Frank Hamrick
It was there all along 

Media: Artist's Book 

Artist Statement:
Water is universal, connecting people to one another and to nature. 

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 water does not originate from a faucet, nor simply disappear after going down the drain. 

“It was there all along” is a series of tintype photographs and a limited edition, artist's book featuring images made in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Tennessee in response to growing concerns related to water, whether it is food, recreation, flooding, drought or coastal erosion.

If a photograph is considered in the same manner as a single song, then an artist’s book is similar to an entire album of music complete with cover art and liner notes. Artist’s books allow for the combination of images with text and the incorporation of materials, like handmade paper, and processes, such as letterpress, staining, and layering various colors of paper to create limited edition works of art that can convey a more complete, realized idea than a single image is capable of doing.

The pieces I make have particular meaning to me, but I understand other people will see them in their own way. My artwork is not necessarily created to illustrate or provide answers. If anything, I would like for my art to generate more questions. I do not see them as endpoints, but rather starting places where I give the viewer ideas to ponder and allow room for their imagination to create the rest of the story.

Biography

Oxford American Magazine and NPR have written about Frank Hamrick’s art. His work is housed in institutions including The Amon Carter Museum of American Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Griffin Museum of Photography, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, London. Frank is a professor and the MFA graduate program coordinator at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston and has also taught at the Penland School of Craft in North Carolina as well as the University of Georgia’s study abroad program in Cortona, Italy. His photography has been featured on magazine, book and record covers, including Gillian Welch and David Rawlings’ Americana album Nashville Obsolete. Born in Georgia, Frank’s handmade books combine photography and storytelling with papermaking and letterpress printing to address time, relationships and home. Frank’s limited edition artist’s book of tintype images Harder than writing a good haiku earned the 2017 Houston Center for Photography Fellowship and was awarded first place in the 2017 Los Angeles Festival of Photography’s Photobook Competition.