In the long distance between this post and the last I have been single-mindedly focused on creating my first book: The Water Tower Project. I have always moved back and forth between word and image, and as time has passed the words have grown from notes in the margins of sketchbooks and social media into essays in their own right. The urgency of recent political events has sparked an idea that has been waiting to take shape since 2020.
As a long-time designer of letterforms, I always look first to words and symbols to wrestle meaning out of chaos. During pandemic’s first months I created a series of 20 pieces of photographic art called The Water Tower Project. The water tower emerged as a symbol that evolved into an image; the form became a container into which I could pour my sense of disequilibrium, and hope to stumble into transformation. The water tower, hand-hammered, crafted by artisans, and hoisted to the city skyline, is the German Shepherd of industrial infrastructure. Noble, resilient, stoic, a timeless architectural archetype poised on the rooftop between heaven and earth. Judge or Witness? It is also a character and a canvas on which to project collective story.
Five years post-2020, as we are confronted with a new order of global and national disruption, this series has become more relevant than ever. I have returned to the subject with three new pieces included in the book. The pages alternate between image and story, reflecting on parallel streams of politics, history, personal evolution and collective struggle as we move through unprecedented times.
This book is 8 x 8 inches square, 44 pages, printed on lovely 100 lb paper and perfect bound with a luscious soft-touch cover. I am offering it via my Square shop via this link. Square adds sales tax for those in Washington State. You may pick up from my studio if you are in Seattle or receive it shipped by mail. (Note, the address line on Square is necessary and it is a single field. Just place a 0 in the “apt” field if it pesters you.) I will be shipping books the week of July 7th before I head to the Port Townsend Writer’s Conference, where the book will be available in the store. I will resume shipping in the third week of July.
Here are some glimpses of the book, and lastly a few of the prints offered in my shop:
I learned a great deal from the work of recently departed mentor and friend Brad Holland about how symbols become image, (and will write a longer tribute to him soon.) You begin with an idea, beat it up because it thinks too much, then wait and tinker and look again until idea disappears and intuition takes over. In this project I used words to mirror back what I saw as I worked, and then let the images work on the words, until both had merged into something unexpected.
“To be modern is to be part of a Universe in which. . .
all that is solid melts into air.”
– Marshall Berman
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