Novel Ideas Art Book Fair
August 2–3, 2024
Fair dates and times
Friday, August 2, 2024, 5pm-9pm
Saturday, August 3, 2024, 12pm-4pm
The Contemporary at Blue Star is pleased to announce the return of the Novel Ideas Art Book Fair. Established in 2020 Novel Ideas is aimed at highlighting and connecting the amazing artists in our region and beyond who utilize books and print based materials as their medium and share their work. Also included are publishers and presses producing artists’ books, monographs and related publications. Novel Ideas features artists’ books, monographs, zines, printed ephemera, and more.
The fair will happen in the Contemporary’s newly renovated Education Space, right next-door to our exhibition galleries. This event is free and open to the public!
Image Gallery
2024 Exhibitors
Protean Magazine is a non-profit leftist publication that produces an annual print magazine and publishes online content year-round. Each print edition contains approximately 100 full-color, ad-free pages, with vivid illustrations and writing that address the most pressing issues of our time. Our site showcases new pieces of freely available work—essays, fiction, and poetry—on a weekly basis. Protean’s mission is to promote high-quality criticism, journalism, literature, and art for the political left.
FLAT Files is the only photography magazine dedicated to showcasing the work of Southern photographers. With each issue, we hope to touch on important topics and help readers discover (and be inspired by) the incredible photographic work being done in our region.
Celeste De Luna of Metztli Press is an artist whose work focuses on themes of embodiment and identity through printmaking and mixed media. Her publications reflect a deep commitment to exploring borderland identities and the human experience. The independent press model serves as a platform for her creative endeavors and community engagement, often showcased in exhibitions, collaborations, and workshops.
Mark Menjívar is a San Antonio based artist and Associate Professor in the School of Art and Design at Texas State University. His art practice primarily consists of creating participatory projects while being rooted in photography, oral history, archives, and social action. His work is regularly collected as self published books and broad sides.
Siempre Verde: A Creative Ecosystem for Feeling & Healing (Bisnieta Press, 2022) is a perfect-bound collection of 40 works by 24 San Antonio artists commissioned by Bonnie Ilza Cisneros during the first two years of COVID-19. The catalogue Includes 10 artist interviews, new essays by Cisneros and Dr. Sylvia Mendoza, and cover art by Linda Monsivais Hernández. The project is partially funded by an Individual Artist Grant from the City of San Antonio Department of Arts & Culture.
Dinah Coakley is a artist based in San Antonio,Texas. Her main focus is printmaking and hand printed zine’s. Her art is based on domestic objects. Dinah’s prints and zines are about exploring the household, what we surround ourselves with and how these objects have a story.
Nicole Geary works with the concept of memory, tying the emotional realm to the scientific. Her work is predominantly in printmaking, using the repeatable form to mirror the ways in which the earth’s history reflects itself and its characteristics, like that of the human body, into layers and in fossils.
Bill Baird is a writer, musician, and composer who’s lived in San Antonio, Austin, Portland, and Oakland (where he studied book art at Mills College). He came up fully immersed in the DIY scene and has produced over 30 albums and many booklets/zines, for major record labels, magazines, and more. His recent publication is the first collection of his written work.
French & Michigan is an art book publisher, design studio, and fabrication workshop based in San Antonio, Texas. F&M’s publication program ranges between limited edition, hand-bound catalogues for emerging artists focused on an installation or series, to hardback monographs for established artists exploring years of work. In addition to traditional curatorial texts, publications often include conversations, experimental essays, or poetry alongside of or in response to an artist’s artwork.
The Contemporary at Blue Star’s MOSAIC Student Artist Program is open to high school students who are interested in developing their professional artistic skills and careers in the arts. The after-school program is a combination of studio practice and exposure to the business side of art and arts administration. Students will be debuting zines made during their summer session with Mandy Lynn, a visiting writer to the program.
