Adaptations of Birds: On Winged Things and Others in the Sky

I am disappointed in the quality of these, the only photos I have, of this book. I was meeting a deadline of sorts, and sacrificed documentation for detail. Left is before, right is after. The inside pages are collages, paintings, and blank pages paying homage to the beautiful things in the sky. I'm happy that my work is taking direction again. I moved across the country, and for the time before, and a little after the move, I was all over the place. This book took shape in a way that I am familiar with, but found me desiring cohesion apart from the context of the owner. Most of my books are gifts, and some of them turn into a more personal documentation of my relationship with the owner.
The inside pages are mostly new to the book, coptic bound, and glued by end pages to the cover. The folios consist of pages from the original book, tracing paper, gouache paintings of walking patterns of birds, pictures from old books, and so on. The cover is altered by an octagonal recess, covered with green graph paper, with a layer of tracing paper on top. On the underside of the tracing paper are penciled diagrams of war planes, and on the upperside is the stamped text of the title.

moving on

Art is a progressive preservation of culture, through craft. Art is action, an exchange. American art is a reaction to capitalism. Commerce is a network where trade is skill exchanged for craft, or company, or companionship. Collaboration is a journey that ends in wandering, and I couldn’t mean anything without empathy. If reflection is our movement, then this recession has gone too far. We are incestuous with our past, and we’re dying out like the Tudors, or the Romanovs. We’re gone. How am I supposed to know where we are? I’m just telling stories like mirrors, to see myself in them. Reflection is our movement. Look at the wordless stories I tell. Fiction is not honest. The ambiguity of the relics I create end with a willful suspension of disbelief in people. Trends move quickly, and my process is a furious catfish…someone placed glass underneath it, and it doesn’t know why but it can’t get to the bottom (of anything). Materials are easy to come by, because being resourceful has become about making connections. I use stitches, and hand shakes. I’m lucky that everything’s related. The places at which we draw personal lines are tangential to the circles in which we walk. We walk in circles. We talk the same way we walk. And I would like to make a point, the only one: Appropriation is a faculty of sustainability.

"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.

Chase Several Hares and You Won't Catch One

Darren Ohl is moving to Eugene, Oregon. I am going to miss him. I hope he keeps being really funny, and a little bit twisted, and somewhat sentimental in a really even, and natural way. I hope he documents some of it in the book I made for him. To Eugene:

This is an old book I found in a vintage store in Orlando called DejaVu.It's a coptic bound book, bound inside out from the cover. The spine is cut as a buttonhole stitch, acting as a window, to a very limited amount of the book's secrets.
There's a ribbon to seal it closed, hopefully just masculine enough. The top of the saddle has leather above it, hopefully just western enough. I hope the composition is balanced. I hope the concept doesn't get stuck in the execution. I hope the execution doesn't end everything in a bloody mess, with too many onlookers. It wouldn't make sense. Not in this day and age.

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.

1404 Clay St.

I didn't blog much in the month of April. I was moving. I've also been interviewing for anything I can. I hate the service industry, and people on their cell phones. The local library has a bulletin about being cell-mannered. Then, two of it's employees come in and order while on the phone. It's a frustrating process: to be accomodating (in general), but it's nice to come home to this place.