In 2004, in the midst of a fairly divisive American Presidential election, I made this fiber art book.
This is one set of pages, embroidered in red and blue cotton thread on cotton and linen ground, with fore-edges tasseled in cotton thread and glass beads.
This is the original poem I wrote and embroidered into the fiber pages:
From here I cannot see two oceans:
Standing astride this ridge, one foot
Touching sunset – the other, night.
On each side, cool winds taste the same.
From here I see no difference between
Factory or farm, trailer or mansion,
No hint of hand or ideology behind
The lights that in distant valleys bloom.
Thrumming roads, the tight hives of towns,
Diamond cities spilled across the dark –
All nerves flooded by two signals,
Twin prayers voiced and un-uttered.
From here I see only the glorious
Storm,
And I recall how Church
Painted Cotopaxi (in the shadow
Of Civil War.)
This book is now in the special collections library of a major American Ivy-League university.
I’m making a book for the 2016 Elections right now. It makes ‘Continental Divide’ seem genteel. Stay tuned.