Sample Book Series I: Name this place

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.