre purchasing it. white gloves, because it’s not it’s not mine. But if I if I own it, yeah, no need for the white gloves? That’s fine.

Jeff Thomas 30:46
Yeah, I mean, at the Center for the Book is more of a non White Glove type of organization. Not that’s not to say that we have we don’t have pieces in our exhibitions, or that we don’t have a place for the type of work that you would really want to have a low score. But I think the other thing is that certainly the the artists books that are being created, are created as legitimate works of art, and for the most part are being priced as such, maybe even still a little bit low for for what they are. But if you go to Codex, which is the big artists book, fair, international art book fair, that takes place every other year, up in point, Richmond, I mean, you’re looking at books that are in the 10s of 1000s of dollars per book. And they’re I mean, they’re just, you know, mind blowing, and in the artistry of it. So maybe you’d want to put your gloves on for that type of book. Well,

Matthew Dols 31:50
I mean, well see. Okay, I’ll caveat it to my issue with a white glove thing is I like if it’s extremely limited edition. So like, like, the one of the books I made was only like three, I made three. And that’s it. So like, I would expect people to use the white glove because there are only three, because if you screw up that one, that’s 1/3 of the entire production run. So like, you better wear white gloves for that unless you own it. But yeah, if it’s a large production thing, yeah, I mean, generally, like people would say, like, well, this one is meant for interacting. And then if you love it, you can buy this other one that has not been attracted with I totally understand that. And for that reason, like, you know, non white glove is perfectly legitimate when large print runs are in play.

Jeff Thomas 32:40
Yeah, that is interesting, reminds me of an idea that Mary Austin, one of our founders had, which was she really wanted to create an artist book library, where it was a totally non White Glove place. And we just put books in there, and people just can just go in and handle them. And she tells the story, I think it was someone it was in the Netherlands. Anyway, they put it out and they were worried about, you know, where people taking them or stealing them, because some of them were not cheap, cheap. And I said no, actually, we the collection increased because people sort of slipped in some, some of the pieces they had, or, or that they wanted to wanted people to experience so that the collection actually grew as opposed to getting depleted. So yeah, I think I think that there is this element. Again, it’s such a, it’s such a tactile experience, tactile element of the experience of the artists book. And I think, you know, when we have exhibitions, a lot of our stuff is in betweens, that have that are covered. And I mean, everybody gets it, like, you know, a lot of these books are unknown, there may be one of a kind, you know, and they take be worth quite a lot of money. But at the same time, it’s like this element of being removed from something that wasn’t necessarily meant to have that element of being removed. But Okay, wait, so

Matthew Dols 34:12
like, what’s the further again, for the sort of for the listeners to sort of get a keep get up to this speed if they don’t know much about artists books in general, like, like an artist’s monograph. So like, let’s say they, you know, they order a catalogue or anything like this, this sort of mass produced or like anything you generally seen in like a quote unquote, like a bookstore kind of thing is not an artist’s book. Correct. Okay, so that so an artist will be something very, very different from pretty much what you would see in your average bookstore. Yes, some different if you could explain some differentiation of like, what people see in bookstores versus the artists book.

Jeff Thomas 34:55
Yeah, that’s a good point. Actually, I didn’t I didn’t go into I mean, I would say that the bulk of it would be hand made, each one would be handmade. So they would be printed, likely printed on some sort of printing press that could be printed with with lead type, likely they were hand hand bound, each one hand bound, or constructed and, and the binding could be of very different types of binding. So they could be, I mean, the variety is just just endless from those that you know, where you’re sewing and gluing versus, you know, non adhesive types of bindings. Some of them may make the paper themselves, depending on their capabilities. So I think it’s the it’s really the hand craft element to it. I think that that is a differentiation that would separate it from what you would find in a bookstore. There are also a number of what are called art book fairs. Printed matter in New York, there’s some fantastic fairs in New York, and LA and a new one different organization popped up here in San Francisco, but they’re more of the sort of graphic design than necessarily mass produced, but larger additions printed on professional

Matthew Dols 36:21
manufacturing press. Yeah.

Jeff Thomas 36:23
Yeah, often perfect bound, which is the glue binding versus a sewing binding. And, and then, of course, you’ve got the whole Xen scene, which is huge. And the other end of the the other end of the spectrum, but those aren’t really artists books, because there’s, there’s ziens. And I don’t know, maybe don’t ask me to explain that difference.

