One rhododendron bush in May 2020 (2020). Pen, gouache, and acrylic on handmade paper (milkweed paper covers and straps, harakeke pages). 10 leaves, unique, 5 x 4.75 x 0.5” closed. Cynthia Sears Artists’ Books Collection.

This book cycles through days of looking at the same rhododendron bush in May during lockdown in Ohio, using papers that I had made on different occasions from botanical fibers. I made the covers from milkweed (Asclepias) harvested in Michigan (thanks to a 2019 visit to Pati Scobey’s Concord studio) and the pages from harakeke (Phormium tenax) in Australia (thanks to a 2018 visit to Barb Adams’ Melbourne studio). The binding, a backstitch structure made entirely from cut and folded paper, was invented by Elizabeth Steiner. I learned it from her book with Claire Van Vliet, Woven and Interlocking Book Structures (Janus Gefn Unlimited, 2002). Each pen and gouache drawing sits on an acrylic paint background, and this book is one of the few complete pieces that I managed to create during this scary solitary time.

The Drama of a Few Square Feet (2020). Acrylic and gouache on Wake Robin papers, thread, marigold dye on handmade papers.

Version 1: 6 leaves, mulberry & milkweed covers, milkweed endsheets, mulberry chiri pages. 5.75 x 4.25 x 0.74”. Private collection.
Version 2: 6 leaves, mulberry & milkweed covers, milkweed endsheets, mulberry chiri pages. 5.3 x 4.25 x 0.5”. Private collection.
Version 3: 7 leaves, milkweed covers, yucca endsheets, salago pages. 5.5 x 4.5 x 0.5”. Cynthia Sears Artists’ Books Collection.
Version 4: 6 leaves, milkweed covers & endsheets, salago pages. 5.75 x 4.4 x 0.5”. Oak Spring Garden Foundation.

When lockdown began in early March 2020, to stay sane I began to draw a rhododendron bush in my front border that I could see from my living room. I sat there almost every day and drew the plant, adding a time and date to each drawing. This practice was encouraged and supported by a Covid-19 relief grant from OSGF after I began. The first drawings were in my sketchbook, but I eventually made smaller drawings on tiny pieces of handmade paper from a colleague (Velma Bolyard of Wake Robin). On occasion I would also draw a few other plants in the border as they appeared as the weather warmed. I brought all the drawings to Oak Spring for my residency in July/Aug 2020 as well as my own larger paper in hopes of practicing more 100% paper structures that involve cutting and folding paper and using paper straps rather than sewing books with needle and thread. I have made these books for years, inspired by Woven and Interlocking Structures by Claire Van Vliet and Elizabeth Steiner.

My artists’ book looks at the tiny ecosystem of my front border, which is only a few square feet, and how it grows and persists. Of course I was also consumed by bigger problems in the world, and how so many situations replicate themselves in small and large systems: how we tolerate “other” people and become good neighbors (the way that some plants do, and also how my plants survive in a small, shady, acidic, clay border), how we survive the weather (do we lose limbs, leaves, or pieces of our shelters), and how we behave in different climates (being compliant to certain forces like the sun or the police, or taking time to rest when it is cold).

Good Neighbors (2020). Pen, gouache, acrylic on handmade paper. 6 x 8 x 0.4”. 6 leaves. Variable edition of two. Cynthia Sears Artists’ Books Collection; Carleton College Gould Library.

Good Neighbors

It’s easy to think it’s just us.
But we’re not the only ones occupying this land.
While busy multiplying and growing
adjacent, others are doing exactly the same
US.
THEM.
Or, we could learn
to be better neighbors

Sample Book Series I: Name this place (2023). Inkjet print on milkweed paper, indigo and persimmon paper string, assorted handmade botanical papers. 11.75 x 7.1 x 0.25” closed, 14.3” wide open. 26 pages, full and half sheets. One of a kind. Cynthia Sears collection.

Ideal not only for collections that house artists’ books, but those that value horticulture and plant products. This is the first in a series of books that highlights the legibility of sample books and their possibilities for storytelling, record keeping, organization, and collecting precious bits of time, labor, and photosynthesis. It also doubles as a sample book as it contains 14 unique samples of plant papers gathered in the Cleveland area in 2013.

Name this place

Almost ten years ago

I left home

the precious family-ridden center of

my life and many millions more lives

to try and make another home.

I had built the center of my work in a different place

visited this new place for a few years,

a place I never imagined could be home

Risky, but I had to try.

I began in August and gathered as many plants as I was given

stems

seeds

leaves

stalks

given eagerly

groaning in abundance

Unable to suppress laughter

I hugged giant leaves,

sat for hours and days to pull tiny seeds and buoyant fluff from slim dark pods

I met people who shared their plants,

space, and

whatever was useful.

In one season, one glorious fall,

I made these pages from

iris,

dogbane stems,

dogbane seedpods, fluff, and seeds,

dogbane seeds and fluff,

elephant ears,

cattail,

bleached cattail,

milkweed seeds and fluff,

milkweed bast from one garden,

milkweed fluff,

milkweed bast from another,

milkweed fluff and all its sheen,

milkweed bast, and cover

of hosta.