Fish

Working

Floating World

Floating World
Accoridan Book
Paper, vellum, ink, water-color, acrylic
April 2008

Text inside reads:
"Floating World

For my Mother

On the morning you found out your mother died, the high tide ushered hundreds of glowing orange starfish to the shore where they faded to white in the sun, then bowed their five arms to you. Violet wine soaks your mouth & every blossom for miles; you bury yourself in the sand to feel the weight of your breath--the gentle collapse of your mother's gray lungs.

I decorate your shape: baby's ears, periwinkles, paddle the sand around your body--you remain silent but shake until the sand fissures & the shells tumble down your sides.

Mother, you & I are as bright and distinct as the far-off dunes when we walk along the shoreline, inexhaustible & long as our legs, our breaths. We search for the sea turtle nests--the strokes of fins & shell towards the sons & daughters buried in cold sand--while at night we look for your mother in the stars, staring hard until it means nothing, like repeating the word--Mother, mother, mother."

Sand Castle

Sand Castle
Triangle folds
June 2008
Paper, ink, watercolor pencils

Aeolian Dune

Aeolian Dune
Accordion book with handmade paper by Dad, paper-cuts, vellum, seashells.
July 2008

Text inside reads:
"Collect the smallest shells
from the dunes--so small,
you could fit one on your tooth,
close your mouth
and it would remain intact."

Text on outside (back) reads:
"Aeolus, play your wind harp--take me away..."

X-acto Master & Where Poems Go

Popup Studio NYC

Featured on a blog for the studios that engineer the books by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart!

Swift Cathedral

Swift Cathedral
Black paper-cut and white sketch
June 2008

+ My new, tremendous cutting board that my dad made for me. It leans against my bedroom wall, painted celery-green.

Fox in the Woods

Fox in the Woods
Paper-cut, two layers
Collaboration with Brandon Basino, after a song/poem
The Mansion, September 2007
Care of Brandon Basino

In Your Hands

In Your Hands?
Paper-cut
September 2007
CD artwork for Brandon Bassino as Billy Idyll

Conte Online

My poem "Vanitas, Burying a Fox" was published in the online journal Conte.


Vanitas, Burying a Fox

Once you are dead, you are nothing.
- Graffiti from the House of the Centenary, Pompeii

Hayley holds a fox skull up to her face, scattered tan hairs
escape around the fissures in the animal bone—
rotting peach-white, yellowing like the receipts at Rice Bowl
where the grease is so thick, it's in the fibers
of the paper and our skin. We always ask for extra
bamboo stalks in our stir fry, burrow through cartons of fried rice with bits of egg,
because, your eyes will soon be sparking ... Conte

Portraits

Terrestrial Portrait & Water Portrait
Paper-cut
Terrestrial Portrait published in the Kudzu Review, 2008 & Sold
Water Portrait, care of Yvonne Wahl
Both exhibited in the Red Metal Door Gallery, October 2007

Kudzu

Penelope Waiting, Waving a Shroud with Kudzu
Paper-cut
Cover art-work for The Kudzu Review
Undergraduate literary magazine at Florida State University
2008

"Operation: Dreamland"

"Operation: Dreamland"
April 2008
Phyllis Strauss Gallery
Collaboration with Clayton Rychlik, accompanying music