Matthew Dols 36:45
I’ll try and throw out a difference on that, as in my experiences with ziens. I would put Xen as using non archival techniques on non archival papers, and non archival inks and all these kinds of, because it’s about sort of the speed and the fun and the unknown, kind of like randomness of things. versus when I think of an artist’s book, I think very archival materials, archival processes and very methodical and intentional kinds of practices. So decisions are sort of more fun. And and I hate to say but sort of, like lowbrow, and I mean, that in the nicest of ways, because like, I love a good theme. In the same way. I love a good artists book. But it’s it’s it’s practices, specifically, I would say, archival practices are very dramatically different.

Jeff Thomas 37:40
Yeah, I mean, I think I think it’s the it’s the ease of production, ease of replication in in Xen. I mean, the point is to get, you know, to get to get whatever it is out there in multiple copies and the easiest way, but also, there’s something that is very creative, and artistic. I mean, I would on the archival issue, I would add the element of for artists books, that it isn’t just that, like the fine element certainly is a big portion of this. But I think that there’s a lot of people who do artists, books that are more along the lines of less archival and more something that is really sort of, you get into using the word crafty, and it’s not it’s not that but it’s less precious, and more of a moment. And that like can should be touched and should fall apart and should get, you know, it should get smudged, and you maybe is less, less refined, but is elaborate in the way that an artist’s book is elaborating and a message of the artists intention. So I mean, I think of people who doing collage on sort of rougher paper, and it’s sort of like, you know, maybe a more accrued or binding but that’s really what the book is. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t just limit it to buying archival materials.

Matthew Dols 39:06
It’s okay, the podcast is called the wise fool, I’m wrong.

Jeff Thomas 39:10
No, no, no, I’m just just filling it out.

Matthew Dols 39:15
perfectly fine. Okay, now I have experiences, I actually did my master’s thesis at the Center for the Book, I created a small run book there through when I graduated from San Francisco Art Institute. I absolutely loved the place. So one thing that I remember about you all and of course, obviously, things have changed in 20 years that you had wood type, lead type and the ability at that time to do polymer plates for strength types. What

Jeff Thomas 39:46
Yeah, polymer plates was what I was trying to come up with earlier and yeah, so yes, polymer plates Great. Okay.

Matthew Dols 39:55
A I guess the question be, are there even newer technologies I mean, are people like three Printing their type and this kind of stuff? Or is it? Are people going back to lead type wood type? Like? Yeah, I guess I’m sort of asking like what’s popular right now? Are there some newer technologies or people going back to even older technologies, you know, that’s,

Jeff Thomas 40:16
again, there’s so many different currents running through all of this, because there are so many different, so many different things going on, I would. So I would say in general, when we train people on presses, we teach them, but you have to love that. Because it’s not it’s it’s next level time consuming, put a pin in that will come back to that. Yeah, which could be exactly what you want. Most people really find that they want one, I have a little more flexibility in what they can do. And to just want to not spend the time setting type, the polymer plate is appealing because you get the letterpress printing experience. But basically, anything that you can you can do in InDesign, you can have made into a plate, and then you can put it on, put it on the press and print it. So that certainly with the wedding invitation crowd, and people who just want to do something that is that’s just really not too doable with type, although you can certainly push the boundaries of what type can do. If you want to see someone who does that look up Jessica spring up in Oregon. But I think people will mostly use polymer plates when they’re doing their printing. So that’s the most common as far as like, as new things. I mean, a newer thing that is certainly has always been big in the Xen scene is the risograph printer that, you know, that apparently used to be the big thing for churches printing out their programs, because it was cheap. And you could do a bunch of them a bunch of them fast. And that’s hugely popular. We have one that works. Okay. And that’s very, very popular, I think will probably continue to be popular. 3d printing? It’s a good question. There’s got it, I’m sure there’s someone there’s there are people out there using 3d printing in a way that is, I’ve seen it.

Matthew Dols 42:21
I’ve seen people do 3d printed type high, basically letters or characters even to not even necessarily letters, and then run it through the presses as long as it’s designed as type high. So they can mix and match it with woodblock LED tape, and their 3d printed stuff. So they could come up with some fantastic ideas.

