as you lay dying, our stories rose to forever(2020)
book(er) of words we stand by (2025)
awarded BEST IN SHOW - Art of the Book & Paper!!
as you lay dying, our stories rose to forever (2020)
silk, bamboo, thread, fabric paint
mono-printed, screen-printed, burned, stiffened
53 h x 19 w x 18 d
These horizontally-suspended pages represent theunspoken yet deeply-remembered stories which can evolve over decades of partnership. Rising from shadow shades into clear openness, monoprint "illustrations" and burnt screen-printed "text" are illuminated as they reach into a permanent timelessness. This work was created during the last months of my late husband's life, its intricacy and delicacy giving me meditative focus at a challenging time.
This work brings to a new level my fascination with calligraphic script. I've worked in faux script, avoiding actual words, leaving the viewer to interpret the "text." Yet here I found it imperative to convey the precise words spoken by U.S. Senator Cory Booker (NJ) in his record-breaking speech to the Senate on 31 March 2025. In addition, a selection of "banned and trigger words in federal grant writing in the Trump Administration" is screen-printed at right angles to the words of Senator Booker, and then burned into the fabric.
The parchment-hued silk "pages" suggestthe richness of our country's history leading back to the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. While the incendiary "forbidden words" are burned into the fabric, they have not at all disappeared from our world; on the contrary, they are preserved - and even inflame the passions of those who fight against the threatened erasure of human dignity.
