Lacey Prpic Hedtke
Excitement and Adventure

There’s a ton of books out there about Depression-era gangsters, but none where you can look through the archives of fingerprints, hilarious ransom notes, wanted posters and rap sheets. 11 brown paper envelopes are stuffed with primary sources about individual gangsters who traveled through St. Paul, Minnesota, and includes two trading cards (each zine gets different cards). Extensive research in the Minnesota Historical Society archives reveal threats, chivalry, and the monotony of being a gangster on the lam in this scrapbook-like artists’ book.  The book also includes an extensive timeline and bibliography, an awards ceremony, and gangster lexicon, all typewritten on an old typewriter, letter by letter, across the street from the scene of a brewmaster’s kidnapping in the 1930s. St. Paul was once a happening and corrupt town with speakeasies, breweries operating blatantly in the face of prohibition, brothels, illegal gambling, and rigged elections. Now it’s a sleepy town, providing plenty of time to conduct research about the wilder times.  The celebrity gangsters and molls featured are: Doc Barker, Fred Barker, Tommy Carroll, Larry DeVol, John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Evelyn Frechette, Alvin “Creepy” Karpis, Baby Face Nelson, and Homer Van Meter.

Self published
6×8.5 inches, 40 pp, Photocopied paper, envelopes, glue, trading cards, hand stitch bound, 2009
Open edition
$15 USD

Available from Etsy.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/polkaostrich

Lacey Prpić Hedtke is a radical librarian, zinester and antiquarian photographer. She holds a BFA in photography from the Art Institute of Boston in Boston, Massachusetts and an MLIS from St. Catherine University in Saint Paul, Minnesota.     Lacey has a strong interest in independent publishing, and has self-published seven zines (small-run handmade artist books): Likes/Dislikes (2005) Very True (2005), Etiquette (2006), Cereal Boxes and Milk Crates: Zine LIbraries and Infoshops are…NOW! (2007), Likes/Dislikes 2 (2008), Toxic (2008) and Excitement and Adventure (2009).     For three years, Lacey was a collective member of the Belfry Center for Social and Cultural Activities, a collectively run community space where she curated art shows, coordinated music shows, and spent most of her time organizing, cataloging and building the Bat Annex Free School’s lending zine library, which was housed in the Belfry. Her work has been shown in Boston, New York, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Chicago, and in a traveling exhibition in the United Kingdom.    She continues to work in Civil War-era photography processes, and teaches them at the Mpls Photo Center. She spent two years learning mediumship at The Greater Boston Church of Spiritualism in Watertown, Massachusetts. Lacey lives in Minneapolis with her dog and many instruments. She is constantly researching something esoteric and of questionable relevance to her life, and is always learning.