Join us for a book signing and lecture by Penny Wolin celebrating her recently published monograph titled Guest Register which includes photographs she took in 1985 while a student in the Photography department at ArtCenter. Currently, Wolin teaches in the Graphic Design department at the College.

Event Schedule:
1–2:30 p.m. Presentation: Penny Wolin

Guest Panel Discussion: Greg Lindy (Type Designer), Matthew Specktor (Author) and Barry Munger (Photographer)

2:30–4 p.m. Book Signing and Outdoor Reception

RSVP by January 24, 2023.

This event is hosted in collaboration between ArtCenter Library and Graphic Design departments.

"It's about chasing dreams and the freedom to embrace one's true identity. And it's a testament to the enduring lure of Los Angeles for those seeking reinvention." – Deborah Vankin, Los Angeles Times

Listen to a recent NPR segment about Penny Wolin here. 

About Guest Register:
When Penny Wolin created Guest Register in 1975, she was twenty-one and a recent transplant to Hollywood from Cheyenne, Wyoming. You can see the residents of the St. Francis Hotel as people who could not fit in elsewhere, or you can see them, as Wolin does, as people whose dreams are bigger than their rooms. She moved into the 1920s hotel, a five-story pay-by-the-week building on Hollywood Boulevard and began photographing her neighbors. She could see at once it was a “milieu of dreamers,” both those who “had not yet realized their dreams” and those who “had left them behind.” Wolin suspended judgement. She was not categorizing the residents as she made her rounds, and her project was not intended to fix anything. This generosity of spirit is the defining quality of Guest Register. The book is arranged as a tour, one image per spread, with residents identified by their room number and an insightful caption. The tour begins on the ground floor in room 105, vacated by the death of a former stuntman, and rises to a barbell aficionado in the penthouse, before returning to earth by way of an artisan welder in the basement, who seems to have lit his cigarette with a flaming torch.

Guest Register is a both a culmination and a relaunch for an endeavor that is about the possibility of a second chance for all of us. This 14”x11” casebound book includes a foreword and afterword by the author and 51 photographs.

First edition: ISBN: 978-0-9676357-4-3
88 pages, 51 tritone plates
Size: 14 x 11 inches portrait
Language: English
First edition press run: 2000