Interview with Amos Kennedy

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ARCHIVES ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM Interview #1764 KENNEDY, AMOS PAUL JUNIOR KENNEDY, AMOS PAUL JUNIOR (1948-) Book Artist At UW: 1994-1997 Interviewed: 2018 Interviewer: Sarah Lange Index by: Transcribed by: Teresa Bergen Length: 76 minutes First Interview Session (September 4, 2018): Digital File SL: So today is September 4, 2018. I'm Sarah Lange with the oral history program at UW Madison. I'm talking with Amos Paul Kennedy, Junior, a human being with a printing press and a UW alum for the project UW Madison Book Arts and Oral History. Amos is speaking from Detroit, Michigan and I'm at the UW Archives in Steenbock Library. AK: Hi. SL: I understand that your parents were raised in the South, and so were you. Would you please describe what your family life was like in Louisiana? AK: In Louisiana, we had a typical middle class American family. We were a nuclear family in the true sense of the word. SL: And did you have siblings growing up? AK: I have three brothers and one sister. And they all still alive now. SL: Okay. And can you tell me a little bit more about maybe growing up in the South? Like how you, what kinds of things did your family do? AK: Well, I grew up in an unusual situation in the South. I grew up in a segregated town. It was all black. And there was a college that later became a university associated with it. Because my father was on the faculty there. And so it was a town with a very large middle class. We were, it was a town that was highly educated because of the college. And because we had no whites, we did not experience segregation on the personal level every day until we went into the county, the parish seat, or towns that were more integrated with black and white. So our police force was black. The dentist was black. Everything was black within the town except for one realtor. But he didn't live there. He just sold property. It wasn't integrated until about 1963. That's when the first white, who happened to have been Jewish, couple moved in for a year. SL: Okay. And were you still living there then in '63? AK: That year, my father had returned to Michigan State University to do advanced studies. So I was away when they moved in. But we moved back in '65, '64, rather. So, yeah, technically we were still there, because the house was still there. SL: And where were you then in '63? AK: We were at Michigan State University in Lansing, Michigan. Lansing, Michigan. SL: You were with your family. AK: Correct. SL: And what did your father teach? AK: Initially he taught agriculture. But after they got rid of the agriculture department, he moved into the chemistry department. And he finally, he worked his way up to when he retired, he was a dean. SL: Okay. And what did your mom do? Was she working 00:01:00 in the home or outside of the home? AK: My mother was a typical housewife. However, at the age of 55, no, the age of 50, rather, she went back and got her MBA. And then I think about 54, 55, she went to Oklahoma State University and earned a PhD in accounting. And then she spent the rest of her professional career as an accounting professor at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, North Carolina. SL: And what about when you were growing up, did your family ever go to any kinds of museums? Or how did you, did you kind of start making things when you were younger? AK: Not really. We did the typical go to Washington and see all the historic, you know, Washington Monument, Lincoln Monument, you know, Smithsonian, all that. Because for two years of my life, we lived on the eastern shore of Michigan while my father taught at, I think it was-I forgot the name of the college. But it was a small historically black college in Princess Anne, Maryland 00:02:00 [University of Maryland, Eastern Shore], they taught agriculture at. So we would go to Washington on the weekends like once a month to partake of that. And when we moved to Grambling, there was little visual arts. There was an art department, but it was small because the art department was more in charge of teaching art teachers for elementary and high school than it was teaching studio art. SL: Okay. AK: Okay. SL: And what about when you moved to Michigan. Because you were from this, sounds like a unique town or city in Louisiana, and then you moved to Michigan, what was it like? Did you have more interactions with people who weren't African American? AK: Exclusively. In the junior high, there were only three black students in that. And it probably had about 500 students. So, yes, it was a completely different arrangement. As a matter of fact, the first time we were there, my mother knew that it was time for us to go when my sister, who had to be about six, saw a black walking down the street and said to my mother, "Oh, there goes someone just like us." You know? And she realized that the isolation was about to descend upon us. So they moved us back to a black community. Because my father's whole academic career was at what we call historically black universities. SL: Mm hmm. What was it like for you to go from an all-black community to a place where there weren't very many people who were like you? AK: It was not difficult because even in the all-black communities, there is a strata of socialization and-all black people don't get along. And so in the environment that I was in, I was more a, I was more an observer than I was a participant. So I just became an observer of different people at that point. SL: Okay. Is there anything that you would like to add about this time in your life? AK: As I said, I did not recognize it, but you never recognize things as you go through it. But for example, all of my teachers in my elementary and my high school all had master's degrees. Which at that time was unusual because it was a quasi-public school. Because most of the time, all you needed was a BS or BA to teach in a 00:03:00 school. But because it was a lab school for the education department in Grambling, and so all of the teachers were actually professors on campus. So we had doctors teaching courses in the high school. As a matter of fact, when they didn't have a chemistry teacher, my father taught one semester while they searched for a new chemistry teacher. So that resource was something that I didn't really appreciate until I went into the professional world and I found out how limited public education was. Not just for blacks, but for whites in certain areas. SL: Did you take chemistry with your father? AK: Unfortunately, I did. (laughter) He would wake me up at 7:30 in the morning. We would go to class for eight o'clock. And at 8:15, I'd be back to sleep. (laughs) But I did get out of both semesters. Barely. SL: Well, what kind of student were you? Like what subjects were you drawn to? AK: In high school I was drawn primarily to the social sciences. And I really enjoyed that. And I had a really great social