(February 27, 1996)

  (This card is a portion of a hardcover book cover.)

Our neighbor across the street was discarding hundreds of books from his used book store.   These were, mostly, novels from at least fifty years ago.   Although I recognized some of the titles, most were unknown to me.   I developed the idea of a dressing screen that has book bindings on one face and fabric on the other.   These books were to form the basis of this screen.   Each day I would carry ten books to work.   I’d use the large paper cutter in our print shop to trim the bindings to sizes I could use.   The pages were re-cycled.   Some of the covers were colorful and some had colors that seemed to resonant with me.   I liked them.   This little card was one such color.

Aside from the color and texture of this card, the imprinted words seem to echo my state of mind.   The title of the book was THE POSSESSED by Erika Zastrow, published in 1933.   However, the word brings to mind the work of Dostoevskii  (Достоевский, Фёдор Михайлович) with the same title, THE POSSESSED.   Dostoevskii’s title refers to the devils rather than those possessed by them, nonetheless, whenever we are pulled by forces that seem to come from outside of ourselves yet clearly originate within ourselves, we, indeed, feel possessed.

Love in its strongest form must be a possession.   We are possessed by our love and we possess our love.

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