Conditions for Melting

One-of-a kind artist’s book, 2024. Acrylic, charcoal, gesso, graphite and ink on a single sheet of spiral-folded Okawara paper with letterpress and screen printing. Enclosed in a custom box collaged with cut paper. Closed dimensions are 19” wide x 11” tall x .8” deep. Fully open dimensions of the book are 72” wide x 36” tall.
Conditions for Melting was made from a large mixed media drawing of an iceberg I photographed in the Antarctic peninsula. I cut and folded the drawing into a single sheet spiral book structure, then added letterpress-printed words to the reverse side where layers of turquoise ink have bled through in textured drips and splotches. Using a barren and spoon to pull impressions from wood type, I printed text identifying environmental and social pressures that provide perfect conditions for melting glacial ice. The text suggests that racism, tyranny and apathy are as much to blame for climate change as natural physical forces such as heat, pressure and time. A color palette of contrasting warm and cool colors point to the often oppositional relationship humans have with nature, while the tactile nature of the enclosure’s design and the long, crinkly pages of the book evoke personal memories of hiking through deep snow in Antarctica.