science teacher that just taught things that were not taught. We were reading Marx in tenth grade. And we were reading Rousseau and Voltaire, things like that. So it was like really exciting. And then in college, in college, oh, I know. I was going to major in economics, but my father suggested that I major in mathematics because the economics department was not that strong. And if I went to graduate school, I would have to have a strong background in mathematics. Because economics is just a 00:04:00 pseudo-science based upon a pseudo-science of mathematics. So I majored in mathematics. And I actually surprised myself. I graduated with honors. SL: And where did you study mathematics? AK: I studied at Grambling. My father felt that if the school was good enough to put food on the table, it was good enough to put information in your brain. SL: (laughs) So what did you do after you got your degree in mathematics? AK: The first two years, the first 18 months afterwards, I attempted to go to graduate school. I was going to get a master's in education. So I went to graduate school. And then during that time, I spent time in Liberia in the Peace Corps teaching mathematics. SL: Oh, can you tell us a little bit more about that? AK: I got malaria and got extremely ill and said, you know, enough is enough. But it was an eye-opening experience to go back to what at that time we would have called the motherland, the mother continent. And it was, because Liberia is a country founded by, it was founded by free enslaved Americans returning to Africa. And they colonized it the same way that they were colonizing the west. And even when I was there, and probably to this day, they have something called Americo-Liberians, I think. And these are Liberians that can trace their ancestry back to the immigrants that came over in the early part of the 1800s, when the country was established. And they treated the indigenous people the same way that we treat our indigenous people. And up until the overthrow of Tubman, they were 00:05:00 still had this superiority, supposedly superiority over the indigenous people. So it was extremely interesting. SL: How long were you there? AK: I was there for about 18 months. And then I contracted malaria and it was just more than I could handle. SL: Yeah. So what did you do when you got back to the States? AK: Well, I recovered. And then I got a position with IBM as a systems programmer. SL: And can you talk a little bit more about that, like what you were doing as a systems programmer there? AK: Well, a systems programmer, and this is a simplified definition of it, but what they do is they write the code that actually runs the machine. And so there's a whole body of code that tells the minutiae that a computer must do. And that's what systems programmers do. They write also what's called the operating system. And these were some big mainframes that IBM was manufacturing. So I wasn't doing application 00:06:00 programming, something like accounting or something like a database. I was writing code that would instruct machines on how to perform a task. SL: And how did you learn to code? AK: I took coding in college. I took about nine hours of coding in college on a 1401, IBM 1401 computer. And then when I got the position, at that time corporations would actually train, and you had what was known as a training period that you went through. So IBM had a nine-week training period that they taught you, even if you knew how to code, they taught you how to code the way IBM wanted you to code. I was in a class that had people that were art majors and people that had masters in electrical engineering. But they all had to take this course, this training period. SL: Okay. And where were you when you were working at IBM? Where were you located? AK: I was in Gaithersburg, Maryland. SL: Okay. And how long were you with IBM? AK: Too long. (laughter) I was with IBM for about three years. Yes. SL: Okay. And then where did you go from there? AK: Well, I landed in Cleveland, Ohio. And I spent two years in Cleveland working for various computer firms. And also, again, attempting to go to graduate school, this time in library science. I had aspirations of 00:07:00 being an archivist. SL: Oh, nice. AK: Yes. SL: And how did that go, then? You said that you were trying to go. What happened? AK: Well, I don't have my degree. (laughs) But it was a good experience because I've always had a deep appreciation for libraries. And it just increased that appreciation of it. And the tasks that are involved to maintain this institution that is so important to a civilization such as ours. SL: So why did you decide not to continue with your studies? AK: Oh, that's a good point to ponder. I think I got bored with it. Yeah. Yeah. And then there was an opportunity in Chicago for my wife to work. And so she took that opportunity. And I figured I should follow her and my son. Being in Cleveland by yourself was not a lot of fun. SL: Yeah, I'm sure. So what did you do when you got to Chicago? AK: In Chicago I was employed with AT&T. And I started out as a technical rep in their marketing department. So they had two layers, at least two different positions. One was the salesperson, which they call that account executive. And the other one was the customer representative or something, technical 00:08:00 representative, something like that. And those were the people that actually designed, the sales rep would go out and sell the system. But then the actual machines, the actual services, had to be designed. I was in that group for the first three years of my career there. SL: And when did you start that job? Like what year was it? AK: Ninety-no, I'm sorry, 1981. SL: Okay. And were you then using your coding skills in that role as well? AK: Not really. My coding skills didn't come into play until I transferred over into an administrative position, and I was coding for a branch office of the sales force. SL: Okay. So how long did you work at AT&T total? AK: Either eight or nine years. SL: Eight or nine years. Okay. AK: Yes. SL: And is it right then at this time you decided that you wanted to make books, when you were working there? AK: Yeah. Towards the end of it. In 1988. So it was like nine years. In 1988, I took my two sons to Williamsburg, which is another story in itself. But let me just preface it by saying it was in the Washington DC area, I studied calligraphy as a hobby. So I studied calligraphy seriously for about three years. And I studied under people like Donald Jackson and Sheila Waters. So it was 00:09:00 the traditional English sort of calligraphy. And so when I moved to Chicago, I still dabbled in it. But as I said, in '88 I took my sons to Williamsburg and I saw letterpress printing. And I was fascinated by it. And it so happened that in Chicago there was an organization called Artist Book Works. They offered evening classes for adults in Richmond. I took a letterpress course under a woman named Pam Barry. And she