Paula Hocks’ Running Women Press

Sacred Stitches: Running Women Press

Elizabeth Cook-Romero/ Santa Fe New Mexican Pasatiempo ~ February 18-24, 2005

Paula Hocks, artist and founder of Running Women Press, made books printed on copy machines. Her books’ bindings often consisted of a few stitches, yet, in spite of their ephemeral look, they are complex works of art.Material printed on copy machines has a disposable feel, but Hocks wasn’t trying to make affordable, throwaway art, said bookbinder Priscilla Spitler, a longtime friend of Hocks and now executor of the deceased artist’s works. “She viewed her works as precious even in the chapbook form. They were almost sacred to her. For Paula it was the whole piece, not just the binding. It was the text, the image, and how it all worked together.”

“I would say there was a resurgence in handmade books in the ‘70s. Paula was experimenting with new printing technology,” Spitler said. “From the ‘70s until her death in 2003, you can see the whole history of photocopy technology in her work. As her work matured, the photocopy technology matured.”Hocks’ favorite medium was collage, and most of her books were photocopied from collages. Occasionally she would reissue a book after the technology had changed enough to give the new edition a different feel from the first one, Spitler said. At other times, Hocks issued books in two editions, a chapbook using simple homemade construction and a deluxe edition that might be sent out for professional binding.Hocks and Spitler met at book fair at the Santa Fe Bookseller store in 1979. “I purchased one of her books for $50,” Spitler recalled. “Little did I know that was an investment in a lifetime of friendship and collaboration.” An elaborate binding Spitler made for Running Women Press is included in Lasting Impressions: The Private Presses of New Mexico.

Tiska Blankenship, former director of the Jonson Gallery at the University of New Mexico, has curated two shows of Hocks’ collages and books. Hocks, who grew up in Oklahoma, dropped out of high school to take care of her sick mother, Blankenship said. “She always maintained that Oklahoma way of being a lady. She had a photographic memory and read everything, encyclopedias and everything.”Hocks kept every aspect of her technique simple and straightforward. Many of the images in Hocks’ collages were taken with her point-and-shoot camera. “It proves it’s all in the eye,” Blankenship said. “She loved the personal, homemade quality. She used always the same typewriter and her own handwriting.“I know a lot of people in the field worried about whether her materials would hold up. In the earliest black-and-white xerox there was texture in the ink. I called George Eastman House, and they said xerox would last as long as anything.”