Second-year Book and Paper student Heather Buechler is going to be able to expand her research through a Rosenblum Award, a competitive award available to Columbia’s graduate students who plan to present at or attend professional conferences related to their fields of study. Buechler, a midwestern native, has been researching print production, distribution and use of agricultural sacks as used for feed, flour, grain, seed as part of her practice. She will attend the Ephemera/34, “Food & Drink: From Field to Table” Conference March 14-16 in Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

“I look to these materials as more than the rich agricultural relics that they are,” says Buechler, “but find in their history a larger narrative of the transformation of agriculture, its impact on rural America, and the progression of the printmaking technology as it is principally recorded on the sacks themselves.” Buechler notes that although this research touches on both the agricultural and print industries, information remains scarce, and that the agricultural sack, as a form of product packaging, is classified as an object of ephemera. Going to the Ephemera/34 Conference will allow her to make needed connections among collectors, dealers, institutions, and scholars.