introduced me to letterpress printing. And it has been, I just jumped off the cliff and I've been flying ever since. SL: And what is it about letterpress printing that you like so much? AK: I have no idea what attracted me to it at first. But I say now I like it so much because it's the only thing I can do with any degree of competency. I cannot do anything else at the same level as I do letterpress printing. SL: Okay. So tell me a little bit more about, you were taking the course in letterpress printing in Chicago. When did you buy your own press? AK: I didn't buy my own press for about two years. I was given a press. This is the thing that, so the universe-are you familiar with the work of Joseph Campbell? SL: You mean the-which Joseph Campbell? AK: He studied mythology. The Hero of a Thousand Faces. SL: Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. AK: Well it was really bizarre, because the whole series with Bill Moyer must have come out in '86 or '87, something like that. All these things started to come together at the same time. And I remember him saying that when you choose your 00:10:00 path-I'm paraphrasing-but when you choose your path, when you follow your bliss, the universe will open itself to you. And I had taken almost six months' worth of letterpress printing, two different sessions. And one of the women that I was taking the course with, Mary Kennedy, had gone out and bought a Vandercook for like five hundred dollars, which was a small fortune back then. And I wanted to get one, but I didn't have five hundred dollars at the time. But about two weeks later, my instructor, Pam Barry, said, "Oh, there's a notice on the board that there's a free press." And so I went to look, and it was the same press that she had just bought for five hundred dollars. SL: Oh, wow. AK: And I got it for the cost of moving, which was like a hundred dollars. I put it in my basement and I was having fun. And then my wife took my sons to Washington, DC, because she had a fellowship with, I don't know, Johnson & Johnson. She was a Robert Wood Johnson fellow. And they left me at home by myself. So I converted the basement into a print shop and I started hanging out with other 00:11:00 printers. And I met this printer who had to be in his late sixties, early seventies. And I told him, "Well when my sons come back, I'm going to teach them to do letterpress printing." And he said, "Well, I have a really good job stick that's just right for kids. Why don't you come over one night and pick it up?" And so a couple of weeks later I go over to his place. And he has a shop in his basement and we talk shop and he shows me everything. And he gives me the job stick. And as I was leaving, he said, "Would you like to have this stuff right here, all this type?" It was about four cabinets of type. And I said yes I would. And that was an enormous gift to be given to me by someone who I'd only met twice before. It had never happened in my life before. And that's why I said that this universe had just opened up to say here is your path that you should travel. And so I took that back to my basement lair. And I had a full-blown shop. And by the time they had returned from DC, there was nothing they could do because they couldn't find anyone to move it out. And so I printed in my basement for a number of years, a couple of years. And then in 1995, I had heard from the day one I started taking letterpress printing that there was this guy in Madison, Walter Hamady, he makes the best books in the world. He's a genius. That's Walter Hamady, Walter Hamady, Walter Hamady. And so I was contemplating graduate school. And the University of Alabama had a graduate school, MFA in book arts. And Madison didn't. They just had an MFA, I had to get my MFA in something else. But I said to myself, if you have a choice to study with the student or the master, you study with the master. Because Alabama was being run by Steve Miller, 00:12:00 who was a former student of Walter. So I went up and I chatted with Walter. And I decided that I would go to graduate school, although I lived out of state and there was a tremendous fee, something like 700 dollars a semester. Can you believe spending that much money for 15 hours? It was unbelievable. So I started doing that. And we'd commute from Oak Park, Illinois, twice a week up to Madison to study. My first semester, I took one course with Walter, I took one with Phil Hamilton because my degree is actually in graphic design. So Phil was actually my advisor. Walter was just the professor I hung out with the most. I took, if you are required to take 45 hours of studio art, I had to have taken 36 under Walter. SL: Okay. AK: Yeah, he got tired of me. (laughter) And so, yeah, that's how I ended up at Wisconsin in the degree. Now I tell people now I was unaware because my generation, you went to college and you stayed until you finished. I was not aware that I could have gone to Madison and taken three hours as some sort of special student and then just left. You know, I'm going to take a course with Walter and then I'm going to leave and take two courses. So I just assumed I had to be in a degree program and I had to earn a degree. And so I was, I got into the degree program, and then I just started 00:13:00 studying with Walter. And I was focused on one thing, and that was building books. Because I had me with a librarian by the name of Emmy Mills. And she showed me a book that was published in the 1930s. And on the title page, whoever the publisher was, it was like book builders. And I thought that was the coolest thing, a book builder. And so I spent my graduate years just trying to figure out how to build books. And I will say that one of the great influences on me was Bill Bunce, the former librarian at the Kohler. I would have long conversations with him about books and about life. And I've learned as much from him as I did from Walter. And the collection that he developed, he created there, was just remarkable to have that. And his attitude to it was just frightening. I remember going into the library and there was a woman taking apart a book. One of the artist books that he'd collected, she was disassembling it. SL: Oh, wow. AK: And I went into his office and I said, "Bill, she's taking apart that book back there." And he said, "Yeah, that's what it's for. This is a learning library. You know, like people can't take biology without dissecting a frog. She wants to know how the binding works, so she's taking it apart. I can take it over to conservation. They can put it back together. SL: (laughs) I don't think that would be allowed now. AK: Yes, but that's what he did. You could touch books and you didn't have to have white gloves on. SL: So do you remember some of the books that you encountered at the Kohler Art Library? AK: Not really, because there was just so many. I mean, there was Claire Van Vliet's book. He had everything. He collected. Because again, he thought of it as a learning library. So