A LOVE STORY
Blake and Hannah met at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana while Hannah was finishing up her undergraduate BFA with a concentration in printmaking, and Blake was getting started on his MFA in printmaking.
At first, Blake thought Hannah was some kind of itchy, excitable midget and Hannah found Blake to be an uppity ascetic. It turns out, they were both right, but they learned to love each other, anyway. They bonded over their shared passions of printmaking, drawing, cooking and hard work.
They were married in a series of official 2011 Southern Graphics Council Conference International events entitled Blessed Unions in Saint Louis, Missouri. Blessed Unions was comprised of three days of functions including an exhibition at Fort Gondo Compound for the Arts, a panel discussion on making printmaking partnerships work, and two wedding ceremony performances. Check out the Blessed Unions page for more information on these events.
Blake and Hannah spent many years together exploring South Louisiana commuting to teach at a variety of institutions in the surrounding area including Tulane University in New Orleans, Baton Rouge Community College, and the University of Louisiana in Lafayette. After nearly 8 years in the swamp, they took off for a tenuous 6-month adventure in Murray, Kentucky. Then, out of sheer necessity, they suddenly relocated to Bowling Green, Ohio at the beginning of 2013.
They then braved the perils of living a 14 hour drive apart, which included lengthy phone conversations full of, “what are you thinking about?”s while Blake taught Printmaking at Bowling Green State University, and Hannah taught Drawing, Design, and Art Appreciation at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.
They are now happily reunited in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where they both teach at Southeast Missouri State University. They were joined by Levee in December, 2014. And are expecting their second child in May 2020!
ABOUT BLAKE
Blake Anthony Sanders hails from Cedar Falls, Iowa. He has a BFA from the University of Northern Iowa and an MFA from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA in Printmaking.
He loves peanut butter on saltines, plain black bic ink pens and checking out films from the library. Blake was formerly an Instructor in Printmaking and then Interim Area Head of Printmaking at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Just prior to that, he was an Adjunct Professor of Drawing and Printmaking at Murray State University in Murray, KY as well as Austin Peay University in Clarkesville, Tennessee. He is currently an Instructor at Southeast Missouri State University, where he teaches foundations of art and art appreciation.
http://blakeanthonysanders.com/
ABOUT HANNAH
Hannah March Sanders was born and raised in Georgia. She has a BFA from Tulane University in New Orleans and a Printmaking MFA from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Hannah enjoys rainy afternoons, 0.5mm Staedler black ink pens, and the smell of old books. She spent part of 2012 and the beginning of 2013 as an Adjunct Professor at Murray State University in Murray and Madisonville, Kentucky, where she taught Drawing III, Drawing II: Figure Drawing, Art Materials & Techniques for the Classroom Teacher and Art Appreciation. Hannah spent the rest of 2013 working at Les Cheneaux Design Type, a letterpress and design shop, and teaching printmaking and other art workshops at art-a-site! Gallery and Studio in downtown Bowling Green, Ohio.
She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Southeast Missouri State University, where she is Area Head of Printmaking and teaches Printmaking, Fiber Arts, and Drawing. She is also the letterpress area coordinator at Catapult Press, Catapult Creative House: a center for arts entrepreneurship.
http://hannahmarchsanders.com/
ABOUT 
So, you might ask, “How come y’all are called Orange Barrel Industries, yet this little orange symbol is all over your page rather than, say, the more logical choice of an orange traffic barrel?”
What is the meaning of this?
Well, Blake has obsessively collected these little bread tags/ties throughout his 14 years of working in kitchens. He has hundreds of the little buggers in jars around our home. They fueled an entire body of work entitled Not On Bread Alone, which focused on the concept of needing more to survive than basic sustenance. What might we need in addition to food? Love, romance, companionship… All of this fits into a larger conceptual focus for Blake’s body of work Has Romance Gone the Way of the Dinosaurs? And it also serves as a symbol of our own union and the important ways in which working together has made us both better artists, teachers and people in general.
Long story longer, as a basic design, this cute little tag reads well at small sizes, low resolutions and it recognized as a familiar form by pretty much everyone. Even if you couldn’t place it right at first, I’m sure you were familiar with the shape. And that’s why it makes a good logo for us. The End.