Erin Sweeney: The Sweren Wogan Institute Book Arts Lecture

The Marcie Sweren Wogan Institute for the Study of the Book is funded through the generous support of Betty Applestein Sweren ’52, Dr. Edgar Sweren P ’74, and members of the Sweren family to honor their daughter, Marcie Sweren Wogan ’74. The institute supports interdisciplinary teaching and programming focused on the literary, visual, social, political, scientific, and cultural dimensions of the book and the fundamental role of the book in shaping the transmission and production of knowledge across time and world cultures.

This year's Sweren Logan Lecture will be delivereed by artist Erin Sweeney:

Erin Sweeney lives and works in southern New Hampshire. She received her MFA in Book Arts and Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where she was awarded the Elizabeth C. Roberts Prize for Graduate Book Arts.  She also has a BFA in Sculpture from the Maine College of Art in Portland, Maine.

Sweeney exhibits nationally, most recently at the Putnam Gallery at the Dublin School in Dublin, New Hampshire, Unrequited Leisure in Nashville, Tennessee, and the Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery at Keene State College, Keene, New Hampshire. In July of 2019, Sweeney was awarded a Ruth and James Ewing Award for Excellence in the Arts, and this year was honored to be a juror. Additionally, she is the 2021 recipient of the NH Arts Educators' Association's Outstanding Service Award.

​Sweeney is an educator, teaching book arts workshops at her Lovely in the Home Press. She also travels to teach workshops at many locales, including Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Monson Arts; Maine Media Workshop; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cló Ceardlann in Donegal, Ireland, and the Philadelphia Center for the Book. She is a member of the NH State Council on the Arts’ Artist Roster, and is very excited to be the new Art Education Coordinator and Studio Art Faculty at Plymouth State University.

She can also drive a backhoe, rake gravel for extended periods of time, and install septic pipe.

Community, Collaboration and Artist’s Books

Artist’s books can be a zine, a fine press collection of poetry, a giant accordion—anything, really. This conversation will explore the ways to create community through art and books—ways I have done it in the past and how we are all moving forward thinking about art in a pandemic and how to reach others in new and varying ways.