Drum leaf binding into 1928 Blue Guide cover with added faux bone, metal and metallic embossed cover. Collaged on Rives BFK with 7 pull out maps. 36 pages, 6.25” x 4.25”

From a street vendor in Paris I bought a selection of naughty postcards then walked across the Seine to Sennelier to buy paper for a concertina book. I cut figures from the cards but didn’t complete the book until I returned to my studio, downloaded images of vintage cards and collaged them together with strategically placed bits of lace. The finished book is 5.5” x 5.5” closed, 5.5” x 44” open, with 8 pages.

Embossed metallic text on Arches cover black concertina with mica. Ten pages 3.5” x 2.25” closed, 3.5″ x 22.5” open. In vintage brass box 3.75” x 2.5” x 2”. Text on the back of the box reads: A signal, message or communication that has, or is interpreted as having, multiple ambiguous or contradictory meanings.

This Jacob’s Ladder/ Magic Box is a unique interactive structure, 9.75” x 3.25” x 3.25“, with thirty-six surfaces. The boxes contain vintage ephemera, including game pieces and blocks and the panels are collaged with printed information. Various surfaces are exposed as the box is opened from different directions. The box is held closed box with a 3” wide elastic and brain-like button closing. Text on the panels include: Mind Games are deliberate attempts to psychologically manipulate someone. They are covert, coercive, manipulative intentions masked by innocent sounding communication. Mind Game language is designed to confuse and keep the victim from guessing the perpetrator’s true aim. mind games. pl n. actions or statements intended to undermine or mislead someone else, often to gain advantage for oneself she started playing mind games with me. © 2022 Dictionary.com, LLC. Perhaps the most nefarious of mind games is called “gaslighting.” Someone who uses this manipulative tactic might say something, then deny they ever said it, or tell someone their gut feelings are all in their head. They want you to question reality so you feel off balance. Mind Games are a psychological tactic used to manipulate or intimidate —usually used in plural played mind games with his opponent. You never know where you stand. … You’re questioning yourself more. … They put you down, a lot. … They try to turn others against you. … They claim you’re a liar. … They make endless comparisons. … You always have to go to them. … They regularly shut you out. Learn to quickly recognize the signs of control and manipulation. … Refuse to give up your power. … Plan ahead how you will respond. … Focus on yourself. … Take a deep breath and square your shoulders.

To evoke memories of the past, this poem by Emily Dickinson was handwritten then obliterated. “If recollecting were forgetting, Then I remember not. And if forgetting, recollecting, How near I had forgot. And if to miss, were merry, And to mourn, were gay, How very blithe the fingers That gathered this, Today!” Twelve pages, 7.5” x 5.25”, mixed media, painting and collage, simplified binding. Cover and slipcase, eco printed wool over board

Sixteen page concertina on Arches cover black, 6.5” x 6.5” closed, 6.5” x 104” open. Mixed media, painting and collage in box 6.75” x 6.75” x 2”. The text in the box reads: Two hundred years ago, with a world population of one billion, the vast majority lived in colonies, under the political control of an- other country, or in autocratic regimes where a single person, the autocrat, possessed absolute power. Less than 1% lived in a de- mocracy where citizens exercised power by voting for their leaders in elections. Today more than half the world’s population live in democracies, while a quarter live under autocratic rule. Between Autocracy and Democracy is Anocracy. It may be Closed where competitors are drawn from the company’s elite or Open where others may also compete. Today, Democracy is in crisis. The values it embodies—particularly the right to choose leaders in free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and the rule of law—are under assault and in retreat glob- ally. The challenges within democratic states have fueled the rise of leaders who appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment and undermine fundamental civil and political liberties. If not checked, this move toward Anocracy will include the replace- ment of global democratic norms with authoritarian practices and elections in which the incumbent’s victory is assured. The media landscape will be dominated by propagandists who marginalize the opposition and promote the regime’s message. There will be state control over the internet and social media and corruption, injustice, and impunity for abuses. In this country, by ensuring that every citizen has the right to be heard and elections are open and fair, we can work to retain our Democracy. As individuals, our vote is our voice.

