Irasema Quezada ~ Alabama

Artist Statement: “Irasema Quezada Hammock is an artist who lives and works in Northport, Alabama. A native of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, her work explores subjects on immigration, grief, social justice and mental health. As a child growing up in Mexico, she displayed signs of artistic talent that was reinforced by being around her family of designers, artists and craftsmen. Her abrupt move to Alabama alienated her from extended family and set new challenges. This new life in the United States came with life altering situations, including living as an undocumented immigrant for over 20 years.

Irasema graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts with honors from the University of Alabama in Birmingham. She also received a Master of Fine Arts degree in Book Arts from the University of Alabama.

Storm & Stone
By Irasema Quezada
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Irasema Quezada, 2022. Edition of 25.

6" x 7.5"; 10 pages. Text set in Dante Italic metal type, and wood type from the Hamilton Teaching Collection. Seven original reduction linoleum carved illustrations, all printed on a Vandercook press at the University of Alabama. Bound in cloth boards with illustration on front cover. Written, designed, printed and bound by the artist. Numbered.

Irasema Quezada: “’Storm and Stone’ is a fictional narrative about self-affirmation while on a journey and told with a conscious and subconscious voice. I received the book ‘World Folktales’ by Anita Stern during the summer of 1992 from my ESL tutor. After rediscovering the book all these years later, I chose to extract text from the 18 tales from the book and compose my own story.”
$150 (On Hold)

0 1 2 3
By Irasema Quezada
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: 2021, Irasema Quezada. Edition of .

4” x 7”; 10 pages. Two vertical fold out pages. Letterpress printed on butcher style paper with photopolymer plates. Bound as a pamphlet with raw book board covers. Written, printed and bound by the artist at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Numbered.

Irasema Quezada: “’0123’ is an artist’s book about what it has been like for me to have lived with an undiagnosed mental illness and the journey to diagnosis. I believe it is crucial to document mental health to erase the stigma, especially as a Mexican-American woman. In Latin communities, mental illness and mental health are highly stigmatized and for a lot of us our own families disregard the symptoms, exacerbating the already delicacy of our mental state.”

Colophon: “A panic attack is described as an intense feeling of fear or extreme nervousness that is brought on abruptly. Usually, these feelings of terror and apprehension occur without warning and are disproportionate to any real threat or danger.

“Only 33% of Latin with a mental illness receive treatment each year compared to the U.S. average of 43%.”
$175 (On Hold)

Birmingham Annotated
By Irasema Quezada Hammock
Tuscaloosa, Alabama: 2021. Edition of 27.

4” x 4” closed, extends to 32”; 8 panels. Double sided accordion. Text set in Freight designed by Joshua Darden. Printed n Neenah paper on a Vandercook Universal press. Written, illustrated, printed and bound by the artist at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. Numbered.

Irasema Quezada: “This artists' book is a part of my desire to seek truth and give voice to the history of the city of Birmingham, Alabama which I feel has been glossed over and sentimentalized. I took photographs of my walk around Birmingham and made reduction linoleum of those photographs. Text was taken from the Birmingham Wiki and annotated with my findings.

“As I walked the downtown in the city of Birmingham, I took notice [of] the beautiful architecture and details. I photographed textures and began researching the buildings and the founding of the city. This project began as a study of the downtown Birmingham neighborhood, Central City. As my research advanced, my dissatisfaction of the city’s recorded birth began to build. Looking at the first internet hit for the history of the city, Wikipedia, one begins to read the romanticized idea of this industrial city. Every link visited had the same information with the same idyllic language. It wasn’t until I came across an academic journal by W. David Lewis that the interests of the founders was plainly written in, what I felt was, a real account.”
$150 (On Hold)