Under The Same Sky is an artist’s book about the stars and sky. The book emphasizes the feeling that people share the same sky under the same starry sky, transcending dimensions of time and space. The book is inspired by the giant comet of 1811, which was visible in the sky for 260 days that year. What a magnificent sight it must have been! Perhaps only people of that era can truly know. However, no matter where we are, when we are, or how far away, we share the same sky with millions of people when we look up at the starry sky. At that moment, everyone’s spiritual world transcends all boundaries, such as race, language, and gender, and connects through this sky.

Looking back at my works, they are a reflection of my emotions at a certain point in time. Although my life thus far has only been a little over 10,000 days, life is full of separation and attachment. My works may be the obsessions that cannot be expressed in words, containing myself and all the emotions that resonate with me, carrying the invisible burdens that I am not even aware of, eventually forming into shapes of books.

I created this artist’s book titled The Ties of the Fallen Stars to explore invisible bonds between people, or it is also a home that keeps all my ties. I got the inspiration from the traditional Chinese myth of Three Lives Stone. It is said to be a stone that allows the dead to see their past lives, present lives, and future lives. This artist’s book is in the shape of a traditional Anhui-style building from southern China. The structures of the Chinese domestic house “step mountain walls” and “four waters return to the hall” represent the expectations of countless generations for a home: to shelter me within high walls, to collect memories from all directions in the hall in front of the courtyard, and to keep my most cherished possessions in the tile-covered chamber. In this artist’s book, I placed the Three Lives Stone, wrapped in a red thread, in a box shaped like a room with a corridor and front hall for collecting memories in front of it.

My books are a response to my visual experiences. I am deeply moved by the miracles and mysteries of light, shadow, shape and form. I have created etchings and paired them with my own poems that also arise from these profound visual experiences.

*Invitational

This slim volume is a reflection on patience and quiet; on waiting and impatience; and on listening to silence.

This one-of-a-kind calligraphic artist’s book reflects on a line from a speech given by Kevin Slavin at 2011 TEDGlobal talk on “how algorithms shape our world.” In this talk, Slavin said, “we are writing these things that we can no longer read . . . we’ve rendered something illegible . . . and we’ve lost the sense of what’s actually happening in this world we’ve made.” In this artistic interpretation of Slavin’s thought provoking quote, I’ve experimented with the idea of writing overlaying other writing to explore the ideas of communication evolving and fragmenting and how the magic of story can be altered or even lost.

The work incorporates accordion book structure with a flat-hinged, non-adhesive binding with mark making in the spirit of manuscript palimpsests in which language is evolved, overlayed, and lost. Materials include sumi and walnut inks, gum Arabic, gesso, watercolor paper and amate bark paper. Tools included brushes, folded pens and ruling pens.

‘Silenced’ is an altered book created during a 14-day performance that took place in silence and solitude. The word silence was systematically written (approximately 65,000 times), over the text of a Vintage copy of Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, rendering the story illegible – in itself, silent. Only quotes pertaining to silence can still be read. While speaking generally of the plight of women, ‘Silenced’ acts as a work of defiance — handmaids were not permitted to read or write.

Image courtesy the artist and Eagle Gallery, London

Who’s to know what’s a spook and what’s a shadow, what’s true and what’s a truer view? Every ordinary world contains another undercover one. Maybe you don’t believe me. When I came to Los Angeles 35 years ago I was a journalist, and I wanted to get the real story. Now as a photographer and book designer I explore formats that encourage people to make up their own. Most of my work involves seeing things in one way and then another, using layers or shifts in perspective or unreliable narrators. In late 2020 I developed a serious vision problem. While it was being treated it was easier for me to shoot pictures at night. The photographs in Untrue Confessions were taken in the retirement community where I live part time.

This accordion book is an artistic representation of the Chinese zodiac and its origin myth in which the Jade Emperor had the animals compete in a great race to determine how the years would be named. The book depicts the twelve animals racing towards the finish line in order from last place to first. The finish line’s ribbon is strung between posts of the heavenly gate and continues on either side of the back cover. They can be tied when the book is closed. The title was drawn in a calligraphic technique inspired by Chinese artist, Xu Bing, which combines English letters into structures resembling Chinese characters.

The back of the book incorporates hand-cut rice paper silhouettes along the bottom which represent the river the animals must cross in their race. The colophon was carefully spaced to mimic the circular inset on the front cover, echoing the zodiac’s connections to the lunar calendar. It sits gracefully above the rice paper river like a moon. Ed. 1 of 3.

This star accordion book is an artistic representation of the Australian wildfires of 2019 which were still burning during the book’s creation in 2020. It uses symbols and landmarks of Australia amongst flames to convey the severity of damage towards Australian wildlife and considers humanity’s impact on nature. The book opens only as a star shape which forces readers to view it from all angles. This represents how natural disasters force us to examine our actions from a different perspective. I found wildfires to be a powerful embodiment of the mystical properties of nature and its ability to give and take away. My poem reads:

Our planet is demanding respect in a catastrophic way.
Backlashing against our continuous injustices against her, showing no mercy.
She’ll go on with or without us.
We are mere visitors to this time, this place.
This devastation, a trial by fire.

Details include hand-cut silhouettes, screen printed covers, and hand-transferred laser printed text. Ed. 1 of 3

Eternally Damned is a unique accordion-style artist’s book. Images are spray-painted and collaged, covers are cloth-covered boards, lined with Nepalese Lokta paper. The book illustrates stories from classical Greek mythology about unlucky mortals and others who offended the Gods of Olympus and then suffered eternal damnation and punishment for their transgressions. On the back of each collaged panel, each unlucky transgressor’s story is told, including: Prometheus, who was chained to a rock and attacked by a liver-eating eagle every day for eternity; Arachne, who was turned into a spider after boasting she could weave more skillfully than Athena; and, Sisyphus, who was condemned to eternally push a huge rock up a hill, never able to complete the task, his punishment for deceiving the gods.

Through cinematic visual language, “Dream of the Golden Empress” tells the story of an arrogant emperor bent on environmental destruction. The characters in this allegory— the Emperor, the Golden Empress and the People— are archetypes referencing actors from the current political landscape in the United States. Like shadow puppets, each character embodies easily recognizable traits like greed, selfishness, compassion, anger and love. Two distinct but interwoven threads, the narrative and the poetry, capture two ideas: the historical retelling of a political disaster, and the interruptions caused by cacophonous voices of dissent, warning and protest. On the reverse side of the accordion, the Golden Empress is illustrated through Lego relief prints in a style inspired by Balinese shadow puppets. She moves through a series of poses—perhaps dancing or fighting—as befitting her dream to inspire the People to move, respond and take action.

Limited variable edition artist’s book, edition of 10.

Art in Surmise was created with the purpose of calling our relationship with books into question. As technology advances, our relationship with physical paper has changed. Large collections of books may have once seemed like a luxury but now it is seen as a burden. Art in surmise pokes fun at the fact that our use for books has diminished and the validity of text has eroded.