by Audrey Sage
Special Collections was thrilled to recently acquire this beautiful volume by Frank Hamrick – IT WAS THERE ALL ALONG.
This hand printed and bound volume uses Irish linen thread, Canapetta bookcloth and Davey board to bind a collection of wet plate collodion tintype photographs that were taken throughout Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee near the Cumberland, Ouachita, North Toe, and Mississippi Rivers as well as the Little Choudrant, McNutt, Sand and White Creeks, and the Gulf of Mexico. The cover art was created from a handprinted relief print on cotton rag paper.
“John Steinbeck’s To A God Unknown describes the cycle of rain in California declaring ten years of average rain, ten years of plentiful rain and ten years of drought. In the bad years, no one remembers the good years, and in the good years, no one remembers the bad years. On a hill in Tennessee, water pours from a cave after a storm, and through a system of creeks and rivers, finds its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
A mural in Louisiana states, “In a flood every raindrop feels responsible.”
As the grandson of a well driller, I learned early in life that water does not originate from a faucet, nor simply disappear after going down the drain.”
Frank Hamrick
2019
