Welcome to the 2009 Southeast Association for Book Arts Conference website.

We are very excited about the SABA Conference 2009: Intimate Curiosities. In addition to four days of a variety of workshops-- including, for the first time, a beginner’s workshop-- we offer several lectures by artists and scholars, a national juried exhibition and public reception, and our annual public book swap and sale, also open to the public.

THEME: Intimate Curiosities

‘Curiosity’ can be defined in many ways: 1) the desire to learn or know about anything; inquisitiveness; 2) a curious, rare, or novel thing; 3) a strange, curious, or interesting quality; and 4) (Archaic) carefulness; fastidiousness.

The word ‘intimate’ has many definitions. Some particularly appropriate to art, in general, and book arts, specifically, include: 1) (of an association, knowledge, understanding, etc.) arising from close personal connection or familiar experience; 2) detailed; deep; 3) showing a close union or combination of particles or elements; 4) of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the inmost or essential nature; intrinsic; and 5) of, pertaining to, or existing in the inmost depths of the mind.

In “The Masked Philosopher,” Michel Foucault writes about curiosity: “I like the word [curiosity]...it evokes the care one takes of what exists and what might exist; a sharpened sense of reality, but one that is never immobilized before it; a readiness to find what surrounds us strange and odd; a certain determination to throw off familiar ways of thought and to look at the same things in a different way...”

The 2009 SABA conference will engage in all these definitions of “intimate” and “curiosity” through hands on creation, expert instruction, enlightening scholarship, the viewing of beautiful and interesting objects, delicious food and good company! Come join us for a memorable gathering.