Jeff Thomas 42:43
Yeah, hey, people do some different things. When we were offering a class for a little while where people printed with Lego blocks, we put the Lego blocks in your made them type pie. That’s one thing, we in terms of older methods, we now have a couple of hand presses. And our studio director Chad Johnson, those are sort of His love in terms of being able to do something that is, there are ways that you can print with a hand press. So as opposed to a vandercook cylinder press where you’re rolling, the way you’re pushing the paper, through the press along with the cylinder is a different way of coming out the paper. Whereas if you go for a hand press, it’s similar in design to what Gutenberg would have used, you would do one printing at a time. But because you’re coming straight down on something, you can do much more nuanced, finer types of printing. But again, it’s not quick production,

Matthew Dols 43:52
which leads to something else that like I would love for the listener to be able to understand I understand because I did it is the amount of time that it takes because like you talked about like lead type and how time consuming it is to set it up. I’ve never found the setup as such a bother. My problem was always putting it back. Like because anytime you set up lead type, every single letter that you put in there, if you’re in a good responsible shop, you then have to take the time to then put all those letters back in them in the correct case in the correct slot.

Jeff Thomas 44:28
That’s that’s the part that I was you know, cleaning up bothered that was so time consuming. But certainly the setting of the type making sure that the spacing and the look of it is correct and and what you want. And then yeah, that the pulling back. Yes. You’re not alone at because it’s not just it’s not just the type itself. It’s all the spacing that goes In between the in between the type. So we actually have volunteers who take pleasure in sorting spacing, and to some some degree type, but you get to the end of the day, and it’s like getting the type cleaned. Put back in this place is, is an effort.

Matthew Dols 45:20
Okay, but so for people who have never done this before, so like give them like a sense of on average, let’s say, a single sheet of typed paper, I mean, polymer plates, of course very fast, because you can just set up an entire sheet and run it really fast. But like, if you’re gonna do it with lead type, how long would it take to set up print and then clean up? Just one piece of paper?

Jeff Thomas 45:47
I wish I could do a phone a friend right now. Because my studio director would know this. And I like really have no, because I was one of those people that was set my type and my printing class and was like, Okay, I’m off to Polymer. So, I would guess, that if you were setting a full page of type, standard, sort of, like, I would say, you were doing a broadside, which is a smaller poster of a bigger type. I know, probably, it’s going to take you in the, in the hours to Yeah, do to do.

Matthew Dols 46:24
Oh, I was expecting more than that. I mean, depending of course, on how intricate it is and how much text it is. But like, it’s a lot, it’s a very time consuming process. And then, of course, people had Center for the Book, it’s they’re not doing single pages, generally, they’re doing books. So like they have to do dozens of pages.

Jeff Thomas 46:43
You know, it’s pretty rare these days, that someone is doing a book there. If they’re doing something of any length, they’re, they’re doing it with polymer plates. So we’ve been making an effort to do something that is more along the lines of, of a book, we had donors donate money to purchase fresh type from mnh type lemonade foundry here in San Francisco, we have a whole set of new type. And we’re trying to come up with some small book that we can print and produce, maybe a short, like a short short story on something that is not copyrighted. So that is a program that’s, that’s in development. But that is a that’s a real time commitment.

Matthew Dols 47:35
It really is. I mean, it’s not just a time commitment, but it’s also a financial commitment. Because you’re, you’re having to, as the artist who’s producing something, you’re gonna have to, you know, if you want to make an addition of, let’s say, 25, realistically, you’re going to have to buy a minimum of probably 35 sheets of whatever paper you want to use, because they’re going to be mistakes, you’re going to get off alignments, you’re going to get bad pressure, whatever, like, are you poor inking all kinds of stuff, so that, you know, when you are like, I remember because I did this, where I said, Oh, okay, I need to make 10 prints of this. And so I bought 10 sheets of paper, and I’m why I did that, I don’t know, other than that I was a student and I was poor. But that was just ludicrous. Like, the possibility of getting 100% perfect production on every single one is just crazy. So there’s, there’s excess, there’s waste, there’s lots of money that you have to put into the just the materials of the whole thing of creating it, with the hope of it working out beautifully, then potentially you could exhibit it or sell it and what and somehow recoup your money and it’s it’s a huge investment of time and money to go through this process. It’s

Jeff Thomas 48:45
Yeah, it’s, you sort of wonder why anyone would do it. But if you want to see a real really good story of someone who did that, there’s just a documentary that came out called the bookmakers and it follows marks ruggiano it’s 30 pianists in that process and you everything from he is casting his own type. And then you get to the point where you can print half the book and you have to melt the tape back down and re cast it to do the rest of the book. So the sort of message of that documentary is how you’re not doing this for the money.

