Phlebotomy of a Pie

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...