Dr Angie Butler

• Qualifications:PhD CFPR, UWE Bristol: Of ligament and ligature: A practice-led investigation of letterpress printed artists’ books in the UK | MA Multi-Disciplinary Printmaking, UWE Bristol | MA Visual Culture, Fine Art, Bath Spa University | BA Hons Fine Art (Painting), Winchester School of Art
• Position:Senior Research Fellow CFPR
• Department:Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries, and Education (ACE)
• Telephone:+441173281177
• Email:Angie.Butler@uwe.ac.uk

About me

Dr Angie Butler is a Senior Research Fellow based at the Centre for Print Research (CFPR) at UWE, working on projects within the research strand Visual Art, Print & Artists’ Books: Methods and Making. Angie gained her PhD (2019) for her project that investigated UK based practitioners’ approaches to studio/print shop practice: their relationships with presses, materials and equipment, knowledge of and respect for the letterpress process, to support the evolution of reflexive discourse within book and print practice. She has twenty years of academic work experience at UK universities and International art studios and centres. Angie utlises printing, stitch and the book as collaborative spaces, to connect people and language through shared haptic experience, embodied research and co-creating sensory approaches and methodologies of care to studio practice.

Angie is a PhD supervisor and an occasional tutor on the MA Fine Art Printmaking course at UWE teaching practical workshops, tutorials, lectures and symposiums on professional practice. She organises the readings programme and workshops for the biennial Bristol Artist's Book Event (BABE), and collaborates with UWE Bristol Materials Network on developing the exhibition programme for the Reel Cases at Bower Ashton Campus. Angie is an associate member of the Visual and Material Practices Research Group (VAMP), a long-standing member of artists’ books club at Bower Ashton and works with UWE Library staff on the CFPR  Print in Conversation series and the Library Artist-in-Residence Programme. Externally, Angie hosts the Readings Programe for the annual Small Publishers Fair, London and is a member of the organisational team for the biennial Stroud Wayzgoose Printers’ Fair event.

Area of expertise

Letterpress printing, artist publishing, artists' books, small press publishing, book-binding and stitch practices, material thinking, methodologies of care, methods and making, embodied research: phenomenological and haptic approaches to studio practice including longevity, mending and repair. 

Angie was co-investigator, on the Scandinavian Artists' Books Partnership Project, supported by Nordic Culture Point from 2020-2022, to facilitate knowledge exchange between librarians, artists and the public through seminars, making events, exhibitions and book fairs to extend the perception of artists’ books in the Nordic/Scandinavian regions. Angie continues to work with collaborators in facilitating the seminar event at Malmö Artists’ Books Biennial (MABB). Awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s ECR Award For the Dissecting Craft Making project 2021-2022, Angie teamed up with (previous CFPR RA) UWE Senior Lecturer: Crafts, Sofie Boons. Together, Angie and Sofie presented the project at the Biennial International Conference for the Craft Sciences, BICCS (Mariestad, Sweden), 2023 and their paper was published in FormAkademisk Design Educational Journal.

 Angie co-founded the Nordic Letterpress Network (NLN) to promote and preserve letterpress printing in the Nordic countries and evidence what role a heritage process and facilities can play in contemporary culture. Knowledge exchange events showcase how a hands-on craft has relevance and capacity within the Nordic regions. Angie and Imi from NLN recently visited Estonia (2024), to print at TYPA book and paper centre in Tartu , visit EKA, Tallinn and present their paper on connecting and developing print heritage at international conference Heritage in the Service of Resilient Communities in the Estonian Traditional Music Centre in Viljandi.  In 2025, students from UWE and EKA will collaborate on a print exchange project and hold an exhibition at TYPA. NLN plan to exhibit their work at IDDIS Norwegian Printing Museum, Stavanger and in Stockholm at Grafiska Sällskapet, the Swedish Printmakers Association Gallery.

Plans for 2025 include a forthcoming book chapter, new artist’s book collaboration, women artist-printers portfolio project, a third publication from the Printed Poetry Project (collaboration with poet/performer SJ Fowler, Writers Kingston and printer/publisher Pat Randle, Nomad Letterpress), an artist’s residency award and an international seminar and exhibition. Previous contributions to the discourse of print and book include: the Printed Poetry Project: symposium, publication, exhibition, launch events etc. book chapter, A Tangible Space: Letterpress Printing within Artists’ Books and Small Press Publishing Practice in Letterpress Printing: Past, Present, Future, Peter Lang (2023), Printmaking Today and Arts (open access journal from MDPI), her work also features in, For the Love of Letterpress, Bloomsbury (2019) and Type Tells Tales, Thames & Hudson, (2017).

Links to other websites:

Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7534-0750

Instagram: @angiebutler_abpress

Editorial advisor/advisory board/reviewer roles: Inscription: The Journal of Material Text–History, Practice, and Theory, Letterpress: Past, Present, Future: AHRC funded research Network, Readings programme: Small Publishers Fair, London, IMPACT Printmaking Journal.

Publications

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