Matthew Dols 49:24
I mean, I mean, everything I just talked about is not even including the artistic inspiration and then the the actual creation of the idea so whether it’s some images or whether it’s the writing the story, so that’s all stuff that artists do before they even come to your your location. You know the by the act of coming to you it’s like okay, I’ve got all the idea and the design done now I’m just going to produce the thing. So like there’s all this pre work is done before people even come to you.

Jeff Thomas 49:56
Yeah. Me the book, making process leading up to this where you know you have you have the bookmakers now who are really creating, doing everything themselves. I mean, it was a fairly specialized things. You had the casters and you had the typesetters. And then you had the sellers. You had the binders, you know, everybody had their own focused role to play. So,

Matthew Dols 50:26
indeed. All right, let’s start to whittle and this up here, so like something I’m asking people these days is actually do you have three artists or bookmakers or press people that you think are are inspiring or in desire more admiration,

Jeff Thomas 50:45
though, I had my answers until that last part, and I was like, Oh, shit, oh, you can change it three people you like that more. You want more people to pay attention to? One person that people should know is hitty Kyle, HEDI, KY le, she was a teacher at book arts teacher in Philadelphia. It’s retired now, but has still putting up books. And she’s famous for her non adhesive bindings, but her creativity is extraordinary. I think if you’re interested in really tapping into the really contemporary elements of what’s happening in the book art scene these days, Tia blason game is now down at Scripps college, Scripps press. And she is really a leader in terms of supporting the next generation of book artists. And her work itself is worthy, certainly inspirational and also worthy of people knowing about, I think in terms of someone who really started it all started the whole book arts artists book scene, Claire vanfleet. She lives up in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She was the pioneer in this. So I would encourage people to check her out and her her work. So that’s great.

Matthew Dols 52:17
And the last thing I generally ask is for any advice you can give to anyone. So whether it’s somebody who like yourself wanting to move into being a director of a nonprofit, or whether it’s advice for book artists, it’s up to you.

Jeff Thomas 52:32
Let’s be more to the nonprofit side of things. Because I think, as we were discussing before, that making that switch, if you’re coming from the for profit world and going into non nonprofits, you have no idea what you don’t know. And there’s a lot that you don’t know. But I would not. Well, I would not let that stop you. I didn’t know that until I was in it. And I was like, oh my god. This isn’t what I was. What is that? What is all this? I’d certainly I’m very happy that I did it. It’s just it’s it’s a really, it’s, it’s not the shift that you think it is. It’s much more a shift.

Matthew Dols 53:17
It’s huge. I started my nonprofit because I loved it was a community darkroom for photography analog darker. I did, because I loved the darkroom. And I wanted to teach it I want to do all that. However, but what I realized by the end of my tenure doing that is that I would be a great studio manager, or lead professor or like lead instructor or program director or those kinds of things, because that’s what I’m really good at. Like I can run a darkroom, I can teach how to use the darkroom fabulously. But to be a director of a nonprofit is a certain kind of person because of all the other things that they have to do that most people in the world just don’t even know that they do. Like the amount of the amount of the I keeps a schmoozing. But it’s networking, building networks, building a community, building a tribe, whatever word you want to put to it, the amount of that kind of stuff. And then the the trying to find good board members that will be helpful.

Jeff Thomas 54:27
That’s my advice actually, is if you’re looking to make that transition or thinking about it, or getting into nonprofits, serve on a board. Nonprofits need good board members. And that is an excellent way to give back to the organization really get to know how a nonprofit works. That is what I would advise. It’s a good way to start.

Matthew Dols 54:49
Yeah, if I had served on a board before being a director, I probably would have done a better job.

