History of Hammock Residency Press

Dear Reader, 

Hammock Residency Press first published their first book with Project Space, in a residency headed up by Tracy Stefanucci. Tracy took me under her wing and helped me produce “Hammock Thoughts” in 2012. It was produced via submissions from an open call to every Hammock Resident that had participated in the project thus far, and then brought to Tracy to help with Photoshop, and inDesign, and the nitty gritties of book design. 

Hammock Thoughts was published under Project Space, and launched at the Vancouver Art / Book Fair, where Heidi Nagtegaal had an artist in residence, and created a Hammock Residency large, full scale, installation in Room 304 featuring the People’s Library, which was gifted to Hammock Residency by the Occupy Movement (2010), through to Dharma Lab (2011), and then to Hammock. The People’s Library was open for giving and receiving, and was in a pillow and blanket lined installation space, where Nagtegaal hosted artist talks from the Hammock Residents. 

Hammock Thoughts (2014) was voted as one of the top ten books published by Artspeak Artist Run Centre, which was a great honor. There was a varied edition of 50 copies made.

In 2014, Nagtegaal decided to publish a second edition of Hammock Thoughts through Hammock Residency, again through an open call submission to artists who have participated in the project. The idea was to make it a “living document” where the skeleton of the book design would remain, with certain articles removed, and others inserted, and the design changed to reflect the Hammock in its present state, connected to the past, but in its own moment. 

Nagtegaal worked with Ella Collier to redesign, and reincorporate the new works, and released Hammock Thoughts, edition 2 in 2014, this time through the formation of their own press: Hammock Residency Press. A varied edition of 50 copies were made, and released at the Vancouver Art / Book Fair. 

In 2016, Hammock Residency closed its doors for a deep reset, along with Hammock Residency Press. It had been years of Nagtegaal running Hammock with no funding, out of their place of residence, and the lines between public and private were blurry at best. Realistically, they were non-existent, and the only way to get that sense of recalibration was to come to a full stop and let the dream of the Hammock come back slowly. 

During 2017 there were a series of eclipses, in which Nagtegaal burned all the Hammock Artifacts, which were sculptures that Nagtegaal had made during the years of hosting Hammock Residency in their home. There were easily 80 sculptures that had been made, and were burned during this time. The intention was for the energy of Hammock to be redistributed in the decentralized web of heart strings that were Hammock, as it was a relational project. Nagtegaal held a lot of guilt and sadness over closing the project, and it was part of their healing. 

In 2017 sophia bartholomew was given a tarot deck that Bennie Allain had started to make while they were in their artist residency in 2015. A maritime artist, and with bartholomew living in Fredricton at the time, Canadian Art Magazine had asked bartholomew to do a writing piece on maritime art. Part of this writing project became a trip that bartholomew made to Vancouver, with Allain’s tarot deck, to gift to Nagtegaal. At this time, Nagtegaal was reading tarot in the front of a health food store, called Quidditas. bartholomew booked a reading with Nagtegaal, where they were given Allain’s deck. In accordance with tarot tradition, Nagtegaal gifted bartholomew a tarot deck in exchange. This exchange became part of the writing project that they did for the Canadian Art Magazine. It was a healing exchange for Nagtegaal, as it showed the heart strings of Hammock Residency were still alive, though not activated by themselves.

bartholomew and Nagtegaal continued their conversation, sophia writing a piece about Nagtegaal, Hammock, and loss which was pitched to C Magazine, but not picked up. It didn’t matter, since the conversation was really the focus. Out of this conversation came ideations between the two artists about possible ways Hammock could come back, with different structures. 

In 2020, bartholomew and Nagtegaal wrote a series of grants for Hammock Residency, proposing an online residency structure. The grants were successful, and Hammock Residency re-opened in 2021 with 6 residents, all of which were invited to publish 11×17 ” two color risopgraph posters, printed at Moniker Press, and released through Hammock Residency Press.

In 2021, Estraven Lupino Smith, Carly Pokoradi and Otis Bell published risograph pieces as per above description, Sarah Lum had decided to silkscreen them herself, a multi color silkscreen, with painted inclusions, on 11×17” double sided paper. Nagtegaal released a series of Hammock patches that they made in collaboration with, and printed by Sarah Lum. 

Hammock Residency has always had a wide, decentralized network of artists who have done Hammock Residency over the years, and in the spirit of self publishing and distribution, Nagtegaal decided to launch the Decentralized Distribution Network, where artists in this network were approached, and paid a small honorarium to distribute the publications in their area. Each artist is called a “node” in a nod to the larger collective network. In this way, Hammock Residency was able to distribute their publications across so-called Canada, and feed back into that decentralized network of heartstrings that Hammock was based on.

In 2022, the same opportunity was given to the Hammock Residents, but this time, a single sided, black and white 11×17 “ risograph poster. Of the four residents, two produced published works, with the other two residents joining in the following year, to allow them more time for creation. At the end of the year, Nagtegaal invited Estraven Lupino Smith to join the collective in the role of Publishing Manager, and work with Hammock Residency to develop the Nodes and Hammock Residency Press as a Project. Smith and Nagtegaal had stayed in touch since Smith’s residency, often talking about diy, publishing, and how to expand the program. 

2023 is a year for Nagtegaal to mentor Smith, and in 2024, Smith will take over the Hammock Residency Press program on their own. 2023 includes a new batch of residents, who will be invited to make publications with the HRP as well. Ideas include expanding the Press to submissions to previous Hammock residents, as well as another edition of Hammock Thoughts. 

All of this is grant pending, conversation dependent, and individual specific. There are plans, but at the same time, anything could happen. It is a joy to have started this program, and an honor to pass it on. 

Love,

Heidi Nagtegaal

March 2, 2022