I walked my daughter to school when she was young. We stopped to observe many things, but it was the milkweed that most captured our attention. With each new day we watched the plant change color and texture, my daughter eagerly waiting for the pods to open. This experience taught us about patience, mystery, and for me, learning to embrace the darkness – the place where ideas are conceived and grow, much like the seeds in the pod.
The Walk is a sculptural artist book that encourages us to pause and reflect. Close-up images of the milkweed pod are coupled with two narratives – one my own, and the other a diary excerpt of 19th century Swiss philosopher Henri-Frederik Amiel. Original monotypes have been reproduced as offset lithographs for this edition. The Walk is letterpress printed in an edition of twenty-five, and housed in a wrapper and slipcase made by Linda Lembke of Green River Bindery.
8" x 7". $550
This book was completed during an artist residency at Maine Media Workshops + College in Rockport, Maine.
Selected for inclusion in the following exhibitions: Formation, a Guild of Book Workers traveling exhibition 2018-2019, On Paper: Printmaking, Book Arts & Beyond at the Kay Daugherty Gallery, Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center, Sojourns: Artist’s Books and Handmade Paper at Salmon Falls Gallery, The International Art of the Book at the Rochester Public Library, and The Door Between: Book Arts and Historical Process Photography at Maine Media Gallery. Recipient of the Bibliophoria V Merit Award.
In the collections of Baylor University, Colby College, Colorado State University, Washington University at St. Louis, and Carleton College
Photography by Stephen Petegorsky.
"Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for the unknown God. Then if a bird sings among your branches, do not be too eager to tame it.
If you are conscious of something new - thought or feeling, wakening in the depths of your being - do not be in a hurry to let in light upon it, to look at it; let the springing germ have the protection of being forgotten, hedge it round with quiet, and do not break in upon its darkness; let it take shape and grow, and not a word of your happiness to anyone! Sacred work of nature it is, all conception should be enwrapped by the triple veil of modesty, silence and night." - Henri Frederik Amiel