I mushed up a pulp in my basement — torn up bits of the brown paper bags I often use to build my more sculptural books — and miraculously turned it into some lumpy, bumpy, delightfully imperfect new sheets of paper. The paper was soft in places, rough in others. I worried it might tear, so I had a thought — if I could sew through it, I might reinforce it.

And so, I started sewing geometric lines. The colors and the shapes and bumps started making me think about mountains, so I started writing! (This is how it works sometimes…the shape might come before the words!)

The resulting book, “Mountains,” is a tiny thing (2×2 inches)…a softly folding accordian wrapped up with a tension tie closure. I hand lettered the poem on the inside, and then used some colored pencils to try to bring the colors of the mountains from the folds inside to the cover. It slinks across my desk in funny ways…a tiny mountain that knows where it came from. (Click photos to embiggen!)