Karen Hackenberg WATERSHED

A handmade Book

“Watershed”: Marquand Books/Paper Hammer, 2013

Handmade Limited Edition of 20, embossed cover w/inset photo, cloth-covered boards, tipped-in color photos, 32 pages, 11.5"x9.5".

Preview book: University of Wisconsin-Madison Library

My heartfelt thanks to my husband and fellow artist Michael Felber, and to Ed Marquand, Jake Seniuk, Esther Luttikhuizen, Jeanie Murphy, Marquand Books, and iocolor for their invaluable expertise in making this book.

  • This book is funded in part by a 2011 Grants for Artists Projects (GAP) award from Artist Trust, Seattle

  • Produced by Marquand Books, Inc., Seattle
    MarquandBooks.com

  • Designed by Ed Marquand and Ryan Polich

  • Edited by Brielyn Flones

  • Proofread by Melissa Duffes

  • Typeset in Joanna by Brielyn Flones

  • Color management by iocolor

  • Printed in Seattle by Marquand Books, Inc.

  • Bound in Tieton, Washington, by Paper Hammer Studios

  • Amphorae ca. 2010, Mighty Migration, Power King II, and Standed Vessel photographed by Craig Wester."

  • Pictures are tipped-in color images of photo paintings by the artist.

  • Book includes an introductory essay by Jake Seniuk, curator and artist from Washington State, and a text by the artist. Watershed grew out of Hackenberg's photorealist series by the same name. The series grew from Hackenberg's walks along Discovery Bay near her home in Port Townsend, Washington.

  • "The tenuous boundary between living nature and human encroachment is the primary unifying theme in my work. The dislocated, discarded, mass-produced objects found littering the edges, cracks, and seams of our natural world provide evidence of our collective post-purchase consumer amnesia, the forgetfulness that erases our culpability. Local beach-found flotsam, PETE water bottles, plastic toy animals and product packages are but a few of the found items that I use as subject and medium in my work.

    The paintings, based on my photographs, present the beach trash as monolithic in the seascape and provide a visual metaphor that hints at the magnitude of ocean pollution. Striving for a light-hearted touch while holding onto a subversive tone towards the problem of habitat destruction, I present a tongue-in-cheek taxonomy of our new synthetic post-consumer 'creatures of the sea' that now rise to take the place of native marine species. By lovingly and meticulously crafting 'beautiful' images of conventionally 'ugly' beach cast-offs, I hope to create provocative juxtapositions of form and idea that give dark witness to a looming global disaster"—Artist statement, in part from Dark Witness.