Falling Open: On & Off the Page, Book Art and Book-Related Objects

Sheltering, folded view

In the spirit of the Japanese aesthetic of “mono no aware,” a gentle loving towards all that is doomed.

Then: A fragment of a long-ago black & white photo, of a little brown-haired girl with a shy smile, kneeling in a backyard sandbox – a container to shelter her from harm. She escapes often, to the quiet woods behind her house, where she collects bones & sticks & feathers, fodder for her imaginative adventures.

Now: There is nowhere to escape to, as a viral pandemic races around the globe and wildfires ravage the drought-stricken land. An endless time of between, of lock downs, and air too smokey to breathe. A time for art making and poetry writing and frozen zooms, where we move like masked marauders, going nowhere. The concept of time, floating yet frenzied, filled with preoccupations of wiping and sanitizing and fearing each other’s touch. And a fine layer of white ash drifts from the darkened sky, blanketing everything in sorrow.

Materials: Wood, watercolor paper, deconstructed book parts, vintage Asian box parts, sumi ink, gouache, acrylic, old photograph fragment, waxed linen thread, metal insulation support rods, old saki bottle stopper, bamboo, repurposed curtain finials, woven shoelaces, rusty washer, old postage stamps, bookcloth and Eleanor’s ephemera.
   Techniques: Gestural calligraphy, collage, assemblage, embroidery, knotting, painting, dyeing, artist’s poetry, and original accordion binding.
Year Completed:  2020.

“Albatross” addresses our global environmental crisis and the growing number of species vanishing on our planet. Birds, which have been referred to as “Windows to Heaven,” have been particularly affected.

“Albatross” refers to the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in which a sailor shoots and kills an albatross, symbol of good luck. His action results in the destruction of the ship and the death of his fellow sailors, while he remains alive,doomed to tell the tale to anyone who will listen for rest of his life.

Language relics reveal how past civilizations thought about their relationship with the environment and suggest how changes in language may have changed the relationship over time.

I explore my curiosities with paper and ink, my conjuring partners, that combine in unexpected ways, offering fresh vision and pleasure.