Artist’s Statement
This artist’s book was created in response to a trip to Italy and France. I kept noticing this motif of stars on blue repeated in religious buildings, in civic spaces, and in modern art such as in Niki de Saint Phalle’s Tarot Garden sculptures. Blue and stars became a visual symbolization of that trip, connecting the different places and experiences together and representing the balance between religion, history, art, and life in those places. Many of the pages were created while still overseas, then completed and bound once I returned home.
This body of work is a modern take on Anna Atkins’ 1843 Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the very first book with photographic illustrations, using sea vegetation and plastic trash found on the Maine shoreline today. It highlights the similarities and differences between the natural and man-made elements in our oceans and the impacts of human activity on our environment. In addition to the historical connection to Atkins’s work, cyanotype was chosen because of its lower toxicity when compared to other photographic processes, and its use of environmental elements of sunshine and water to create a match of medium and message.