Staff
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David Owens-Hill
Executive DirectorDavid Owens-Hill (he/him) is a nonprofit administrator with two decades of experience in management, marketing, fundraising, and personnel development. Having worked at some of San Francisco’s premier cultural and educational institutions (Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, San Francisco Symphony, California College of the Arts, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts) and at higher educational institutions across the country (Queens University, Charlotte, NC; New York School of Interior Design, New York, NY), he joined San Francisco Center for the Book in May of 2024. His diverse work in the nonprofit sector has helped him craft a vision of nonprofit management that prioritizes mission and vision while growing audiences and supporting staff; he sees excellence in nonprofit management as his contribution to the social good, and the way he can most meaningfully strengthen his communities. David holds a BFA in studio art with a concentration in graphic design from the University of North Carolina and a MA of Strategic Communication from Queens University. He also attended Teachers College at Columbia University. At SFCB, in addition to administrative and management functions, David takes an active role in fundraising, marketing, and human resources functions.
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Chad Johnson
Studio Director, Resident InstructorChad Johnson (he/him) is an artist, printer, bookbinder, and teacher who has been living in the Bay Area for the past two decades. After earning an MFA in Book Arts/Printmaking from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, he has worked in conservation labs, letterpress shops, and libraries. He has experience conserving historic books, analyzing collections of rare books, working with artists and authors, printing professionally on many different letterpress machines, and teaching and sharing his love of books and printing. As SFCB's Studio Director | Resident Instructor, he brings knowledge and experience fueled by passion and enthusiasm for the art and craft of making books by hand. From digital typesetting to steamroller printing to fixing presses to talking about letterpress history, Chad is always happy to help students and artists learn to express themselves through the powerful medium of the handmade book.
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Jennie Hinchcliff
Director, Exhibitions and Artist ProgramsAs Director of Exhibitions and Artist Programs at SFCB, Jennie (she/her) seeks to build connections between book artists and the larger arts community by focusing on exhibiting works that question, inspire, and challenge. She believes that now, more than ever, artists advocating for and expanding upon the book format provide powerful expressions of self, identity, and community.
From 2007 through 2015, Jennie was an adjunct instructor in the Fine Art department at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she taught bookbinding and artist book theory to undergraduate and graduate students. In 2015, she transferred to UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library to work in Public Services and Exhibitions, supporting Bancroft staff as both an exhibitions registrar and duplications assistant.
Hinchcliff has been involved in the artist book and correspondence art communities since 1996 as a creator, curator, and organizer. Her studio work can be seen in the collections of the Whitney Museum of Art's Special Collection, the Cooper-Hewitt National Museum of Design, New York’s Museum of Modern Art / Franklin Furnace / Artists' Books Collection, and Stadtbibliothek zu Berlin. Her writings have been published in Kolaj Magazine, the Artist Book Yearbook, BAR (Book Art Review), and the Blue Notebook Journal.
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Sarah Songer
Program and Studio ManagerNearsighted from childhood, Sarah (she/her) learned to read at a young age because she couldn’t see anything twelve inches past her nose. Her love of books continued even after she got her first pair of glasses, and she earned a BA in Comparative Literature from UCLA.
She is the daughter of a printer and a graphic artist; in rebellion, she became a bookbinder. She spent ten years at Arion Press and trained many apprentices in edition binding. She is a longtime student of design bookbinder Eleanore Ramsey and was the proprietor of Bay Area Book Repair for several years. Sarah enjoys sharing the many bookbinding tips and efficiencies she's learned over the years, and finds her own personal projects most satisfying if they make her laugh.
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Katie Smith
Operations ManagerKatie Smith (she/her) is a recent Bay Area transplant from Humboldt County, where she earned a BFA in Studio Art and Art History, and stayed for over a decade to sell every manner of books. Her bookselling career began in academic texts and evolved towards the rare and antiquarian. She is excited to join San Francisco's community of bibliophiles and represent talented book artists in the SFCB retail space.
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Alisa Nascimento
Studio CoordinatorAlisa Nascimento is a printmaker by study, but an explorer of various media by choice. She has pursued many avenues of art to satisfy her creative itch since she could hold a pencil. Alisa received her BA in printmaking from the University of Dallas, where she was first introduced to bookbinding by a friend. Intrigued, she asked her printmaking professor for a class on bookbinding, to which he responded by handing her a book on how to make books. Many online tutorials and mini journals later, Alisa emerged with the realization that she’d never receive instant gratification as an artist and that was okay.
Her introduction to the world of letterpress printing was beholden to the pandemic of 2020, when her college sent her home and she stumbled upon SFCB’s From the Bench, which led to an internship with letterpress artist Li Jiang in Berkeley. Fascinated with traditional/analog craft, Alisa has since been excited to enter the world of book arts and printing.