he had to have this diversity of work so people could see more than just one style. SL: Did you ever take apart a book to see how it was made? AK: No, I didn't. No, I didn't. And I never contemplated it. Yeah. But you know, there are some books that have very unusual bindings. And I 00:14:00 was more a traditionalist with just kind of straight codecs thing going on. SL: Can you tell me a little bit more about Bill Bunce, and what he was like? AK: He was a charming man. Very charming. Very charming, very elegant, very stately, but he was shorter than I was. But it was just a delight to hang out with him. He was just that kind of person that, he was a scholar. He was a collector. He was a lover of books. He was a lover of art. He was just profound. As I said, he had a profound impact upon my life. I would visit him and his partner when school wasn't in session. And just to have the conversations with the two of them were great. SL: So you didn't actually move to Madison when you were getting your degree in graphic design. Is that right? AK: No. But there again is another case where the universe opened up for me. My wife actually got a position in Wisconsin, so we had to move to Milwaukee. But because we were in state, and because we moved because of jobs, I qualified as an instate student. And suddenly my tuition went down remarkably. And so I lived outside of Milwaukee in a suburb called Bayside. And then I would commute up to Madison again twice a week. And then they had the Badger Bus, so I could just take the bus. SL: And when did you get to move to Milwaukee? Like what point in your 00:15:00 studies? AK: Nineteen-ninety five. Yeah, 1995, correct. I had been in school for a year at that time. Yeah. SL: Okay. And what did you think of the Milwaukee area? AK: After moving from Chicago, I thought it was a little small. However, I have a dear friend who lived in Racine, Caren Heft, who had a paper mill. And so it was much closer, so I could make paper and hang out with her. She was also a book artist and we would have great conversations about books and people and how we were going to make the next structure. And she would critique my work for me before I would take it into class, too. At times. SL: And was she in your class? Is that how you met her? AK: No. She had graduated long before. She was part of that, the Walter bunch. Because I am taking it that I came at the tail end of Walter's real dominance in book arts. Because the university had not funded the mill, and there were other issues going on. So he had kind of moved away from a lot of the book arts that he was doing. He was still doing a lot of book things. But we did not have a group of people that came through, like say in '85 or '86, where you had all these people that went out and you know, started book arts programs and became well known book artists. SL: Well what was Walter Hamady like when you were studying with him? Because you spent a lot of time with him. AK: Walter is a difficult read. He is an extremely difficult read. 00:16:00 He is extremely intelligent and creative. But his personality could change on a dime. And some people found that to be disturbing. I found it to be very interesting. I told him, "Walter, if you lived in my family, you would go to bed every night crying. Because you don't know what it's like." We were a very difficult family to live together. But other people found him, I found him to be on par with the people I was raised with in that way. SL: Okay. So is that what you mean by that your family was kind of difficult to live with? AK: Let's put it this way. None of us live in the same state. SL: (laughs) Okay. AK: As a matter of fact, one of us doesn't even live in the same country. Okay? (laughs) SL: Is it that you're just really different? AK: No, it was the way my parents raised us to be independent and to be cold and aloof. Yeah. SL: Do you consider yourself cold and aloof? AK: I consider myself to be a chameleon. Yeah. SL: Okay. Can you expand on that a little bit? AK: I can take the, I can go into a room and I can blend in without people ever knowing where it is. And we are, my family, when I say my family, we are, as one of my brothers said, we are very independent. Which is a way of saying that we are-oh, how do I put this? We are just weird. We are just weird, yeah. We should all be in some sort of therapy, but none of us are. SL: Well, you're talking about blending in and kind of going under the radar. And you also mentioned that when you were younger, that you liked to observe other people. How do you see those skills kind of serving you in your work today? AK: I don't know if I blend in in the book arts, in the printing area, whether I'm invisible. Because if you look, you know, I am not, I am not in many collections in the United States. People know who I am. They know a little bit of my story. But I really don't 00:17:00 have very close friends or very close colleagues in the area. Most of my colleagues came when I was in graduate school, like Caren Heft. And Caren Heft was just it, I mean, when I was in graduate school. I had a studio in Milwaukee. I had a complete print shop in Milwaukee. This was one of the things that distinguished me from other students. I had everything I needed to produce books. So you know, I didn't have to stay up in Madison and use their equipment. I could go home. SL: Sure. AK: So again, there is this, for lack of a better term, this kind of isolation that took place because I didn't have to be there at eleven o'clock at night, probably sewing books while someone else was printing and having conversations with them. I am a very singular person in many ways. I think that would be an excellent description of me. SL: Okay. AK: Yeah. SL: So have you, well, I want to get back to you said you didn't think your books were in a lot of collections. Why do you think that is? AK: I don't know why it is. I mean, I kind of put myself out there. And people have collected my work and then they stop collecting it. So one thing that I think is that I started toward the end of many librarians' career, 00:18:00 special collections librarians' career, and the collection policy changed when a new person came in. SL: Okay. So part of it might be timing? AK: Because each person has to build their own, each person wants to put their own stamp on a collection. No matter what kind of work you have, you want to say that you had a contribution to it. Yeah. SL: Well I guess, let's go back a little bit to your studies at Madison. You mentioned that you also worked at Phil Hamilton. AK: That's correct. SL: What was it like working with him? He was your advisor. AK: He was my advisor. Phil was an easy going person. He was very encouraging. Well, I think he's still alive, so he is all that. I mean, Phil had a smile that would just light up a room. And he had some political things to him because he knew just how to make people feel good and how to relate to people. So I really enjoyed working