“The flag book structure provides a great canvas to layer text and image, and a lot of opportunity for viewer involvement. They’re also fun to play with,” says Chicago binder, book and installation artist Karen Hanmer whose flag book “Bluestem” is featured in our banner this month. She talked with us about flag books, economics, and Audubon.
Q: When did you begin working as an artist? What drew you to working with paper and books?
“My early interest in photography began by playing with my father’s camera equipment. I loved taking the lenses and accessories on and off, and fitting everything into its appointed slot in his camera case.
“In high school I took a photography class and set up a darkroom in the basement. Ultimately I felt too removed from the processes that created the image. To become more physically involved I began coating odd papers with emulsion, using pinholes, photographing myself. In 1997 I had a project in mind that involved combining text and image onto hinged panels. I got a designer friend to show me the basics of PhotoShop, and found a bookbinder to teach me how to make the simple book-like structures.
“With this new work, I felt I had found my artistic voice. I believe that feeling physically can be a key to feeling emotionally, and these pieces were tactile not only for me while was I was working on them, but also for the viewer. I could combine a number of images into one piece, and add text. I was able to work with time, narrative and pacing. Now I can’t imagine going back to a static row of framed images fixed to a wall.”
Q: You have a degree in Economics from Northwestern. How does a mathematical degree shape your work and you as an artist?
“I began college as a journalism major. The program seemed to be designed to weed people out and I was frustrated at my mediocre performance in my writing classes. I switched to Economics, thinking I would go to business school, but it was all too much math for me. I never had a job directly using the economics degree, but I’ve come to really value my liberal arts education. I was exposed to many different disciplines, and learned to draw connections across disparate fields, locations, and time periods.
“For fourteen years I was an office manager for a small marketing research firm. I answered the phones, ordered supplies, did the bookkeeping, formatted the reports, a little of everything. An ability to be organized and attention to detail were very important, as was persistence in following up with clients, suppliers, and coworkers. These skills have been invaluable as I’m researching a new project, trying to put all my ideas into a coherent framework, and also on the business side as I try to get my work out into the world.”
Q: Your work often reflects cultural and scientific history. What about these subjects is particularly useful to you, and in what way do they appear in your work?
“I think it goes back the liberal arts education, which gave me the tools to be interested in a wide variety of disciplines, and taught me how to draw connections between disparate elements such as Edgar Allen Poe stories and current events, a book of 19th century architectural plans and the global financial crisis, or old engravings of astronomical instruments and the longing for connection with a lost love.”
Q: What inspires you?
“The Midwestern landscape, childhood memories, the Cold War, the look of Mad Men–I was born in 1961 but my family’s aesthetic was still the 1940s, Jackie, retablos, artifacts from the early days of computing, scientific notation and mathematical formulas–they make wonderful, mysterious patterns. The Age of Discovery, how American history shapes and mirrors current events, explorers and pioneers in any field, songs that I can’t get out of my head, the desire to understand and master the engineering aspects of the traditional book.”
Q: You have a collection of work called “flag books.” Could you describe for our readers what these are, how they’re made, and why you like creating them?
“The flag book structure was invented by Philadelphia conservator Hedi Kyle, who has engineered many innovative book structures.
“Small cards are attached to alternate sides of the folds of an accordion spine. The book can be read page by page like a traditional codex format book, or it can be pulled apart to reveal a wide, panoramic spread. Complementary or contrasting imagery can be printed on the inside and outside of the spine and covers. It also makes a great flapping sound when pulled open.
“The flag book structure provides a great canvas to layer text and image, and a lot of opportunity for viewer involvement. They’re also fun to play with.”
Finally, the following are a few questions we ask all of our interviewees:
Q: What is your all-time favorite book?
“I do not have one favorite, but I read nonfiction almost exclusively. I favor work by journalists that mixes history, current events, pop culture and sometimes just a little bit about the author’s experience to help me connect with why he/she is interested in the subject. Tony Horwitz is a favorite. I’ve been reading a lot about the Cold War for the past few years, hoping to put some ideas together for new work.
“Unless you mean the book as an object. In that context, I’m pretty fascinated by Audubon’s Birds of America. I’ve read several books documenting his process in tackling the many issues that are still challenges for the book artist today: funding the project; doing the research; making choices about edition size, materials and physical size of the object; weighing many factors including aesthetics, cost of materials and logistics of creating the work. What aspects of the project to outsource and what to do yourself; what happens with your relationships with family and friends when all your time, money and energy go into your project and there is little left for them; then all the marketing issues of getting the work out into the world. Not to mention the book itself: the monumental size and beautiful and sometimes quirky prints.”
Q: What was the last book that you read?
“I just finished two, one for pleasure and one for research. Atlantic by Simon Winchester and Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 by Megan Prelinger.”
Q: What one word do you love?
“‘Monumental’–it comes with built-in irony.”
Q: What one word do you despise?
“‘Craft’ when it is used to be dismissive of work. I avoid discussions about art vs. craft.”
Q: Often, when crafting a piece of work, artists and writers strive to please or impress a very specific one-person audience, be it their mother, their spouse, or a high school teacher. Who were you thinking of in this way when you were working on “Bluestem”, which is the flag book featured in our banner this month?
“I’ve made several pieces referencing farming and the prairie. They have been a way to connect with my mother and her large immigrant farming family in southern Minnesota. ‘Bluestem’ is part of that series.”