Several years ago, I visited Robert Louis Stevenson’s home in Samoa, photographed his gravesite and bought vintage tapa cloth. This year, restricted by the pandemic from traveling, I used the text from his poem, and completed “Requiem”. “Under the wide and starry sky, Dig the grave and let me lie, Glad did I live and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This is the verse you grave for me, Here he lies where he longed to be, Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter home from the hill.” It is an edition of two, 7”x5”, with 24 pages, a drum-leaf binding with mixed media and has a vintage tapa cloth cover and box, with the text below in the back of the box. REQUIEM In 1889 Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish author of Treasure Island and Kidnapped, settled in the Samoan islands in Vailima, a home he built for his extended family. Immersing himself in the culture, he became a reporter and an agitator, alarmed above all by what he perceived as the Samoans’ economic innocence. In 1894 just months before his death, he addressed the island chiefs: “There is but one way to defend Samoa. Hear it before it is too late. It is to make roads, and gardens, and care for your trees, and sell their produce wisely … if you do not occupy and use your country, others will. It will not continue to be yours or your children’s”. Stevenson died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1894 at the age of 44. The Samoans bore him on their shoulders to nearby Mount Vaea, where they buried him on a spot overlooking the sea. He was loved by the Samoans, and his tombstone epigraph, included in this book, was translated to a Samoan song of grief. Five years later, in 1899, the Samoan Islands were partitioned between Germany and the United States.

“Constitutional Carry” is a gun-shaped book designed to fit into my father’s vintage police holster and be kept in a metal, locked gun safe. It is 7.25″ x 5″ with 20 pages incorporating the following text: The term constitutional carry, refers to the United States Constitution’s Second Amendment which gives citizens the right to bear arms, typically a handgun, openly or concealed, without a permit or license. All 50 states allow individuals to carry concealed weapons — 20 without a permit. Thirty-one states allow a handgun to be carried openly without a permit and an additional 15 allow open carry with a permit. Without a permit and background check, it is possible for convicted criminals, individuals with mental health issues, dishonorably discharged military personnel and non-US citizens to legally carry guns in public. The US is the only nation with more guns than people. In 2020, 17 million handguns were sold — 64% more than in the previous year, and about 1/5 to first-time buyers. One third of households in the US own guns and estimates suggest that 3-million adults carry loaded handguns every day. The US has a total rate of firearms death which is 50 to 100 times greater than that of many similarly wealthy nations with strict gun control laws, such as the United Kingdom. Although self-defense is often cited as the reason individuals need guns, a successful defense occurs in less than one percent of crimes. And while mass shootings have been covered extensively in the media, they account for a small fraction of gun-related deaths. More than one-third of the 100 Americans gun deaths each day are homicides and the remaining two-thirds are suicides. Gun violence in the US results in tens of thousands of deaths and injuries and costs taxpayers more than half a billion dollars in direct hospital costs annually. While there are efforts to control the proliferation of guns and the ensuing violence, more states are loosening restrictions to owning and carrying handguns. These competing issues are among the most widely debated and contentious in the US today and perhaps with the most potential for disaster.

On January 6, 2021, an insurrection attempted to disrupt the certification of the President of the United States. Images taken from the FBI website, which is seeking the public’s assistance in identifying individuals who made unlawful entry into the U.S. Capitol building, were collaged onto paintings produced in response to the devastation. Arrests are being made for criminal violations, such as destruction of property, assaulting law enforcement personnel, targeting members of the media for assault, and other unlawful conduct. https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/capitol-violence Insurrection, 5 ¾” x 7.5”, 28 pages, drum-leaf binding with paintings and collage

Hash marks and fragments represent 545 children separated from their parents at the U.S.- Mexican border to deter immigration. In their efforts to reunite families, the current administration has been hampered by incomplete or non-existent records. The effort toward a rational immigration policy is ongoing. Sixteen collaged canvas panels 10″ x 10″, can be displayed as 10″ x 20″ double-page spreads or in a 40″ x 40″ grid.

One of the long term side effects of Covid-19 is called “brain fog”. The title has been lightly engraved into the natural bookcloth cover using a font called Ambulance Shotgun. Related images have been transferred onto handmade lama li paper and handwritten text added. Brain Fog, 7.5” x 5”, 34 pages

This book followed the progress of Covid-19 with collaged images and text from the news, historical comparisons, the president’s proclamations, my handwritten comments in graphite and details enhanced with colored pencil, oil pastel and acrylic. However, as states begin to reopen their economies without control of the virus, and it appeared that the pandemic might extend indefinitely, I decided that the book and the stay-at-home order would end together and Lockdown would be the title. A monthly summary tracked changes of substance through the end of the year. Closing out 2020, the final paragraph in Lockdown says: “While the pandemic has had wide-ranging impacts on nearly every aspect of development including access to health care and food insecurity, the weakest and most vulnerable portions of the population have been disproportionately affected. With a new administration, we need to rebuild trust in government, correct the moral injuries of the past four years and rebalance the economy to benefit the working class. We need to restore the soul of America.” Lockdown is 6”x 4.5” with 202 pages of black Strathmore Artagain. The simplified cover is black bookcloth over board.

