Sandy Tilcock

Born in Portland, Sandy Tilcock left for Nampa, Idaho, when she was six. "I was the first in my family to go to college," says Tilcock, who majored in math at the College of Idaho in Caldwell and returned to Oregon as a GTF at OSU. "After two years, I dropped out and started exploring art." She met and married Patrick Tilcock, and they moved to Eugene in 1973 for his studies at the UO School of Music. "Our intent was to stay three years," she notes. Tilcock started out in calligraphy and co-founded the Valley Calligraphers' Guild, but later focused on bookbinding and sold hand-bound books at the Fifth Street Market. She won a fellowship for book arts at the U of Alabama, where she learned letterpress printing. When she returned with an MFA in 1987, she acquired a small Vandercook Press and launched Lone Goose Press, working in collaboration with writers and artists to produce limited-edition broadsides and books. In 2006, LGP moved from a rented space in Whiteaker to a new studio in the Tilcocks' back yard. "It has allowed me to get involved in the neighborhood," says Tilcock, currently in her second year as chair of Laurel Hill Valley Citizens. An exhibit of her collaborations, titled It's Not About Me, is on view at the Jacobs Gallery at the Hult from March 30 through May 12.