The six rigid pages of this book are laminations of board and mica with cut outs in which specimens rest. The structure allows the specimens to be viewed from both sides of each page. Specimens include plant, insect, animal, reptile, fish & bird materials gathered from from a nearby wetland or selected from an inherited archive. Each page is faced with screen printed, hand-dyed and laser etched paper and edged with Moriki paper. The covers hand-dyed leather over book boards with recessed areas holding fish vertebrae with treated suede doublures. The binding is a wire edge style using brass rods & linen thread. Book label is foil stamped calf.

Housed in a drop-spine box of book board covered with custom painted book cloth. A weasel tail gifted to me by the late Ruth Wheeler is attached to a tray base. The tray platform is of cast acrylic and surface treated book board. The box labels are mica over paper.

Colophon: This book is one of an ongoing series that celebrates a curiousity
that leads to collecting & preserving specimens of the natural world.

Materials include mica, paper, thread, brass, plant, bird, insect,
reptile, fish & animal specimens, leather, glass beads, ink, acrylic.

Designed & crafted in a studio perched on the traditional
lands of the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, Ute and Oglala Sioux.

The Animal Mineral Vegetable series is part of my Lovely and Amazing Project, which I began in 2006. The project is an ongoing one that celebrates both the life of Ruth Wheeler and her many gifts to me through my early years. Ruth was a beloved biology teacher, naturalist, youth advocate and feminist who lived and worked in north Denver for 70 years. She was legal guardian of my orphaned father so her role in my life was similar to that of a grandparent. Ruth found the natural world a place of endless delight and shared her enthusiasm with many, including myself, her great-niece. She left behind a collection of biological specimens, notes and photographs which I have incorporated into a series of three-dimensional collages, boxes and book works. Her less tangible gifts to me were a great curiosity about the world we live in, a love of solitude in wild places and her role modeling as a fearless and adventuresome woman navigating solo through the world.

She and I also share the impulse to collect and preserve natural specimens. This series works both to to keep my memories of Ruth’s spirit from fading and to preserve and present modestly scaled specimens.

The common elements in the Animal, Mineral, Vegetable are primarily material based. The pages are made from thin sheets of mica which limits the size and shape of the books in the series. As the specimens must flatten between the mica sheets, the animal elements are mostly feathers, bits of snake skin, butterfly and moth wings. It is far easier to flatten plant material elements so there is a bigger variety in the vegetable category. Starting with number 9, I switched from using hardwood covers to collaged leather (Lacunose) over book board covers.

Materials:

mica, paper, thread, brass, plant, bird, insect, reptile. fish & animal specimens, leather, glass beads, ink, acrylic

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