Eucalyptus forests are some of the most flammable in the world because of the volatile oils produced by the leaves, which combine with leaf litter and peeling bark to accumulate as large amounts of dry, combustible fuel. A small ground fire, drawn by the peeling bark up into the leaves, can turn into a terrifying, explosive firestorm in a matter of minutes as the flames spread through the oil-rich air of the tree crowns with catastrophic results. Adapted to survive, burning releases seeds which thrive in freshly burned, ash-rich soils and rapidly regrow into a forest both beautiful and deadly. Six botanical prints with transferred text in handmade printed/ embossed leather portfolio. 6″ x 9″

In 2019, when I was in Athens, I began a book with watercolors of the landscape and collaged images of Athena. When I returned home, I decided to explore my relation to the archetype and wrote a narrative, contrasting my comments with excerpts from Jean Shinoda Bolen’s Goddesses in Everywoman. Because it seemed presumptuous to compare myself to Athena, I printed the narrative on 4 vellum sheets and “hid” them between the drum-leaf pages. Channeling Athena is 7.5″ x 6″ with 10 watercolor and collaged pages and 4 vellum inserts. It has a drum-leaf binding with the cover of vintage white leather over board.

Sing vintage photographs collaged against gold and black patterned paper, “Quebec” is a four page concertina of Arches Cover Black. The front and back covers are board wrapped in polymer clay, painted black, burnished with gold pigment and embedded with found ephemera. “Quebec” is 7″ x 4″ closed, 7″ x 16″ open. It was made in Quebec City, Canada.

Although civil wars are defined as wars between organized groups within the same state or republic, or between two countries created from a formerly united state, the term also seems appropriately applied to individuals whose behavior becomes uncivil during conflict. Based on a Jacob’s ladder structure designed by Susan Joy Share, this variation is a unique interactive box, 9.25” x 6.5” x 2“, with thirty-six 3” x 3” boxes or panels. The panels are collaged with vintage receipts, letters, photographs and fabric, including fragments of a Confederate flag. The boxes contain game pieces, blocks and a lock and key. Various surfaces are exposed as the box is opened from different directions. The enclosure is a clamshell box, 10.5“ x 7.5“ x 3.5“ covered in black and red book cloth. It was completed at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida.

Slumber On is a miniature book, 1.25” x 1”, with 40 eco printed pages and transferred text, coptic bound. The cover is solder over brass with an inlaid image. The text from Victor Herbert and Henry B. Smith’s 1898 Broadway musical, “The Fortune Teller”, reads: Slumber on, my little gypsy sweetheart, dream of the field and the grove. Can you hear me, hear me in that dream land where your fancies rove. Slumber on my little gypsy sweetheart, wild little woodland dove. Can you hear the song that tells you all my heart’s true love.

A travel journal begun in Morocco uses textural rubbings, patterning and collage, enhanced with oil pastels, paint and marker. A metal mirror, found in Morocco is on the cover with the title added with press-on letters. It’s 6″ x 4″ with 32 pages.

Reproductions of wall paintings from the Akrotiri archeological site on the Greek island of Santorini were used in the interior of this two paged 7.5″ x 5″ book. The cover has slabs of marble-like polymer clay interwoven with cords and thread over natural linen.

“Anne with an e”, a retelling of L. M. Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gables”, was begun in Charlottetown, PEI, home of the fictional Anne. To make the journal as I travel, I bought a used copy of the 2018 100th anniversary edition and removed the covers, spine and the eight illustrations. I tore some eco printed papers to size and added a strip of ochre leather that became the spine. Along the way I cut out the black and white illustrations, painted them with watercolor and placed them on the eco printed pages. I added artifacts that I found at Green Gables, , and bound the pages into the spine and covers. When I returned to the studio I used the original spine on a slipcase I made from backboard and a piece of rust colored bookcloth. The book has twenty 5″ x 8″ eco-printed pages with transferred text reading: Anne, an orphan, comes to Green Gables to help siblings Matthew and Marilla. All is not idyllic for the quick-tempered red headed Anne. She hits classmate, Gilbert, with a slate for calling her “Carrots”. Among her many misadventures, Anne takes a dare and falls off a roof. And, trying to dye her hated red hair black, Anne accidentally dyes it green. When Matthew dies, Anne gives up her college scholarship to help Marilla. Gilbert and Anne become more than friends and eventually live happily ever after.