with Phil. You know, he would take me to lunch at least twice a semester. And we'd chat. Yeah. I regret that I didn't take more courses under him. SL: Yeah, I was going to ask you how many classes did you take with him? AK: I took one and I took an independent study. Because, yeah. Mm hmm. SL: What about other instructors? Did you take classes with other people that were particularly memorable? AK: I took an independent study with Jim Escalante. And I made paper for a summer. I made a ton of paper, too. Because I had a project I needed all this paper for. SL: So did you learn papermaking from Jim? AK: I learned 00:19:00 papermaking from Caren Heft. SL: Okay. AK: Yeah. SL: What did you do your- AK: I learned papermaking by making paper and making paper, making paper, making paper. SL: Okay. (laughs) And did you do your independent study, I guess specifically focused on making paper, then? AK: Yes. That was, I think the goal was to make 1500 sheets of paper. SL: Wow. AK: Well as I make 1500 sheets of paper, I probably have one decent sheet. SL: (laughs) What did you like to make your paper out of? AK: Abaca. SL: What was that? AK: Abaca. Abaca. Yeah. That is like the ultimate, for me, that is like dying and going to heaven. SL: And what do you like about that, the paper that comes out of it? AK: You can make it soft and fluffy or you can make it, you know, paper thin. Onion paper thin. Yeah. So Bill had this book outside of his office that was nothing but, it was a book comprised of 200, 300 sheets of abaca, all in different stages of beating. And there was nothing printed on it. But it was just the act of turning the pages. The way that the page sounded as you turned it. Because it had a crinkly sound to it. It isn't like cotton or wood fiber paper. And it was just beautiful. SL: And so you were studying graphic design. What design classes did you take? AK: Phil's. That one class with Phil. SL: So really you were focused on- AK: Everything else was under Walter. SL: So you were focused on making books, but you got- AK: Yeah. I was singly focused on one thing. Yes. And you had to take six hours of art 00:20:00 history. And then also, I don't know if it was six or three hours of art theory. SL: Okay. AK: In those courses when I had assignments, written assignments to do, they all were turned in in the form of a book. SL: Oh! Okay. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? AK: I would just do the essay. And so you do an essay and then you turn it into a little pamphlet more so than a book. In one course, we had to do an essay every week, I think, on a reading. And it had to fit on an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, single-spaced. (laughs) And so I would make these little books that were probably like three inches by two inches. So you can't put a lot of type on it. (laughs) And if you were to open it up and actually look at the amount of text, it was probably half a page. Okay? (laughs) But because it was in this little tiny book, people thought it was a lot of writing. SL: So how did your teachers respond when you turned in books for your essay assignments? AK: Well, there was nothing in the syllabus that said you couldn't. And 00:21:00 you know, being profs, you know, creativity is what they supposed to be fostering, so they were comfortable with it. SL: Okay. Did any other students kind of do something similar-not turn in the traditional essay-that you know of? AK: So I took six hours of art history under Henry Drewal. African art history. I took African art history and also vodum. Under him. SL: What was the second one? AK: Vodum. Voodoo. Actually, it's vodum. V-o-d-u-m. But everyone knows it as voodoo. Yeah. The religion out of Haiti with all the deities and all the art associated with it. So there had just been a major exhibition out in Los Angeles where Henry Drewal was one of the participants, one of the curators of it. And so we had this semester-long course in it, which was really great. But in the African art history course, several of the students made like, for example, one student was a metalsmithing student, so she actually made a replica of an African 00:22:00 ceremonial knife. And people were doing things like that. So, yes. Well, the studio art majors were doing things of that nature. Art historians were writing very, very in detailed essays. SL: Sure, sure, that makes sense. Is there anything else that you would like to talk about in terms of your studies here? AK: I think that, I believe that I did not take full advantage of the resources at the University of Wisconsin. And that is partly because I was a commuter student, and partly because I was just so focused on building books that I did not look at everything that I could do. SL: What kinds of things do you think you would have liked to have explored? AK: I probably should have socialized and worked more with the other students in my classes. But that ain't me, so, you know. (SL laughs) But looking back it was like, oh, that would have been great if you had done it. Well, guess what? You could have done it, but you didn't, because you were doing this. So I don't lament it. But sometimes I look back and say oh, you know. 00:23:00 And I tell students when I talk to them, take full advantage of all the resources at a university. But all in all, it was a very good experience for me. I actually got my degree, which is unusual. (laughter) The third time is a charm. So, yeah. I think that, I maintain that if a university can be what they call a world-class university, and not have an art department or an art school, that wouldn't be one. So that made me believe that the art department is one of those areas that's underfunded and unappreciated by the higher administration. And so there's this constant battle for resources that really shouldn't happen. Because as an undergrad math major, I realize that there is one answer to every problem, because that's the way math works. One answer to everything. Because that's the way- SL: I'm sorry. I'm losing you a little bit. You're fading a little bit. Could you repeat that last part? AK: Okay. What about now? SL: That's better. AK: Okay. What I said is that as an undergraduate math major, I realized that there was one answer to every exercise. But in the arts, there is as many answers as there are people in the class. And this, I think, is necessary 00:24:00 to build strong citizens that in turn will build a strong nation, a strong civilization. People have to know that there are multiple solutions to exercises. And that way they can begin to look at ways to solve problems. So one of the things I walked away is that there is as much creativity in art as there is in physics, math or chemistry. There's as much creativity in any discipline at a university as there is in any. And that creativity is what should be celebrated. That creativity is what should be suggested. Because this is why universities exist. They don't exist to make cogs to go into the capitalistic