Jeff Thomas 54:55
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s great, actually, I mean, it’s you really you learn a lot lot. Yeah, it’s,

Matthew Dols 55:02
it’s a good way to go. All right, any last topic that you want to expand on or that we didn’t touch that you want to talk about?

Jeff Thomas 55:09
I think the one thing that I didn’t realize they didn’t go into about the the center, and its programs, who was the vendor fairs that we put on, didn’t really focus on that as part of what we do, because I mentioned that our mission is to, to support new work, and artists who are producing new work. And so these vendor fairs, we usually we do a holiday fair, our road, Rick street festival usually has around, you know, 30 to 40 vendors, we’ve been starting to do something that’s more of an artist’s Book Fair, every other year, that includes artists, books that are a little more affordable to encourage collectors, because that’s really what the artists book scene needs are new collectors. And there’s some great stuff out there. So you know, something, our first one that was, you know, under $1,000, or hopefully under $500, as a starting point. And so, you know, really offering opportunities for artists to sell their work. So I wouldn’t, I would just encourage people to look for those types of things and buy those works that you think are interesting.

Matthew Dols 56:24
Okay, you just touched on a topic. So let’s continue on the collectors. Yes. who collects artists books that I would imagine because like, if you’re going to have them in your home, and you can display it, it’s good, you’re generally gonna have to have a reasonably large home. So we’re talking about generally reasonably well to do people because it’s very difficult to present or show off these kinds of things. So like, and then do they like because I imagine you know, a lot of these collectors a lot of them are probably your, your patrons and your and your funders and things like this. So like, our what’s the, I guess this sort of like, what’s the demographic of people that collect artists books,

Jeff Thomas 57:07
as with the journal art scene, it ranges for from the type of work that we’re talking about. I mean, there’s, there’s definitely a scene for the lower priced artist book. And there’s definitely a mid range of artists book for people who really have become collectors who are not wealthy, who save up their money so that they can buy one of an edition of an artist that they are collecting. So

Matthew Dols 57:41
when you’re saying mid range, give me a price range on these,

Jeff Thomas 57:45
I would say that mid range is probably in the 500 to a couple $1,000 book. That’s mid range books for an artist book. Yeah, sure.

Matthew Dols 57:58
Okay.

Jeff Thomas 57:59
That was why our bookworks vendor fair was really we wanted artists to be, we wanted them to be up out of the Z range, which should, so we said, minimum 50 bucks, but hopefully 500 or under, in that range. But it’s really, you know, artists are putting this this amount of work into something, you’re really not gonna, I mean, 500 to $750 is really sort of a starting point.

Matthew Dols 58:31
I’m not actually questioning the quality of the price. I’m just sort of maybe surprised that I guess the last time I looked at artists books, they were more probably in like 250 was probably the highest price point I remember seeing. But that was 20 years ago,

Jeff Thomas 58:49
when I walk walk around Codex artists Book Fair. That’s 1000s it’s 1000s of dollars. The starting prices, there are certainly exceptions but by and large it’s it’s it’s a real investment. And yes, it trends toward wealthy, wealthy people who can afford to purchase those books. And there’s a select group of those and institutions. But what do people do with them so

Matthew Dols 59:15
that you know some of these collectors personally, so like, do they put them on display? Or are they just like on their bookshelf?

Jeff Thomas 59:21
You know, that that is one challenge of artists books is how to display them. What I’ve seen mostly is people will have them, usually, they would have, if they’re a big collector would have them in storage somewhere. And then they would either rotate, bring them out, to show off or to show to people or they would rotate their home displays, with obviously some some, some of them would be permanent. That’s what I’ve seen is that you kind of rotate things they also lend them out to organizations like Center for the Book for their exhibitions.

Matthew Dols 1:00:02
Why me? Because it’s kind of hard because it’s still a technically a work on paper. So it has to be kept rather in a fragile way, you know. So it’s not like marble sculpture that like literally you could just put out in the elements and it will be fine. I mean, this is these are very fragile, delicate things. Generally.