Shadowbag Press is owned and operated by local San Antonio artist Charlie Morris. The artist primarily focuses on handmade in-studio small edition books, zines, archival prints, photo-collage, and drawing. Combining analog and digital, Morris creates layered meanings, multiple narratives, and radical juxtapositions in order to illustrate the experience of moving, exploring, and documenting actual lived experience.
Madison Cowles and Alán Serna, the artists behind Feral Editions, present a thought-provoking exploration of survivorship, gender identity, immigrant narratives, and displacement. With experience exhibiting both nationally and internationally, their work offers a meaningful perspective on these important themes. Self-published risograph zines, novellas, poetry, art books, exhibition catalogs, and stickers, each telling a unique story and reflecting the artists’ personal experiences, are available for purchase.
Aztlan Libre Press, based in Yanaguana/San Antonio, Texas, is a small, independent and award-winning publishing company owned and operated by Anisa Onofre and Juan Tejeda, that is dedicated to the publication, promotion and free expression of Indigenous/Xicanx literature and art. Established in 2010, they have published 15 books and 7 Xicanx Art Note Cards.
Candace Hicks is the creator of the ongoing series of hand-embroidered records of coincidence, Common Threads. New book release! Please Remember To Rewind Your Mind, an artist book disguised as a blockbuster rental.
Keri Miki-Lani Schroeder is a book artist and proprietor of Coyote Bones Press based in San Antonio. She holds an MFA in Book Art & Creative Writing from Mills College, and has worked at Flying Fish Press and BookLab II as an edition bookbinder. Schroeder creates limited-edition artist’s books and teaches book art workshops at institutions nationwide. Her work is held in many prominent collections including the Library of Congress, Harvard, Stanford, RISD, and Princeton University.
Award-winning visual artist and curator, Raul Rene Gonzalez showcases his vast scope of artwork through an assortment of prints, national publications, original artworks, and self-published catalogues. Raul’s artwork has been featured by New American Paintings, Southwest Contemporary, and Oxford American, amongst others.
I will be selling single issues of my comic book “Boney Toe”, along with Book One collecting all three issues, and three zines: “Lost Lip Balm”, “Slipper AKA”, and “Lupita’s List”. I will also have information about my curatorial collective, Too Rad Comics and our 2025 exhibit “Borders, Bleeds, Margins & Gutters” at Centro de Artes.
The Austin Book Arts Center is a non-profit 501(3)c book arts organization that offers classes and studio access for bookbinding, letterpress printing, paper marbling, etc.
TU Y YO offers art prints from the forthcoming LOTERIA REMEDIOS. Oracle card decks, art prints, and game tablas related to LOTERIA REMEDIOS, a curative card deck that offers reflections, divinations, plant and animal medicine, and other tools for self-healing associated with the iconic Mexican game (created by Xelena González, illustrated by Jose Sotelo Yamasaki, published by Hay House, 2024). Xelena’s award-winning picture books with San Antonio muralist Adriana M. Garcia will also be available: ALL AROUND US , WHERE WONDER GROWS, and REMEMBERING.
Analysa Castellano, owner of FLOWER Art & Design, is a San Antonio-based fine artist, caricaturist, and crafter. Her publications are primarily image-based, featuring silly illustrations of celebrity crushes and embarrassing childhood memories, while other zines include poems and short stories. Her wide range of topics allows readers of all backgrounds to relate to and enjoy her work.
Xicana Vegan zine contains recipes and thoughts for and by animal-loving and plant-eating folks. Printed in both English and Spanish, it works to embrace culture while practicing non-violence. Xicana Vegan Issues 1-4 feature recipes, artwork, reflections, and poetry based on concepts of health, the animals, the earth, and decolonizing diet.
Buró Buró was a Mexico City based publishing house and interdisciplinary office of strategies and projects whose work addressed contemporary problems from culture and art. They collaborated with communities for their own projects and for institutional, museum, and foundation clients. A selection of their archived projects are available for purchase.