In Ketchikan, Alaska I made a miniature book using a metal box for mints and totem images from the Totem Heritage Center. It’s 1.5″ x 2.75” with six pages affixed inside the metal box with sliding top

I took to Alaska a small journal, 5” x 4” with 24 pages. The cover was made from eco printed leather over stiff paper. The top and bottom of the wrinkled pages had been dipped in either indigo or rust, creating an irregular horizon line. During the trip I drew and painted the mountains with graphite, water color, white gouache and chalk. The text throughout the book reads: Glaciers Melt Glaciers are giant rivers of ice formed over centuries as fallen snow is compressed into layers of ice. They flow out to sea as ice shelves where pieces break off, or calve, to form icebergs. Today, about 10% of land area on Earth is covered with glacial ice. 90% is in Antarctica and 10% is in the Greenland ice cap. Glaciers now lose up to 390 billion tons of ice and snow per year. The largest regional losses are in Alaska, followed by the Southern Andes and the Arctic. Seventy five billion tons of ice from Alaskan glaciers are being lost each year and 95% of the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic is already gone. If emissions continue to rise unchecked, the Arctic could be ice free in the summer by 2040 and melting on Greenland would double by the end of the century. By that time, ICCP projects that sea level will rise between 4 and 35”. At the high end, it would be an unmitigated disaster. As glaciers melt and oceans warm, ocean currents will continue to disrupt weather patterns. Where and when fish spawn will continue to change and some fishing industries will fail. Wildlife, especially those living on ice, like walrus and polar bears, are also impacted as they lose their land. As storms become more intense, coastal flooding will become more frequent and communities will continue to be displaced and face billion-dollar disaster recovery bills. Addressing the causes of warming ocean and air temperatures are our only hope for slowing or reversing the glacial melt. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Dorothy Simpson Krause, 2019

Ten related concertina books, each unique, which reference the concept of DNA and our ancestry are now in the collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University. The paper is Arches cover black with a horizontal pocket containing vintage photographs, documents and ephemera. Fragments of text from the colophon are written throughout the pages in graphite. The covers are red and white quilt squares over book board. Each book is 6” x 22.5” folded to 6” x 4”, with 8 pages, housed in a black archival box 6.75” x 4.5” with a tintype on the cover. Information from the colophon reads: DNA Your body contains 50 trillion tiny cells, almost every one of them containing the complete set of instructions for making you. These instructions are encoded in your DNA, (deoxyribonucleic acid), a molecule composed of two chains which coil around each other to form a double helix. In the nucleus of each cell, the DNA molecule is packaged into thread-like structures called chromosomes. There are 23 pairs of chromosomes, one set inherited from the mother and one set from the father, Twenty-two of these pairs look the same in both males and females. The 23rd pair, the sex chromosomes, differ between males and females. Females have two copies of the X chromosome, while males have one X and one Y chromosome. Chromosomes are further organized into short segments of DNA called genes. Each person has the same set of about 20,000 important genes. The genetic information contained in the DNA is called the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic instructions used in the growth, development, functioning and reproduction of humans and all known living organisms. Over time DNA collects mutations, which are then inherited. By comparing this inherited information, geneticists can infer our evolutionary history and provide clues to a person’s ancestry. This series of books uses vintage materials to evoke the memory of past generations. As unique as we each are, our ancestry has much in common.

Casuarina, also known as Australian pine, is an invasive species in South Florida and the Everglades. Both the leather cover and the pages of this book are eco-printed with casuarina and other botanicals. “Casuarina” is 7.75″ x 6″, a double accordion with 14 eco printed pages. The text reads: Native to Australia, Southeast Asia and the south Pacific islands, Casuarina is an evergreen tree with long, grayish-green branchlets resembling pine needles. Originally planted in Florida in the late 1800’s as a windbreak and for shade, its seeds are widely spread by birds. Casuarina is an extremely aggressive and densely rooted species that smothers its struggling competitors under a heavy blanket of needle-like litter. It displaces sand-binding native dune and beach vegetation, encouraging coastal erosion, changing soil chemistry, degrading wildlife habitat and making nesting difficult for sea turtles and other reptiles that dig cavities in which to lay their eggs. The Plant Conservation Alliance names this species as an Alien Invader. It is listed as a Category I invasive exotic species by the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, “invading and disrupting native plant communities in Florida”. Possession, collection, transportation, cultivation and importation of Australian pine are prohibited by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

