Bringing letterpress to Miami
I am delighted to be a recepient of the 2025 MIA Grant from Miami Dade County Cultural Affairs. The grant is an unrestricted award that allows artists to work on long term projects. It is important to me to continue observing and documenting the city I live in, as well as the people I have taught and learned from in twenty five years of MDCPS Title I Public Schools.
It is my great honor to preview my first Art in Public Places installation. Five of my prints are at the Miami-Dade County Civil & Probate Courthouse in Downtown Miami. This artwork is part of the collection of Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places program, made possible with the support of the Art in Public Places Trust, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioner.
Thanks to @artinpublicplacesmdc, @miamidadearts and @bakehouseartcomplex @amandacarriesanfilippo and the entire Art in Public Places team.
Tom Virgin, A penny for your thoughts #1, 2025. Letterpress print, Miami-Dade County Civil & Probate Courthouse. Image (Francesco Casale), courtesy of Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, Art in Public Places Trust.
I am grateful for the finely crafted frames created by Nick Gilmore using reclaimed Dade County Pine, reflecting the history contained in these works. @gilmoreworks @frameonwheels
Read the full interview of Tom Virgin with Voyage MIA at https://voyagemia.com/interview/tom-virgin-on-life-lessons-legacy-highlight
We’re throwing a party to celebrate this double milestone with art, music, food, and dancing
Artists’ Proof | 40/100 features:
Friday, November 7, 2025 | 7–10 PM
Bakehouse Art Complex | 561 NW 32 ST, Miami
Tickets:
$40 in advance | $100 at the door
Dress in your birthday best and raise a glass to four decades of Bakehouse and a century of history
Come join in the festivities at the opening on Saturday, May 3rd from 6-9pm at MIFA (Miami International Fine Arts).
With Tropic Bound about to happen, Andres Viglucci writes about the University of Miami’s Special Collections Library, Exile Projects and Extra Virgin Press are integral to the boom in artists’ books.
Read the full article at https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article299061135.html
Check out the interview on YouTube by Milly Cardoso of Tom Virgin.
https://youtu.be/ANGmJ83ooYQ?si=CZkMJpOWL68O4V8v
Thank you for your generous gift to Extra Virgin Press during Give Miami Day. We are beyond grateful for the outpouring of support from donors, friends, and our letterpress loving family, near and far.
Thanks to you we raised $2,772 raised by 42 donors, letterpress lovers, and book arts affectionados!!
Our plan is to print more and make more books, the old fashioned way, in the new year. Thank you for helping us share more free books.
Meanwhile, look for Extra Virgin Press at Book Fair, our favorite gathering of the kindest, most polite and informed residents in our fair city. We’ll be at the Miami Book Fair all weekend, with a big surprise at the Gala tonight!
Visit when you can. Come say hi. We’d love to thank you in person. Call me a “Pollyanna” if you like (Google Disney, young’ns), but on this cool, cloudless, glorious Friday morning I am feeling major GiveMiami love is moving our city in the right direction.
With love and gratitude,
Tom
Miami Book Fair brings together writers, art, food, and books for everyone. If you are at Book Fair you will find the most articulate, engaged, and hospitable people in Miami. The photo documents one of the first Gala Honorees, Edwidge Danticat, receiving “The Road Less Traveled” designed and printed at Extra Virgin Press. Mitchell Kaplan and MDC President Madeline Pumariega were the presenters at Miami’s first Book Fair Gala.
https://www.givemiamiday.org/organization/Extravirginpressmiami
I love all libraries. Main Library in Miami is Downtown, large and also collects art as well as books. They regularly offer exhibitions, in the photo on the left are two curators of the Vasari Project that collect Miami artists’ work and histories. Luis Berthin and Zonia Zena combine collection materials with Vasari research to tell Miami’s history.
https://www.givemiamiday.org/organization/Extravirginpressmiami
