Here are the professional photographs.
Phlebotomy of a Pie
Artist's book with clamshell box
Nepal Light, Chinese Mulberry paper, gouache, acrylic, ink, cotton thread, medical supplies
2013
This is really a book about desires and restraint, told via the narrative of a pie.
Phlebotomy comes from the Greek, meaning to incise into a vein. I think it came from back when 'bleeding' was a medical procedure. Now a days, a phlebotomist is the person who draws blood for medical tests.
When you make a pie, slits are cut into the top crust to allow the steam to escape; and as the pie bakes, the filling oozes out through the slits in the crust.
On one of the first pages, the instructions for preparing the pie crust —
In the messy pie-making process, the boundary between pie filling and blood-drawing is crossed —
The reckoning. I could not figure out how to include a medical lancet in the book without getting into trouble if someone should hurt themselves. I have collected and used rose thorns for many projects before, and I thought the rose thorns would be a great application in this book. So here the narrative takes a more poetic turn even as we prick our fingers on the rose thorns.
And life continues...
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