Rapture: an edition of four suites in twelve motifs:
Small Matters, Time and the Bell, Apotheosis, Memento

The works in this edition explore my personal relationship with nature and reflect on time and the value of human touch. They share the visual device of a halo form, an archaic signifier of glory and a vehicle with which I explore the idea of contemporary exaltation. In adopting this form I also draw from the symbolic lexicon of my own catholic upbringing and apply it instead to the secular experience, exalting nature and honoring direct human connection in an increasingly virtual world. I exploit the material value associated with gold to celebrate the worth and beauty of the natural world.

The process begins and ends with the hand, starting with line drawings of my own hand and of natural organisms from which I generated custom 3-D printed forms. These forms were used to emboss handmade papers pigmented in cream, blue, mushroom, and pink. I then manipulated the reverse of the embossed areas by hand, intensifying their definition and expression, and gilded the raised surfaces with gold leaf from 12 to 24 karats.