i see the backs of your hands, 2016, unbound artist’s book on unbleached Mulberry paper with letterpress, screen prints and thread in hard cover overlap folio, 9.125” x 12.125” x .5” closed, 26” x 12.125” x .25” open. Edition of 8, Copies available through Vamp and Tramp Booksellers.

I created this book after losing my father suddenly in 2015. The design & typography reveal aspects of our loving, but challenging relationship. The neutrality of the color, generosity of the negative space and the fluid line work come together to express feelings of fragility after such a loss. Typesetting for this book was a meditative process; it allowed me to focus on assembling words with my hands, letter by letter, as I worked through waves of anger and sadness.  On each unbound page, the open, broken lines of text exist in a liminal space. Drawn and stitched lines add a tactile sensibility, anchoring these reflections about life and death into something tangible. Leaving it unbound was a choice based, in part, in wanting to display the piece floating on the wall. Visitors to the exhibition “Transcendence” in 2016 walked past the installation of the sheets pinned to the wall with long silver dissecting needles, any movement of air causing them to flutter and settle. This interactive quality and the delicacy of these pages express the ephemeral, transitory nature of grief and loss. Stacked in the portfolio, the transparency of the pages allows text to be seen through the sheets and viewers handle each sheet one at time.