THE MOUNTAIN SCHOOL BOOKHOUSE,
a 10’ x 10’ quilted mountain tent with fabricated tree trunk legs, crocheted stump stools, plush logs, and a cardboard campfire, acts as a pop-up, intentional community space.
The Mountain School Bookhouse is a flexible framework that can act as a publications studio, library, classroom, performance space, social context, or a gallery. I have used the structure of the MSBH to teach workshops in screen-printing, book-binding, zine-making, newspaper publishing, and creative writing, to host social engagements such as clothing swaps, photo booths, dance parties, meals, speakers’ series, sing-alongs, and campfires, and to undertake collaborative residencies in which artist publications emerge. The MSBH purposefully blurs the lines between studio practice and pedagogy through relationships, experiment and performance.
The MSBH draws people into hands-on experiments with craft materials (yarn, fabric, mactac, paper), analog equipment (typewriters, rubber stamps, stencils) and general DIY badassery (zines, music, readings, underground newspapers) in order to produce artist-led publications, performances, prints, and writing.
Taking its cues from other politically focused relational artists such as Pablo Helguera and Sister Corita Kent, The Mountain School Bookhouse is a manifestation of my highest ideals—play, imagination, political agency, and poetic literacy. The MSBH has many sources of inspiration, but the name principally refers to both the legendary Black Mountain College (thumpa thumpa) and to the secret vigilante society in Twin Peaks, The Bookhouse Boys