system that presently exists in the United States. SL: Thank you. I think maybe this would be good time to talk a little bit about your books and the founding of your press, Jubilee Press. I understand that Jubilee wasn't the first name that you wanted to go with for your press. Could you talk a little bit about how 00:25:00 you came to name your press Jubilee Press? AK: Well I have changed the name of my press as many times as colored people change their hairstyle. (laughter) I started out, my first press was the Idiot Press, the Private Press of Amos Paul Kennedy, Junior. Because I was making books, okay? And I took the term "idiot," because when you look the word "idiot" up in the dictionary, actually there's only one dictionary, the Oxford, the root word comes from a private citizen in Athens. So I thought that was a clever pun. You know, the Idiot Press, a private press. But later on, I discovered that the idiot and the private citizen was not what you wanted to be, because that was a citizen that did not participate in the government. They were to themselves. And so I had that name for a little while. And then I changed it to Kennedy & Sons Fine Printing when I was doing, I took it into commercial printing. And that didn't go too well. And then I changed it to Jubilee Press. Because one of the things I realized when I took my first course in letterpress printing was that there is a severe shortage of the black voice in what we call book arts, fine books, special collections. There's just not a lot of it. And I determined that I would spend my life promoting the Negro culture. Because I consider myself a Negro. And I would print the works of Negro authors. And this was why when I turned-... from day one when I started printing. And most of my work until 2000 was exclusively black authors, of the black experience. And so, yeah. I changed it to Kennedy Prints, and I still use it to Kennedy Prints for some work that I do. But then I changed it to Jubilee, in honor of the jubilee which is the emancipation of enslaved peoples, which is a Jewish tradition that you find in the Old Testament. That I think every 50 years or something, I forgot what it is. And that term, because of the influence of Judeo-Christian mythology upon the Negro race, was something 00:26:00 that they associated with the emancipation of the enslaved Africans in 1865. And so later on I was reading some authors that were writing in Negro dialect and they were using Jubalee and not Jubilee. So I changed it to Jubalee. SL: Okay. AK: And so that was the last iteration of it. And then in 2002, I came up, because I made a severe shift, because as I tell students, the only thing that takes longer than building books is selling the edition. And you can starve in between the conception of the book and the actual selling of the entire edition. So I made a switch and started doing posters, show card posters. And the first one was York Show Card, York Show Print, rather. Because I was living in York, Alabama. And then I decided that Harold Berliner, who was a known printer and also had a type foundry, told me that I should use my name in my work whenever possible. So I changed that to Kennedy Prints. So since about 2004, all my work has been Kennedy Prints. SL: Okay. AK: Again, I do high-end work just for friends. And when I do that, it comes out under Kennedy & Sons Fine Printers. SL: Okay. Well what about some of the books that you made in the past? The Kohler Art Library has several of your books, including African Proverbs from Nigeria, Strange Fruit, Mask. Would you want to talk about the stories behind any of these? 00:27:00AK: I am fascinated by proverbs. These little jewels of wisdom that are found in all cultures. And sometimes you find the same proverb just phrased a little different in all cultures. So it is this universal wisdom through experience. That's the best way that I can explain it. And so many of my first books were either proverbs or folk tales from Africa, or Negro folk tales. And Negro aphorisms. And it was just, you know, I had to print something, so that's what I printed. I also did a couple of small books of poetry. And I did some broadsides. And all of this is very early in my career. I would say that the book that really defined me for, defined me as a book builder in my eyes was Strange Fruit. And that started out as a class assignment in Walter's class, to make a book out of a single sheet of paper. SL: Okay. AK: And I went in with the book for the critique and Walter was astounded by it. He didn't know something could be that bad. And he suggested that I go back and do it again and actually do it. So I went back home and I redid the whole book. Yeah, I went back home and I redid the whole book. And that is the book that you have in the Kohler. And at the same time, I was having these conversations 00:28:00 with Bill about books and everything. And from the content of the books, from the form of the book, I'd say that that is the one that, they say that everybody has one good book in them. I think that was my one good book. SL: Yeah. It's really beautifully done. Can you talk a little bit about what you did when you went back and redid the book? AK: Okay. To begin with, I made all the paper with Karen Heff. And it's all on abaca. Because Karen is an advocate of abaca. And the first book was more as if it was a pamphlet. Because he said one sheet of paper. And I decided to do it through a multi-signature book. And each of the multi signatures is still just one sheet of paper that can be expanded. And so it became an issue of how do you fold and how do you cut to make this happen. And that was the thing that really, really kind of, the structure of it was really, that was kind of, for me, it moved me from the traditional codecs. Although it looks like traditional codecs, the structure of it's a little, it can also be a concertina. And then, what else happened there? And then each of the signatures had specific topic to it, which I liked. And then everything plays into it. And it was also a combination of letterpress printing and offset printing because in Phil Hamilton's laboratory, they had two big manual offset presses. And I learned how to do that. SL: Let's see. So you were talking about Strange Fruit. AK: Correct. SL: And you're talking about the changes that you made when you went back to redo it. And you're talking about the structure of it. AK: Yes. SL: Is there anything that you wanted to add about that? AK: Uh, anything I wanted to add about the structure. It was fun. It was fun to come up with that. Because it went from this little pamphlet, one signature, to a [unclear]. And it was just a lot of fun. I would go down to the 00:29:00 basement. And I still print, when I print, it's like the, it's the most funnest thing I can do. SL: And what about the content for the book? Did you, did it start out with that same content, like the first version of it? AK: The first version of it was basically just