Artnoose/Kerbloom, Karen Switzer, Berkeley, California

In 1993, Karen Switzer moved from her warm and toasty home town in San Diego County up to Oakland, the homicide capital of California, to attend college at CCAC. She has remained a proud Oakland resident ever since, as well as a letterpress enthusiast, although she can hold conversations on other topics as well. While at CCAC, Karen made weird little pictures out of type, culminating perhaps in her series of Saint cards, reminiscent of Catholic prayer cards, but each with a strange autobiographical twist.

Upon graduation from CCAC and into the barn/printshop of book arts legend Betsy Davids, Karen printed and bound The Martyrdom of Ss. Crispin & Crispinian, a three part visual story depicting the torture and execution of two early French martyred saints. In the summer of 1996, Karen had a great idea that was to change the course of her own history at least. She had hitherto been writing for other people's zines and printing things on a letterpress, so she got the idea of printing her own letterpress-printed zine. The bimonthly zine Ker-bloom! was born, and she has printed it punctually ever since. Recently, Karen made the big move with Marie into the studio they both used to work at making handmade greeting cards and now prints Ker-bloom! there, along with custom invitation jobs and the like. In addition to being enjoyed the way it is, Ker-bloom! has been bound into two 21-issue volumes by the rad folks at Booklyn. Two issues on sebaceous cysts were edited together into one story and published in Morbid Curiosity magazine. Another issue was reprinted in the 2001 Zine Yearbook. Numerous reviews have been written and published for years, some good, some tepid, and some downright scandalous. Ain't life like that though?

You can check out Kerbloom and some of Karen's more socially acceptable shenanigans on the Crafty Cards website.

This page is maintained by Marshall Weber.