Waves

Waves came to life from my encounters with two wonderful French artists. I met Louise in Paris summer 2023. At the time I was working on a fine binding for the Book Club of California, Poetry at the Edge and asked Louise to make a piece inspired by Carolee Campbell’s photograph of the the Pacific coast. I ended up working with my original design but wanted to create a box for Louise’s paper waves. That same summer I also worked with my friend Annie in Brittany. One of the themes we explore together is the foreshore and what’s left at the edge of the sea. I had kept some of the covers from our experiments with botanical prints. Back in California, I made bookcloth using the 19th century technique I learned with India Johnson. I was curious of the interaction between these very different projects. Louise works outside of Paris. A designer and a weaver, she explores materials such as plastic, silicone, metal, garbage bags, wire mesh, and extracts unexpected beauty from the industrial world while Annie, a botanist in Brittany, immersed in nature, has an organic sensibility that expresses itself beautifully in her botanical prints and ceramics. The small book made of handmade flax and abaca paper echoes the waves’ industrial tracing paper. Its pages rustle reminding us of the sound of waves and connecting us from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts.