About the Book:

Constructed during the early days of the pandemic, Trying Times narrates and traces a solitary journey, travelling through trials and sorrows to grasp at new understandings.  While creating the book, I thought a lot about folk tales and fairy tales, and especially about characters who are called from the safety of home and venture forth, only to be faced with wolves or witches or just surviving alone a bitter cold world.  Sometimes it is hard to know if those paths will ever end.

Inspired by and using the poetic words by singer-songwriter Cindy Kallet, I wanted to find a visual language that would do justice to them - to neither default to mere illustration nor create something that would distract from their simplicity.  The abstracted, meandering path of stitches, and the minimalist indications of what a traveler discovered while crossing the winter-like landscape, are my attempt, adding a quiet layer of meaning that I imagined when listening to the song.

About the Text:

The text is taken from lyrics of the song “Trying Times,” written by singer-songwriter Cindy Kallet and recorded in 1983.  I fell in love with this song (and the whole album, Cindy Kallet 2, on the Folk Legacy label) when Cindy played a live concert at Swallow Hill Music in the early 1990s.  Replaying my original cassette over and over since then, the song has felt like a companion who really gets it when things gets difficult; I was honored to have her grant me permission to utilize the lyrics.  You can hear a sample of the original song with Cindy’s vocals and excellent guitarwork here, or in her 2015 version with Gray Larsen here.

About the Materials and Processes: 

The book is constructed in four connected signatures and bound with apple tree twigs.  Flannel and cotton bedsheets were hand-stitched onto Strathmore watercolor paper using Gutermann silk thread; an empty grid of sewing holes is present on the reverse side of each page.  Embroidery thread, jute and canine hair are also utilized.  The font is Adobe Caslon Pro, and the text was digitally typeset and then transferred from prints to the book pages using a xylene solvent.