Anamnesis

These pieces explore the foundation of the book and its contents and the function these items serve. Blank pages, bones, leaves, binder's materials and accompanying matter are housed in shadow boxes, as though seen from behind the imperfect glass of memory.

*Clues Left Before

The piece measures approx. 4.5 inches wide by 4.5 inches high and is signed and dated on the back by the artist.

*The Body of the Book

The piece measures approx. 4.5 inches wide by 4.5 inches high and is signed and dated on the back by the artist.

*The Specimen

Draconis Libris: a Book of Dragon-Fly Kind

A whimiscal piece enclosed in a coffee-stained shadow box, Draconis Libris is both a specimen of dragon-fly and a compendium of fly types. The spine of Draconis Libris is a solid bone. Its wings are tiny pages, affixed to the spine with binder's thread. On each wing is categorized one of the Draconis family. This specimen is mounted on brocade bookcloth to highlight the paleness of its pages.

The piece measures approx. 4.5 inches wide by 4.5 inches high and is signed and dated on the back by the artist.

In Limbo

These pieces were begun in Lytham during a chthonic and chaotic period of time that eventually led to the transformation of my entire life. The pieces were completed in Wakefield where everything changed and signify, for me, the phases of decay and rebirth evident in all of our lives.

*Flowerfall

This piece measures approximately 6" by 6" and is 5/8" thick. Wooden frame with a gold paint underlay onto which stained paper has been glazed. Inset into the frame is glass covered with hand-made paper onto which slate, blown down from the rooftops of Lancashire, has been adhered. Dried carnations, individually varnished, fall like a curtain in front of stone. A single shell found at the coast rests below.

I have kept watch, gazed in silent stillness out of so many windows, and watched rain drizzle slowly down the pane. Would that the rain was flowers, just like these, a curtain of petals, and I the shell—not solid, like the slate, but ever-turning, changing, growing wise.

*Babe in the Egg

This freestanding piece measures approximately 6" by 6" and is 5/8" thick. Wooden frame with a gold paint underlay onto which strips of hand-made paper have been glazed. Inset into the frame is glass covered with stained paper onto which a clamshell has been adhered. Inside the shell is a stone, a bone, and below it a bone and a shell.

We are all babes in the egg, like this little stone, with wings, like that little bone, waiting to unfold. Some have a troublesome ladder to climb once born, while others simple spread their wings and fly.

*Parts of a Whole

This piece measures approximately 6" by 6" and is 5/8" thick. Wooden frame with a gold paint underlay onto which hand-made paper has been glazed. Inset into the frame is glass covered with stained paper, slate from the rooftops of Lancashire, a single sea-worn and broken shell from the coast of the Ribble estuary, one frond of flowers plucked and preserved and one broken bone of unknown origin.

Parts when put together form a whole, but each whole is no more than another part of some greater whole.