R D Burton – Company Housing

FOBA 2021 Juried Exhibition

Completed 2021
Open Edition
Dimensions closed: 7.25” x 6” x 2”
Materials: HammerMill color copy 80#, museum board, Tyvek , magnetic closure
Artist resides in Havre de Grace, Maryland

Our family moved into company housing at the Universal Atlas Cement plant in Independence, Kansas, in the summer of 1945. My mother raised five children in company housing and waged an endless battle with the dust. My father worked in the power house where the plant generated its own electricity. I have fond memories of growing up in this place. I remember the sounds of the plant – the ongoing hum of the plant machinery and the sound of the dinky trains as they brought limestone from the quarry or red clay from the pits near the Verdigris River. In the afternoon, dynamite blasts set off in the quarry caused the windows in our house to rattle. The houses were moved into town in 1959. The plant fell silent when production ended in 2008 and it was razed in 2011.

R D Burton (Havre de Grace, Maryland)

R D Burton was born and raised in Kansas. He received a MA in Studio Arts from Rutgers University and studied book arts at the University for the Arts in Philadelphia. His books are in over twenty-five special collections nationwide and overseas including: The Smithsonian, Carnegie Mellon University, Mass Art, University of California-Berkeley, Otis College of Art and Design, Seattle Museum of Art and Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar. R D has exhibited in over 50 book arts exhibitions. R D lives and maintains his studio in Havre de Grace, Maryland.


rdburtonbookartist.com