After a great deal of thought, I’ve realized that the project I’ve been stressing about needs to take a new form. It’s not a book arts thesis – in fact, it needs to be completely separated from the whole book arts experience. It’s not as important to me to finish the degree as it is to continue creating, so I am no longer going to worry about how things fit into the book-making form. If it happens to work out that I can finish the degree, that’s great, but that’s not really the point.
The Wish project is going up. This time around, it’s going to be street art, or at least public art. I’m installing some portion of the cranes at Mind’s Eye Yarns in Cambridge, MA, at a later date – I’ll announce it here when they’re up. Starting 1 May, 2007, though, I plan on embarking on a 365-day installation. I’ll post pictures of cranes here or on flickr, with a goal of three per week until next May. By that time, I hope to be sufficiently settled to make some keepsake relating to the whole process.
The Wish project is a thousand cranes, most on handmade paper, with various bits of printing on – two Tang dynasty poems, a linoblock, and “wish” in four different fonts. The printing was done on a Washington handpress and a Vandercook SP-15 handpress. The paper was made at the Lost Arch Papermill in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from cotton and linen rag. There’s a couple of papers that I didn’t make – one a linen paper by Claudia Hamilton, the other an abaca/cotton blend by Katrin Braun.