Dear, please deal with the negative space I left

     It started with a ledger I found,

preserved in its original plastic, to

make a home planner/vision for a 

friend.  

     Using text books and other cut-outs, 

I provided things native to his land, 

leaving space for adding and subtracting. 

     The subtracting part is important,

so rather than glue, I sliced the pages

with a utility knife (trying not to cut 

the next page), and placed the cutouts' 

corners in the slots (remove at will).

     My favorite feature uses three 

similar layouts to the house, implying 

a garden using velcro on certain 

spaces on the plots, and providing a 

library of plants of varying sizes and 

colors, with velcro on their backs, in 

the envelope. 

A Few Thank Yous and a Couple Correspondences

Saint Peter's Cross

did not begin as sacrilege

but was inverted to show St. Peter's better side

coptic bound,

altered book

meetings as memory and snow flakes

I played games as a child, where I was moving without touching the ground. We drove around in cars made from the tops of gift boxes, and we built bridges from books so that we could cross the hot lava without losing a limb. I don't know how we rationalized what 'counted' as safe ground, and what didn't. I just know that there was always a we, because these games were not fun without one, and you can't decide what really 'counts' without one. The rules seem permanent when there's a consensus.
I have just been thinking about staying in touch, and the impossibility of truly remaining there. People are splinters, aside from the words we use, and the sentimentality we prescribe to every person we make love to, or eat lunch with.
So here is to a good first impression, repeated like pi, or ground hog's day, to time spent reborn as memory, and to our mind's arbitrary reflexes:




"How many of these exquisitely constructed jewels do we heedlessly crush and shatter unconsciously during a brief walk in the snow and how crude and imperfect seem the productions of human minds and hands when compared to those formed by the blind forces of nature."
-Jean M. Thompson

The Compound Umbel Looks Like a Leaky Umbrella

When the stalks all arise at the same level, the inflorescence is an umbel. An umbel is compound when it is repeatedly branched.

This book is coptic bound, and approximately 4x5". It's a blank book, inside, and was altered from less than one cover of a reader's digest book, some packing materials for a multi-tool, tracing paper, plant diagrams, and stamped text. Happy Birthday to Melinda, a bit late.

"The mind is an open cavity in which the entire village dwells, and the jungle grows"

(from Bonfire of the Vanities, by Tom Wolfe) (A piece from an old laundry bag as the spine; an old book, coptic bound, again)
to: kimo based on the music stand of Evelyn Foust

"Each person is a transitory composite of materials borrowed from the environment." I hope that he will look at this book, and not be disappointed that I cut up some important relics, to create a new one.

We Are Not Leaving This Land and We Will Begin to Become Native to it When We Recognize This Fact

I wish for community through craft.


To you, I want to be what I create. Identity is so much more identifiable when there's a product to exhibit. My and your sole consistent characteristics could be what we do, and people would sleep easier knowing this about us. All the comfort in social situations comes from familiarity.

My onl y real plan for making that happen involves a vague concept for personal momentum.

A Drawing A Day

I hoped to create a good habit, starting
with this book. It's made from an old
book, and uses the buttonhole stitch,
linen thread, and recycled papers, left
over from past books, projects, mail, etc.

Leather Bound: 1st ed.

To: Brandon Basino
nature and nostalgia

The Damsel and the Sage: Coptic Bound

The Damsel and the Sage hails from Asheville, North Carolina. I believe from original form to deconstructed, it is perfectly suited for who it now belongs to.

Everything is Appropriate(d) in Design

Posession is our only obstacle.

Octopus on the Playground: The Appropriation of Public Space is a concept book. It is bound in a traditional buttonhole stitch, and is made of hand-dyed and bleached, recycled newspaper. Aside from the title and the characterization of the title, the backgrounds are borrowed from contemporary album artwork.

the original collages: dyed newspaper, appropriated album imagery, gouache