“Family Portraits”, made from the cover of a vintage leather bible, is designed to be viewed standing. It is 12.5″ x 9.5″ x 3.75″ with a spine the width of the metal closures. Since the pages were designed to hold “Family Portraits”, I chose engravings picturing women of the bible by Gustave Dore. The text accompanying the images reads: Eve and Adam “Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.” Genesis 3:20 Delilah and Sampson “If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me, and I would become as weak as any other man.” Judges 16:17 Judith “This is the head of Holofernes … The Lord has struck him down by the hand of a woman!” Judith 13:15 Mary Magdalene “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.” Luke 7:47 The Virgins of Jabesh-Gilead The Benjamites found “four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them.” Judges 21:12 A vintage wood and metal box holds the book in a velvet cradle.

Begun on a trip to Arizona, this small book explores our appalling treatment of Native Americans. Vintage photos of Apache Indians are collaged onto small eco printed tags which are placed into a pocket accordion, designed to fit into a well-worn leather pouch. The colophon describes the subjugation of the Apache tribes as they fought to defend their homelands in the Southwest. Prospectors and settlers, supported by the might of the United States government have gained their land, natural resources and wealth while the Apaches have lost their lifestyle and their culture, religion and ceremonies have fallen into decline. 5.5″ x 3.75″ x 1.75″ closed and 5.5″ x 28″ open with 10 inserts printed back and front.

Sisi was born in Munich in 1837. At the age of 15 was married to her cousin the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph. Although the Emperor was very much in love with Sisi, she was stifled by the protocol of the court and wrote in her diary, “I have awakened in a dungeon, with chains on my hands.” Later in life she added, “Marriage is an absurd arrangement. One is sold as a fifteen-year-old child and makes a vow one does not understand and then regrets for thirty years or more, and which one can never undo again.” Sisi was an especially beautiful woman, but had health issues that were attributed to tuberculosis but may have been caused by syphilis, presumably contracted from her husband. She was obsessed with her image and exercise routine. At 5’ 8”, she fasted to maintain her 110 lbs and 16” waist, had a gym installed in the palace and was extreme with her beauty products and routines. Her hair cascaded to the floor and required several hours a day to style. Sisi had four children, the first three raised by her dictatorial mother in law. The fourth, Marie Valerie, she retained in her control. She said, “My other children were taken away from me at once. I was permitted to see the children only when Archduchess Sophie gave permission. She was always present when I visited the children. Finally I gave up the struggle and went upstairs only rarely.” Fluent in Hungarian, Greek, English and French, Sisi was an unhappy woman and a restless, obsessive traveler, visiting Madeira, Morocco, Algeria, Malta, Egypt and Turkey and establishing homes in Corfu, Madeira and Venice. In a poem she wrote: “I wander lonely in this world, Delight and life long time averted, No confidant to share my inner self, A matching soul never revealed.” As she aged she said, “Ah, the horror of growing old, to feel the hand of Time laid upon one’s body, to watch the skin wrinkling, to awake and fear the morning light, and to know that one is no longer desirable! Life without beauty would be worthless to me.” She carried a hypodermic for cocaine in her travel medicine case. During one of Sisi’s illnesses, her daughter, Valerie said, “Much worse than the ailment is Mama’s indescribable despair and hopelessness. She says that it is a torment to be alive, and she indicates that she wants to kill herself.” In 1989, her son and heir to the throne, Rudolf shot his young mistress then several hours later put a bullet through his own brain at the family hunting lodge, Mayerling. After the suicide, Sisi only wore black and her spa-to-spa drifting intensified, as everyone around her fretted about her dark depressive spells. At age 61, on a street in Geneva, Sisi was stabbed by an anarchist. No one realized the extent of the injury and she subsequently died. Hearing the news of her death, her husband whispered, “No one knows how much we are loved” and adds, “Nothing will be spared me on this earth” Sisi, 7.25” x 5.25” x .25”, 10 pages, drum leaf binding with watered silk over board cover. Edition of 4

