Tia Blassingame Explained

Tia Blassingame
Birth Date:	1971
Birth Place:	New Haven, CT
Known For:	Artists' books, printmaking
Notable Works:	Mourning / Warning (2015); I AM (2018)
Father:	John W. Blassingame
Mother:	Teasie (Jackson) Blassingame

Tia Blassingame (born 1971, New Haven, CT), assistant professor of art at Scripps College, is an American book artist and publisher.^[1]

Biography

Blassingame holds a B.A. in Architecture from Princeton University, a M.A. in Book Arts and printmaking from the Corcoran College of Art & Design, and an M.F.A. in Printmaking from the Rhode Island School of Design.^{[2] [3] [4]} She was Artist-in-Residence at the International Print Center (2019), Yaddo (2011), MacDowell (2010) and the Santa Fe Art Institute (2010).

Blassingame is Assistant Professor of Art and Director of Scripps College Press at Scripps College, Claremont, CA. Her work has been collected by private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, The Tate in Britain, the National Museum of Women in the Arts and Yale University. Her work has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail.^[5]

In 2019, Blassingame was a contributing writer in Freedom of the Presses: Artist Books in the Twenty-first Century. She also founded the Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color collective in the same year.^[6] She has been owner and proprietor at Primrose Press, since 2009.^[7] She serves on the Board of Directors for the College Book Art Association and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the American Printing History Association.^[8]

Art and exhibitions

Artistic style

Blassingame's work in mixed-media, bookmaking, printmaking, and flag-making employs elements of Concrete poetry and uses books and physical artifacts to provide the viewer with a tactile interaction with the conversation around racism in the United States.^[9] Blassingame has also been active in scholarly understanding and symposia exploring the history and production of Black books and bibliographia.^[10]

Selected exhibitions

Blassingame has exhibited throughout the U.S., including:

• 2014 "The Exact Measure of Cruelty: Slavery and Racism in Artists’ Books", Milner Library, Illinois State University
• 2018 Mourning/Warning, Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College. In this exhibition, Blassingame provides a look into her experience as an African-American woman.
• 2018 Text & Textile, Art and Architecture Library at Yale University
• 2019 Playing with Words at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA)
• 2019 I Am Mourning/Warning, Morey Family Gallery at Art Reach of Mid-Michigan ^[11]
• 2019 Umbra: New Prints for a Dark Age at International Print Center
• 2020 I AM/YOU ARE, Berea College.^[12] In her art book, Blassingame comments on her experience as an African-American woman through the medium of printmaking. She also offers insight into experiences of police brutality, violence and humiliation through the lens of being African-American.
• 2020 Intersections: Book Arts as Conversion at Tulane University

Further reading

• Freedom of the Presses: artists' books in the twenty-first century. Marshall Weber, ed. Brooklyn, NY: Booklyn Artist Alliance, [2018]. ISBN 978069216678

External links

• • "Tia Blassingame: Despite Hostile Terrain." Rare Book School lecture, 10 June 2019.

Notes and References

1. Web site: Academic Experience Faculty Profile . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20160818232752/https://www.scrippscollege.edu/academics/faculty/profile/tia-blassingame . 2016-08-18 . 2020-08-11 . www.scrippscollege.edu.
2. Web site: 2018-06-23. Tia Blassingame. 2020-08-11. Essential Knowledge: The Book. en-US.
3. Web site: Tia Blassingame is using her craft to investigate racism in America. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20191015052001/http://www.designindaba.com/articles/creative-work/tia-blassingame-using-her-craft-investigate-racism-america. 2019-10-15. 2020-08-11. Design Indaba. en.
4. Web site: 2019-04-25. Cooley Gallery. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200627053820/https://www.wilson.edu/cooley-gallery. 2020-06-27. 2020-08-11. Wilson College. en.
5. Web site: Blassingame. Tia. 2002-03-01. The Race of Architecture. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20200731190414/https://brooklynrail.org/2002/03/books/the-race-of-architecture. 2020-07-31. 2020-08-11. The Brooklyn Rail. en-US.
6. Web site: Collective. 2021-01-15. Primrose Press. en-US.
7. Web site: Profile – Tia Blassingame . 2020-08-11 . Ladies of Letterpress . en-US.
8. Web site: College Book Art Association - Board of Directors 2013-2018. 2020-08-17. www.collegebookart.org.
9. Web site: Saubestre. Elizabeth. "Mourning/Warning" art exhibit explores being black in America. 2021-03-06. The Channels.
10. Web site: The history of black books UDaily. 2021-03-06. www.udel.edu. en.
11. Web site: Mourning/Warning: Tia Blassingame . 2020-08-11 . Atkinson Gallery at SBCC . en.
12. Web site: Tia Blassingame's I AM J. Willard Marriott Library Blog . 14 November 2019 . live . https://web.archive.org/web/20191202034937/https://newsletter.lib.utah.edu/tia-blassingames-i-am/ . 2019-12-02 . 2020-08-11 . en-US.