Mending the Stars & Stripes calligraphic book on women's suffrage

Mending the Stars & Stripes

2020       11 x 6.5 x 1 inch, 32 pagesInk, gouache and acrylic, linen thread 
on Kate FairChild handmade paperSewn book with paper cover,  
drop spine box.

Special Collections, Clapp Library, Wellesley College

This book celebrates the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. The assorted handmade papers are rough, gaudy and fun. Like other artists in the pandemic year, I decided to use materials I had. The text includes words by Abigail Adams, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, the laws that evolved and about the slow but determined effort for voting rights. 
To mimic the threads embedded in the papers, I cross- stitched the names Abigail and Martha at the beginning and Ruth and Kamala at the end.