the lyrics to Strange Fruit. And the content shifted a lot because the volume of the book shifted. And so it was all poems and quotations about lynchings. And it's also words associated with lynching. So one of the things that I realized that when you are in the art department, you spend as much time researching what you are working on as you do making it. Because there is this need to have solid content. And that's what, that's what I was trying to do. SL: Would you say that you continue to approach projects that way, to do some research first? AK: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Everything I do is grounded in research. Everything I do has to. Because one of the things, and especially the way that I'm working now with my posters, I do a lot of layering. And each layer has to build to the, especially when I'm doing something like the Rosa Parks portfolio that I did. Each layer of that has different information about Rosa Parks. And then on top of it, 00:30:00 in black, is the quotation. SL: And where do you do your research? Or how do you do your research? AK: Now most of my research is done sitting in front of a screen. Prior to that, I would actually physically go to a library. And I'm thinking about getting back to that, because I'm thinking about starting a revolt against the digital realm. SL: Can you explain that? AK: Yes. The next time you want to do an interview with me, you're going to have to write them all down in a letter and send them, and I'll write you back. (laughter) SL: So you're going to go back to all paper? AK: I'm sorry, what was that again? SL: You're going to go back to just all paper then? No phone or internet? AK: I am seriously contemplating that. I have a website I may just bring down. I think that, I can say that because I'm old. And old people can do whatever they damn well please, because that's the privilege of being old. But you know, again, I'm old, okay? I'm old. I admit to that. And I just think that things are moving too fast. For me, they definitely are. And I can slow down. I mean, so if I don't get a letter for two weeks, that's okay. I have other things I can do. Why do I have to instantly respond to you? You know. Immediate gratification has become the norm, rather than something special. And it's really weird. So I admire a lot of printers. And one of the people I admire is Andrew Steeves out of Kentville, Nova Scotia. He has a press called Gaspereau Press. And he handwrites rejection letters to people who submit manuscripts. With a fountain pen. SL: Oh, with a fountain pen. AK: Now wouldn't you feel much better about a rejection if you knew it was handwritten with a fountain pen? Because it does show that he had some consideration and actually read it. And you know, I'm taking time out 00:31:00 to just handwrite this to you. SL: There is something to be said for writing on paper versus everything electronic. AK: Yes. SL: So getting back to your books, though, I did want to ask you, in the back of your books you have, "We who believe in freedom cannot rest." AK: Yes. SL: Can you talk about why you decided to include that? AK: I do two things. In the front of my books I will put, "Put the message in the hands of the people." I have two things. "We who believe in freedom cannot rest" is the first when I came out. And that is a quote from, or quotation from Ella Baker, who was a civil rights activist. And I learned about it from Sweet Honey in the Rock's song, "Ella Baker." And in 1963 when the three civil rights workers were murdered in Mississippi. She gave a speech. And in that speech she said, "Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons, is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest." Because blacks were being killed on an ongoing basis. But they didn't get the press as when these two white men were killed. Suddenly it became a national, you know, a national sensation. 00:32:00 So I just love that song. I love the spirit. I love who Ella Baker was. Because she was a remarkable woman. And when I heard that song, I said I would always end, or begin my books with that. And then in 1995, a very dear friend of mine in jest told me, I was working at the press. And she said, "Put the message in the hands of the people and move on." And I've always considered myself a social printer, a social activist with a press, whatever you want to call it. I always considered myself as not printing to be pretty. And I like that, "Put the message in the hands of the people and move on." Because the message is more important than putting another brass spacing in to get just the right look. And so when I do books, they can vary where they are positioned. But that's why I use those two sentences or whatever you 00:33:00 call them. Tag lines, I guess. Yes. And so, yeah, the first, the second major exhibition that I had was in Chicago. And it consisted of 62, 62 cards. Eight by eight cards. And it was the name, the age and cause of death of children under 15 murdered in Chicago the previous year. Because these are issues that do not get addressed. They don't get addressed by the art community, they don't get addressed in politics. Because they're individuals being killed. Maybe one this week, maybe one two weeks from now. It isn't a mass killing. But 62 children was like, someone had to make a statement. So I made a statement. And again, I sincerely believe that my only purpose in what I do outside of the gratification, outside of the growth that printing gives to me, is to say black people are here. You can deny it, but somewhere in this universe, there is a library that has a small sampling of my work. And the question is, why isn't black people allowed into this exclusive club? SL: Do you think that you'll continue, I know you said you were kind of moving more toward your posters and other printing projects. Do you think you'll go back to making books? AK: Well, that's an interesting question. Because what is the purpose of a book other than storytelling? And my posters tell a story. So technically, all my posters, when you look at them together, tell multiple stories. So is it a book in the traditional sense of codecs? Of a codex? No. But does it tell a story? Yes. Does it tell a sequential story? No. But do we actually live in a sequential world, or is that the only way we can interpret the world? SL: What are you working on now? AK: What am I working on now? Right now at this juncture today, I am working on a, I don't know what to call it. It is this piece for Randall Burkett, who's retiring from Emory University Rose Special 00:34:00 Collection. He was in charge of building a collection of what he calls African American printed matter. I call it Negro printed matter, but we have these issues. So over the past 20 years, he's built one of the largest collections of printed matter by black people in the world, and also collection, libraries from distinguished scholars, entertainers, community activists. So he's retiring and I'm