HANDMADE BOOKS

During the quiet quarantine (and devastation of Covid), my work wandered into book form. Small, handmade books, about 24 pages each, with poems and pictures talking to each other about themselves, my self, and hopefully to you about our world together.

By snail mail I sent about 250 of each book to friends and contacts across the world. I figured that my work likely found more viewers by appearing in their mailboxes than I ever could have gathered for a gallery show.

My first book, Paper Pantheon, is a chapbook of portraits, alternately called, Guides or Guardians, and a suite of poems, mostly love poems to you, Reader, from me. A way to reach out from isolation. A way to reaffirm our humanity, our friendship (or aspirational friendship on my part), just a shimmering of hellos draped upon you.

Disregard if you wish, there’s nothing inherently precious here. The books are printed on my home printer - nothing fancy - a chapbook, a booklet, a pamphlet, a pile of picture and poem pages. Sent in the mail. We haven’t lost the thrill of getting a handwritten envelope in the postbox.

The second book, See + Chatter, is a collection of street photos and a suite of poems in a horizontal format. This collection takes us out into the world to explore the humor, the abstraction, the whimsy of every day sights. The poems are also an incantation to the world, chronicles of my tripping around out there and the beauty that I find in common objects.

Full Figure, my third small book and one in a tall format, brings the reader inside the idea of standing up, finding how to be a full figure in the world, to grow up, to be seen and to fit.