Rapture, a series of handmade paper works in four suites: Small Matters, Time and the Bell, Apotheosis, Memento

These works 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, a vehicle with which I explore the idea of contemporary exaltation. In adopting this form I draw from the symbolic lexicon of my own catholic upbringing, applying it instead to the secular experience, exalting nature and honoring direct human connection in an increasingly virtual world.

The process begins and ends with the hand, starting with line drawings of my own hand and of other natural organisms from which I generate custom 3D printed forms. The 3D forms are used to emboss pulp paper, custom pigmented in variations of cream, blue, mushroom, and pink. The wet paper is pressed and dried under weights for one week, once dry I manipulate the paper by hand, intensifying definition and expression, and gild the raised surfaces with gold leaf in a variety of hues from 12 to 24 karats.