making this huge poster for him that they will present to him. SL: Oh, that's very nice. And you have, you have some material there at Emory as well, right? AK: Emory has probably the third largest collection of my work in the public, you know, arena. The largest collection of my work is at my brother's house. I've been sending him stuff since the '90s, and he just has everything. SL: Okay. AK: And after that, I would say the University of California, Santa Barbara, Emory, University of Illinois and Northwestern. And Madison has a lot of work that I did while I was a student there. SL: Sure. Sure. We do have the cards from the exhibition that you were talking about of the young, the children who were- AK: Right. Murdered. Yes. SL: Yes, killed. AK: I did that for a number of years. And I actually did one with Karen Heff, too. We collaborated on one. That's the order I would say as far as institutions that have collected my work. And there may be one or two that have a book or maybe a poster or something of that nature. But, yeah. SL: What do you look for in a project? AK: Oh, I don't look for anything to be quite candid with you. I don't know how I get my projects. I just, there's something I want to print. And it could be a book. For example, the Rosa Parks consist of 15 quotations. Then it has a sheet that has quotations by Rosa Parks. 00:35:00 You know, Kennedy & Sons Fine Printers, two thousand and whatever. So that could be considered a title page. It doesn't have a colophon. But if I had done it on bigger sheets and sewn it together, it would have been called a book, you know. So I would say that I find the topic that I like. Then I find the, I do research looking for supporting information that I can use. The layering effect. And then when I have that topic I like, I print that on top of all these layers in black. So it varies. Right now, I am getting ready to do a series of small six by eight cards. It's actually a reprint of quotations about teaching and education. So a lot of my things reflect, and I think this is true of everybody that does anything, in some ways it reflects the world that we want to live in. So one of the things in the world that I want to live in is more respect for people who teach, especially elementary school, middle school and high school. Because this is a commitment on their part to see that we have a better civilization in the future. Because the fruits of their work you won't see for 20 years. And so a lot of my things are about positive, a lot of my things express a world in which there is equality, where we have learned that every individual is of worth and of value. We do not have waste. Right now we live in a civilization where waste is primary to our existence. But we will not waste any of 00:36:00 our resources, because they are all important. Everybody has something to contribute to make it a better world. SL: Thank you. AK: And so with that in mind, let me just say that that is one reason why I went for these posters. And to show you what a shift this happened in my lifetime, I have been on several occasions asked by whites in Alabama to print meaningful posters for them. Which when I was in college, that would have never happened. You know, my posters are all over the South. In black and white houses. Because people can relate to the message. And as I said in the movie, if I do a book, where does it end up? It ends up in a special collection that only a miniscule number of people will see. But when you look traditionally, the books from the 1500s, the 1600s, those rare books that they have, they did not go into a library most of the time to begin with. They were used every day. It's just that they survived. They were not designed, you know, no one said, "Oh, that's a precious book. Let's put it over here and only certain people can touch it." It was a book that was used every day. And I figured that if I print enough of these posters, some of them will survive. You know, the way that the Guttenberg Bible survived. And that's being very vain on my part. But I believe that survival is based upon the many, not the few. SL: How does that make you feel to know that your posters are connecting with so many people, and different kinds of people? AK: It gives me great comfort because I'm able to pay my rent, I'm able to pay my utilities, I'm able to put food on the table. And those are the three things that inspire me every day. SL: Amos, I know you talked a little bit yourself at the college level. Do you think that you would go back to teaching at all? AK: I don't think there's a university that would hire me. (laughter) Did you see the movie? SL: I did. AK: Okay. So at the time I was at Indiana University. At the end of the year you're supposed to turn in a report with the number of students, the number of classes, all this stuff, so they can help start to evaluate you. I actually wrote the associate dean, the vice dean, whatever dean it was, a letter saying, "If you want to know what I do, get out of your office and come find out. That's not my job." I don't think a lot of universities, you know, although they say they want the maverick, they want the creative person, they want the person who questions-I don't think they want too many questions. (laughter) But I do do a lot of visiting artist gigs. So I still get to interface with students, and I get to kind of teach, you know, three days. And we chat and we talk about printing and we talk about life. So yeah, I still get that. SL: And do you-yeah? AK: I was going to say, the only reason I get it is because I went to Madison and I have an MFA. Because there are people out there that are far more talented than I am, but they don't have an MFA, and I don't think the university would bring them in. Because it's become that kind of exclusive-the MFA is kind of like the union card to be an artist. SL: Do you think that should change? AK: I mean, if it's about education, then you go to the best possible, I don't 00:37:00 care who it is. And if you're really about education, then one of the things, I really believe that if you're really about education, then you're looking to say this is the best that I can give my students. When I was teaching, I actually had salespeople come in and give a conversation, give a presentation on what makes a roller a roller. How do you buy ink? How is ink made? Because these are issues that they have to know about. And I don't know about it. There's nobody at the university that's studying printing rollers. Who knows about it? That salesperson who has to go out every day and talk to printers all over the country to try to get his quota. He's studied it. He knows it. SL: Well I guess, I just wanted to ask you if you had any final things that you wanted to share. AK: Uh, I don't think so. I think that you asked all the right questions. You're pretty good at this. Have you done it before? (laughter) SL: Thank you. Well, I really appreciate your time, Amos. This has been delightful.