By Voices (Vol. 1): Alabama Bloodlines

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Closeup of a yellow tag that reads "Area: By Voices, County: Black Belt, State: AL, Sample No.: 8/15, Remarks: 2013-2014."

By Voices (Vol. 1): Alabama Bloodlines contains nine items in a 17-inch by 9.5-inch sample cotton duck sack. On one side is a rugged red screen print of the state of Alabama; on the other side is the project name “By Voices.” Pocket Knife Press reviews Alabama Bloodlines and describes it as “the record of a year-long cultural, social, economic, and ecological study of Alabama through the artist book, image, sound, and film.” The nine objects in the duck sack are as follows:

  • a glass vial containing a coal sample from the Birmingham Coal Port

  • stills from each scene in the project Film: Bloodlines

  • a DVD of the film

  • a collection of letterpress printed photographs of Birmingham’s street prophecies

  • a stack of handmade cotton paper damaged with birdshot and buckshot gun blasts in the Hale County forest

  • a CD with photographs of Gene Loyd’s Barber Shop in Greensboro and an audio recording of a gospel hymn

  • another CD with an audio recording of Mary Lee Bendoff singing a spiritual

  • archival inkjet photographs of the James H. Miller, Jr. Steam Plant in Quinton

  • a tube containing rolled prints made from the impressions of junk objects found at the Norris Rail Yard in Birmingham.

Read more about the objects in this book object on the Vamp & Tramp Booksellers website. By Voices (Vol. 1): Alabama Bloodlines was printed in an edition of 15.

Charles Davenport and Crane Giamo. By Voices (Vol. 1): Alabama Bloodlines. Tuscaloosa: By Voices, 2014.

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Duck sack printed with the state of Alabama in red and the top folded over. 

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Four of the items inside the duck sack laid out on a table.

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Small vial containing a coal sample with a large white label that reads "coal ash" in red type. 

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A page with the title "Alabama Bloodlines" inside of a box filled with gray static.

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A page with a black and white image of a country road with phone lines running along one side and a house on the other. 

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A book opened to two images of the James H. Miller, Jr. Steam Plant.

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A piece of paper damaged with shotgun blasts and stained with natural forest materials.

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A page with large black and white graffiti-style lettering, the beginning of which reads "HEAR OUR CRIES SAVE UNBORN BABIES ELDERS FROM A CORRUPT..."

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A page screen-printed with a small square of abstract black and blue images.

By Voices (Vol. 1): Alabama Bloodlines