A Concordat is an agreement or treaty, especially one between the Vatican and a secular government relating to matters of mutual interest. The Reichskonkordat was a controversial treaty negotiated between the Vatican and the newly formed Nazi government. It was signed on July 20, 1933 by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, the Vatican Secretary of State, who later became Pope Pius XII. The Concordat effectively removed the German Catholic Church from any opposition to Hitler and gave moral legitimacy to the Nazi regime. By offering recognition from a foreign state it enabled Hitler to come to power. For the Church, it seemed to promise that it could carry out its spiritual mission, however violations of the treaty by the Nazi regime began almost immediately. Some have viewed the Concordat as a manifestation of the Pope’s preference for dictatorships over democracies and disregard for German Jews. The Vatican insisted, however, that they approved the agreement simply to protect the church. The concordat remains in effect to this day. ______________________________ Concordat, 5.5” x 3.75” x .75”, 26 painted, mono printed and collaged pages with mica overlays. Drum leaf binding with leather cover (cut from vintage jacket). Images of wood and stone by 16th century Würzburg sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider are contrasted with photographs from the exhibition, “Fascination and Terror” at the Nuremberg Documentation Center. The title uses the Gothic font Maximilian Zierbuchstaben by Dieter Steffmann. For additional documentation gathered from the Vatican archives see: Cornwell, John. “Hitler’s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII”, Viking Press, NYC, 1999

This travel journal, completed in the Alban Hills, south of Rome, uses costume plates and a fragile map from “Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War” published in 1888. The plates were collaged over mono prints which I textured to resemble the stones of Roman construction. The 22 pages, 7.75” x 5.75” x .75”, have a drum leaf binding with a replica Roman coin on the cover. The handwritten text, a quote from Shakespear’s play “Julius Caesar”, seemed appropriate since in many ways we now seem to be “afloat” — the title of the book. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. William Shakespeare “Julius Caesar” Act IV, Scene III

Cape Cod used paper stained with rust and indigo dye for the pages and cover. Rust colored spacers allowed for incorporating found treasures. Each double page spread, with its spacer, was sewn to the spine with a modified longstitch. An enamel pin, with a map of the area, was affixed to the cover. A horizontal dye line, across the middle of each page, suggested landscapes and seascapes for the collaged images of boats, houses and lighthouses. The journal is 6″ x 5″ x .75″ with 28 pages.

“Mending” is a 6″ x 6″ woven album structure with 62 mixed media/ collaged pages. The cover is paper over board. Text, interspersed throughout the book, reads: a person a relationship in need of repair a rift a break a tear damaged goods how to put it right mend one’s ways to make amends sort it out patch it up stitch it together fix it working back and forth across the rift darning with resolve mending

“WarZone: a traveling board game with no winner” is designed to be played anywhere other than in your own country. Instructions, game board, spinner board and game pieces are housed in a clear plastic suitcase. In the top of the suitcase, an image of the first atomic bomb blast is overlaid with a definition of war as “armed conflict, prosecuted with military forces aiming to enforce the political will of the victor upon the defeated”. It also contains information about human aggression from prehistory to the present and questions whether war is noble or morally problematic and destructive of lives and property. The Spinner Board, printed onto stiff board and contour cut to fit into in the bottom of the suitcase, allows you to choose the country in which to play and gives information on ongoing conflicts around the world. The countries shown on the map in black and around the outer edge of the circle have ongoing military conflicts that result in more than 1,000 violent deaths per year, including both military and civilians. Other conflicts are shown in red on the map. You can turn the spinner to select a country in which to participate or choose from the list of additional war zones. The Rules of Engagement state that you can place your soldier on any square of the game board and move randomly any number of spaces in any direction. You need not take turns and can remove the soldiers of any other player at will, unless you are removed first. If you are on a square with information and instructions, do as you are told. The Game Board resembles a checkerboard with squares which give instructions such as “no weapons found: look again”, “tour of duty extended: start over” and “peace negotiations begun: pray for success”. The red and black checker-like pieces are “us” and “them”. The game never ends, but may move to a different place of engagement. There are no winners, only losers. The WarZone game boards and suitcase were printed at Roland DGA on the LEF-300. a flatbed printer with white and gloss inks. It is an edition of ten in a suitcase 10 3/8” x 12 7/8” x 1 ½”.

Rebound 1909 composition book containing knitting instructions, collaged with images from the first quarter of the 20th century. Housed in a custom clamshell box with vintage knitting implements. 8.5 x 7 x .875 inches, 70 pages