Book Arts Week: Home

Blake and Hannah March Sanders are artists and educators working collaboratively as Orange Barrel Industries, a creative and curatorial partnership that presents lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and demonstrations in printmaking, book arts, and fiber art installation. They taught “The Quilted Print” workshop at Frogman’s—the largest printmaking workshop in the country—the output of which led to three collaborative exhibitions around the country. A community-based protest flag workshop in their home of Cape Girardeau, MO likewise fueled a collaborative exhibition at Lawrence Print Week. For most participants it was their first time making a print, sewing, and their first exhibition experience. In 2022 they were awarded the Windgate Distinguished Fellowship for Innovation in Craft at the Hambidge Creative Arts & Sciences Residency. Blake’s exhibition Roundabout recently debuted at LHUCA in Lubbock, TX, and OBI’s show, On the Hook is currently on view at the University of Oklahoma. In the last year the duo has also had collaborative solo shows at the University of Iowa, University of Alabama Huntsville, and the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Macon, Georgia. In Fall 2024 Hannah also participated in a collaborative drawing exhibition at West Virginia University. They currently teach foundations and printmaking at Southeast Missouri State University, where Blake is an Instructor and Hannah is a Professor and Printmaking and Fibers Area Head. 

Any Questions? 

Feel free to contact the co-organizers below: 

Anna Mukamal, amukamal@coastal.edu

Loren Mixon, lmixon@coastal.edu

Meghan O'Connor, moconnor@coastal.edu

Artist's Statement

If one thinks of the Internet as a library, it’s clear its patrons have moved away from the page to embrace the scroll. Many people’s daily reading habits are now dominated by what rolls past them on social media. The toxic positivity, misinformation, and all around phony nature of platforms’ algorithms have led to anxiety and isolation that has impacted our relationship with truth and reality. Yet we keep returning to its embrace for crumbs of the social engagement we long for, and information we hope is current. Where is the distinction between fiction and nonfiction in our society today? What is the value of immediacy without the followup of deep reflection and conversation? The work in Not Left on Read removes the façade, embracing the cringe with earnestness and maybe a little over-sharing.  

Hannah offers her real-life, painfully honest artist book/sketchbook/journals and invites the viewer to peruse, delving into the gory and mundane details of days, weeks, and months through her writing and drawings--raw, intense, and exquisitely observed. She risks privacy by asking the audience to sign on to a social contract that allows them to appreciate the craft of an obsessive documentarian without making judgement on the wedge of this experience visible within the time frame of a typical viewing period. Each book is handmade, composed of repurposed fabric from our lives and print proofs and paper ephemera from her career. The results are vital artifacts of ecological accountability and aesthetic evolution. The volumes provide a rare glimpse into the inner sanctum of an artist’s mind, while leaving ample evidence that the life of a creative is mostly just like everyone else! 

Blake’s home books muse on the domestic and the impact “keeping up with the Joneses” has on family, neighborhood, and our collective environmental impact. The intimate scale of the books are in opposition with the McMansions many of them feature and critique. If Hannah’s sketchbooks are compendia, Blake’s Howdy Neighbor flags are closer to greeting cards. Like old school tweets, they’re limited in word count, but should pack a punch. The shortest of books, one reads the setup on the verso on the approach, then is sure to turn around to catch the pay off, or punchline, on the recto. At porch height the flags act as friendly billboards just above the good fences that make bad neighbors. They start a conversation and build community through ruffling pages of radical sincerity interleaved with a healthy dose of snark. Like a utopian social media platform the goal is to encourage a global neighborhood that looks out for each other while keeping a healthy distance. 

Most often when Blake and Hannah exhibit together it is as a collaborative duo, creating works both independently and together. This exhibition juxtaposes the drastically different ways they think about and execute their art in individual series. That the contrast can be illustrated through their shared love of books is a special reward. Viewers should find something in both their approaches and reflect on where they’re united and diverge. Whatever you do, please don’t leave their work left on read.