I see books everywhere. Making books since 1983, teaching bookmaking, and writing about books have given me this sight. When I see something that opens—a medicine cabinet, an orange—immediately I think "book."

I've always had a push/pull relationship with my muses. Some days I see new images and other days I hear words. It has become easier to switch between them, but the division remains. Making books is the natural outgrowth of working back and forth this way, the bridge between writing and art, the synthesis of work I am compelled to do. The creative process is exciting: weaving webs to make the absurd plausible is the challenge. Dreams, poems, overheard conversations, memories—if it has a good story to it, I'll use it. Quiet moments, observation with an edge, and awkward relationships are some of my topics.

I like exploring materials as well, particularly paper, felt, sticks, glass, and fabric. I make prints. I make felt. I paint paper. Sometimes I make an edition. Sometimes a one-of-a-kind. I'll use whatever form, materials, and techniques to expand and deepen the narrative and to explore communication across and through language and culture.

My medium is book.

ARTIST STATEMENT 2018

I am interested in the bridge between images and words and experimenting with the reading experience. For years I found the answer making books, most the size of my hands. More recently, the quilt has caught my muse; I can piece small, but work large, enveloping the body. Yet, they still feel like books to me. I use a letterpress to create layered prints while I explore philosophical and social questions, and with the numerous linoleum blocks I've carved, I may use an old block from a book in a new quilt. Additionally, I print with wood type inherited from my grandfather. Color is an important part of my work as well—the brightly colored southern California sun-drenched palette I grew up is one influence, but I also like mixing up the foggy greys, muted sage greens and tans of the Berkeley area I call home. In the spaces between dreaming and waking, pictures and words, text and texture, and among groups of images, the viewer must interpret or fill in the gap: a little mysterious leap of inference. A different way to read.

 

Gallery Representation: Seager Gray Gallery, Vamp & Tramp

 

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