"Drift"

I just finished a new book, once again taking some inspiration from the ebb and flow of ocean tides. (This is becoming a recurring theme for me.) Drift is a small Coptic-bound book containing multiple iterations of Hedi Kyle’s “fishbone fold” structure, that expands and contracts from a three-inch width to roughly twenty inches. I made the paper from overbeaten abaca in a gradient of color, using a squirt bottle technique that introduces bubbles into the pulp, to create the translucent effect of water. I drew various species of plankton in black ink on the reverse side of the paper, so that only muted images would be visible, giving a sense of depth that is reinforced by the three-dimensional structure of the intricately folded pages. Illustrations from an 1896 invertebrate morphology textbook served as my reference material for these tiny marine organisms, and I reproduced some notes taken by the previous owner of the book on the pages as well. I focused on larvae, protists, and other life forms that float in the water column, whose movements are largely dictated by currents. The book structure was chosen to not only mimic the action of shifting water currents, but to parallel the idea that seemingly empty water can contain unseen multitudes.
 

As I was photographing the book, I realized that the book itself can take on forms very similar to some of the organisms it depicts.