Yesterday’s Tomorrow

A series of booklets connected with handmade kozo paper thread each containing a poem. These poems are: “The Wanderer,” “Silent Cry,” “The Lonely Willow,” “Lives of the Leaves (3 Parts),” The Deep of Winter,” “Lifeless,” “In Conclusion,” and were written and edited over a decade.

The story of these poems reflects the climactic plot rise of a narrative and intends to convey a sense of winter, the traditional season for making paper. The books have a very large sensory impact, the tactile feel of the handmade paper, the sound of the pages being turned, the faint smell of the fiber, the soft off-white of the paper and the gray to black of the ink. Beyond this, the books are bound together with lengths of paper thread, both indicating the order in which they are intended to be read and creating a shared community experience when multiple people interact with the collection simultaneously.

Handmade kozo paper, paper thread, sumi ink, wood, nails; 2018. Full size, approx. 24in x 36in x 2in, individual books vary from 3in x 4in x 0.5in to 4in x 8in x 0.5in. This was made for the class, Japanese Papermaking and Aesthetics.