Jeff Thomas 1:00:27
I’m not enough of a knowledgeable about visual arts and also about about restoration. But they can be particularly sensitive to light

Matthew Dols 1:00:39
and humidity,

Jeff Thomas 1:00:41
humidity, yeah, we have that issue, especially if you’re, if it’s a binding, and you’re opening and closing it, and you know, you have humidity issues and cracks or, you know, you get some fading from sunlight. So, yeah, it’s a constant challenge. But yeah, I think that I think that for the most part, that’s one reason to keep a chunk of them away out of circulation in your home. For a while. I was, I was going to say that rare books collections at university libraries are major collectors of artists books. And in fact, if you go here, the Bancroft library over and Berkeley has an amazing collection, and you can go see see what they have there. And also like the San Francisco Public Library, you know, they’re all over, you can see some of some of the work that that artists have done.

Matthew Dols 1:01:37
And okay, are the that’s interesting question. So like, I’ll call those institutional places are these relationships that you build? Or do the individual artists build these relationships,

Jeff Thomas 1:01:49
were as an organization trying to build up those relationships. But for the most part, it’s either the direct relationship with the artist, or it’s through something like the Codex fair, we started to do exhibition, full exhibition catalogs back in, well, more regularly back in 2012, we’ve done them and this was before my time that we’d done them for other shows, but not as consistently, and with a consistent look. But the idea was that when we wanted to produce these catalogs, but also, and they’re on sale at our website, to really capture the work that’s out there, and that institutions have started to collect these catalogs as an archive of not so much the exhibition, but the work that’s out there, and that’s being produced. So that actually feels good that we’re kind of contributing to at least having some record of the of the work

Matthew Dols 1:02:52
Marvels. Yeah, all right. Yeah,

Jeff Thomas 1:02:55
it’s a great thing. I mean, I tell you that there’s probably no other scene that has so many different currents passing through it, and collaborating and artists working together to produce things. And

Matthew Dols 1:03:10
well, every artist no matter what medium they sort of, primarily work in, wants to produce a book, like we all do. So like the idea of making a, you know, handcrafted hand produced as kind of a version even so even if they make up mass produced version of a book to be able to make a unique sort of limited edition, hand crafted thing. That’s everybody’s dream, if we can afford to do it. Yeah, it’s mine.

Jeff Thomas 1:03:42
I think is what I think is a lot of people. Yeah. One last thing I wanted, wanted to say this, that I came in this jumps back to your very first question coming from coming from finance and entering the nonprofit world. I think in my my case, I didn’t come in as a book artist, and certainly for the makeup of the for the people involved at the center, it was really useful to have someone that really didn’t have any artistic skin in the game, so to use a sports reference, but really, I was able to kind of allow people to be creative and do what they wanted to do, and not get in the way of that and really work on running the organization. So you know that it’s different cultures at different organizations. And that doesn’t always, you know, that the best thing but I think just because you yourself are not an artist, but you’ve got the skills that would support an organization does not mean that you can’t come in and be successful running an arts organization.

Matthew Dols 1:04:49
fabulous way to end this. So thank you very much for your time.

Jeff Thomas 1:04:54
Yeah, thanks, man. It’s It’s fun.

Matthew Dols 1:05:00
I hope you enjoyed the conversation and learned as much as I did. If you’d like the podcast, we would appreciate a five star rating and a nice comment would be greatly appreciated. Please also tell your friends to listen and subscribe. You can subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If there’s someone that you admire or respect in the art world that you want to hear me have a conversation with, please send me a message through Instagram and I’ll do my best to get them as a guest. Additionally, if you have any specific questions for the guests, like you want to know how to write an artist statement, which of course I always want to know, or how to deal with creative block or if you want to learn how to get your work in the MoMA. Send me those questions and I’ll ask future guests on your behalf. In the near future. We’ll be starting a newsletter. So please be sure to sign up at our website wise fool pod.com. No matter what you’re doing right now, try to have fun

The Wise Fool is produced by Fifty14. I am your host Matthew Dols – http://www.matthewdols.com And the audio for this episode was edited by Jakub Černý. The Wise Fool is supported in part by an EEA grant from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway – https://eeagrants.org in an effort to work together for a green competitive and inclusive Europe. We would also like to thank our partners Hunt Kastner – http://huntkastner.com in Prague, Czech Republic and Kunstsentrene i Norge – https://www.kunstsentrene.no in Norway. Links to EEA grants and our partner organizations are available in the show notes or on our website https://wisefoolpod.com