Artist Member
Tides
2023. Unique
3 x 3 x 3” closed, opens to variable lengths
Pigment prints, kanji, unryu, and kozo papers, shell button, hemp cord.
Photographs, poem, and Dragonscale binding by the artist.
Wave Book
Waterfall Library
Barbara Hocker 
www.bahocker.art
Instagram: @bahocker
BIO
Barbara Hocker was born in South Norwalk, CT. Her earliest years were spent between the beach and saltwater marsh where life was organized by the tides. Water was elemental to everything, from the unique smell of the marsh at low tide to the floods that came whenever storm-winds blew from the Northeast. Always interested in nature, water has been her primary subject matter many years.
Barbara’s love of books arose in her childhood when her mother and older sisters worked at the public library. Books were enjoyed in her family both as stories to be read and as important objects with a history of their own. She cherished older books that belonged to her father and were published in the 1920s. Books as objects, artifacts, and art is a love that has never left her. She explores many different book forms and is currently interested in two historic Chinese bindings. Whirlwind and Dragon Scale bindings were historical structures resulting from the introduction of Codex books from the West into China. Both were intended to add multiple pages to the scroll form.
Barbara has exhibited extensively, including solo shows in Hartford, New Haven, Newport, and Boston. Her work is in institutional and private collections in the US and Great Britain, including the University of Colorado Library’s Rare and Distinctive Book Collection. the permanent collection of The Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital system. Awards include fellowships and grants from the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the Edward C. and Ann T. Roberts Foundation, and Artist Resource Trust of the Berkshire Taconic Foundation. She holds a degree in Fibers from Syracuse University’s College of Visual & Performing Arts and attended Cranbrook Academy of Arts. Barbara lives in Bolton, CT and her studio is in Hartford, CT.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT
My life’s vocation is being an ambassador for the natural world through my art. The depth and extent of the crises facing Nature are overwhelming. There is so much to do it can be difficult to start, but the Earth needs our love and care. I express my experience of the beauty of nature in my work to inspire attention, love, and connection in viewers. Let us start where we are.
I start by capturing images with various digital cameras/lenses. I shoot waterfalls, streams, rivers, lakes, and the sea. I look to find the feeling of the moment and place. The water and the environment are always unique and I concentrate on being present in the “now”. Then I come back to the studio to meditate on the photos and interpret the water in book forms and structures.
I print the photographs, pull abstract monotypes bases on the images, and paint watercolors on various papers for pages and scrolls. Some books include encaustic wax.
Combining all these image making techniques with various book structures allows me to express my feelings and impressions of different bodies of water, from the waves of the sea, to flowing streams, and waterfalls. Most of my artist books have no text and the images and their sequence tell the story of the beauty and sacredness of water. Occasionally I am inspired to write poems and haiku for certain books.
I feel the intimacy of books as an art form is a wonderful expression of the intimate nature of water. Life on our planet wouldn’t exist without water, and now we need to preserve it everywhere. I hope that my artwork will inspire viewers to notice the water in their lives and surroundings and be inspired to help in that preservation.