After a Place in Kansas

hand bound journal, embroidered with a William  Morris style sugar skull. 

Merriam stops by, looking for cash, maybe once a month around four. She brings her nicest things. The first time I meet her, the words stretch and hang from the scab at the corner of her mouth.
She has really nice things. They're worth more than I can give, but she is in a hurry. Merriam doesn't have the time that I have. She's on her way to mass. 

Field Guides to Acquainting with Living Things

     much like the source for their origin, these field guides have room to go in 

their arching concept of what is perception and sequentiality. mostly blank, 

the person who inherits them will have space for personal documentation with 

slight interruption of imagery; return to the scene of the crime of the things I 

left behind, and give them the purpose I didn't have the heart to. 

          

           

Here's A Charm

Made in the fashion of folk magic;
A passport for the tourism of celebration.
May your quest to enjoy every moment last...
From now on

The chain is made from hand crocheted, corrugated, gold linen thread.

         

The charm is made from an appropriated gem pin, embellished with three feather charms that came from the flea market held at the Florida fair grounds. The necklace is a birthday present.

A Few Thank Yous and a Couple Correspondences

You Are My Specimen; Let Me Take You With Me

A Pocket Album

let's move on

from trying to recreate the moment with the watusi and the grappling hook

by the time I attached to you

you fell through my colander like a fistful of sand

years passed

before I came home to find you crawling through the window of my new address

while my frame scraped your spine, we grew embarrassed in our own ways

Materials For a Photo Booth Pocket Photo Album: old book, box cutter (or x acto), glue (preferably archival), some durable paper (for the spine, and inside), straight edge

I found this Centennial Pocket Album at a thrift store on a trip to Brooklyn.

I liked the idea of a pocket album so much that once I altered the original, I decided to make reproductions.

I think it's simple and low cost enough that the process is worth sharing. Start with an old book. Cut the spine and all the pages away from the book.

Separate front and back covers into three equal pieces each. Slice the edge away, and peel it off (it doesn't necessarily have to be the existing spine, but it is a convenient marker).

Burnish the underlying layer to make it smooth for the next step.

Take two facing pieces from front and back, leaving a quarter inch of space between them. Then, put glue, (I use yasutomo nori paste), down on the raw edges of the spine, and put the durable paper over the paste, leaving the two pieces as square as possible. Gently burnish the pasted edges, and let them dry. Fold the edges of the durable paper to the inside, and fasten them there with more paste.

The left picture is the original Centennial Album. The end paper in each the middle and left picture is the durable paper cut to the full length and width of what you're left with. Then, two strips of any miscellany can be pasted at each of their end edges (the middle of the strips left without paste, so the photo booth album pics can slip in and out, easily).

An Element Plus an Element

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

A Simple Thank You

Tools: Text, 2 pieces of paper, a ribbon, needle and thread or sewing machine.