Friday, April 23, 2010


There are things we can describe, sketch or photograph so that another can hear them, touch them and know what it is that they are...but there are some things that we cannot begin to contain in a bowl made of words or images; then it is only possible to describe how precious they are to us and hope that someone will take the time to try to understand before it is too late. And even as spring unfolds it seems the year is going to be a single, long struggle to describe things faster than they disappear...
SPM

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Timothy's Birthday Book

There was a time when I was not sure how many of my little brother, Timothy's, birthdays I might be able to spend with him so - for his 10th birthday - I created a book that incorporated snatches from some of the stories I had read to him when he was small enough to fit beside me in a creaky, overstuffed rocking chair.  The binding is made of acid-free boards covered in handmade marbled paper and with brown silk quarter binding on the front cover. Also on the front cover is an amber cabochon carved hollow from the reverse with my cypher, held to tte the board with a pair of sterling silver straps and surrounded by a band of silver wire wrapped in silk interspersed with seed pearls. Behind the amber are two lilac seeds from the bush our mother planted in our grandmother's back yard on the edge of Bay City, MI. The spine of the book is held together with stitching of waxed linen thread detailed in brown silks. The text block of the book is ma,de of watermarked hand-laid paper from England and the pages consist of my own illustrations to the stories that Timothy grew up hearing with a page here and there headed by the date of a birthday in his future from his 10th birthday to his 21st. Under each date is a question I might have asked him had I been there for that birthday. The book was made seven years ago and is beginning to show wear...SPM