and her small fawn greeted me, and then turned and disappeared. nothing, no one disappears like a doe. she spotted me and waited, and waited a bit more and after i greeted and spoke to her she turned and vanished, just before her fawn appeared, and then too vanished. she’s been around the place, close to the house even. one night last week before the horrible humid heat set in rendering me useless, i was in bed, and heard coyotes at their community shape note sing, a longer song than usual, and close. later on, while i was roaming the pre-sleep shadowlands, i heard a bleat, sounding just like a goat kid. that same call came three times, then once more a bit more dire and even with my human ears i could tell alarm or fear or farewell was calling. then….. nothing. a bit later, who knows how long, i heard one coyote sing close and clear, one or two notes, abrupt and over. this mama lost her fawn, for sure, i heard the last alarm calls and then the coyote telling their family that fawn was being brought home for supper. everybody eats somebody. i hated that i knew that fatal kid-like bleat of fear or alarm. i knew what was happening, almost before the drama was complete. i was a goat- and shepherd for several years, i know that call. deer are so very goat-like, or vice verse.

the wonderful peter verheyan who had moderated the bookarts listserv for 100 years or so posed a challenge: procure a fish skin, make it into parchment, and use it in a binding for an online exhibit. i went into my grocers and asked them to cut a haddock skin for me, i would take the meat as well. they did, sending me home with that skin, which had about an eighth of an inch of meat still on most of it. I washed it and put it in cold water and a drop of dishwahing detergent in the fridge overnight. the next day i took it out and began what i knew would be difficult for me, peeling more of the meat off. it wasn’t really too hard, i performed that task outdoors, so the scent of flesh was somewhat mitigated. the skin went in the fridge again in cold water and a drop of detergent overnight, and i took it out once more and completed the flensing. the skin was strong and seemed stretchy, i had to make sure all the scales were gone (now i know where sequins originated!). i stretched the skin on a piec of foam core to dry, and it did stick a bit to the surface of the core, so i had to repeat it with a piece of plastic between foam and fish. it dried this time making a huge wrinkle, so i had to re-wet and stretch a third time.

there was a bit of white from the foam core, that’s now all gone. it’s probably going to cover a shifu book. stay tuned, as the broadcasters used to stay.

i can’t tell you how i found this project, but father and son, birder and artist, collaborated on a project about egg collection and nests.

read from : “Others eggs” to the end of the paragraph

the markmaking on eggs comes from the birthing of eggs, and reminds me of the haphazard yet predictable patterning that happens in the eco/bocoprint dyepot. here below are some recents that i put together as i try to map this world gone pandemic crazy.

several recent prints on linen, cotton, abaca paper

todd pattison invited me to participate in a binding project binding the text of the book Quilted for Uppercase Magazine. i can show you a sneak-peak here, the text is called Quilted and i used crazy junk to make my copy.

i feel like this shield might, if i am lucky and grateful enough, protect the world a tiny bit from the pandemic’s many levels of illness. india flint has provided for me a place to rest (taking her online class) calling this time the great pause. to me it seems more dire than pause, but pause it is, indeed. i can show you this photo od a native shield, an image that has served to comfort me during this strange time.

that and…

this. indeed, this.