Artist statement for book-any thoughts?

Mother of God
Are gods and goddesses immune to the ravages of time or are they an intensified reflection of our own fears and frailties? For example, do we perceive Mary as an ageless, timeless virginal young mother who never ages, always chaste and pure, or a mother who must endure the persecution and death of her son endlessly throughout time? and as mother of god take on the world’s cycle of suffering and death?

The piece I have created for the Mother of God exhibit began as a printed book project. The story is a playful look at our obsession with beauty, youth and mortality-the ultimate anti aging product with powers that enable it to rejuvenate the dead. My piece for this exhibit is a cyclical story of death and resurrection that takes place in my version of ancient Egypt. In this story Anubis (usually a god but in this tale a goddess) prepares the miraculous formula that will restore the mummy queen’s beauty. The formula is made with honey, The other side of the book is a rebus puzzle for the viewer to “read”. I like to explore play in my work, and was happy to find that Egyptians also incorporated rebus puzzles on some of their tombs and statues. I have been exploring the world of bees in my work for a while, and this has been one of the inspirations for the work in this residency. The Queen bee takes on a godlike role of mother and creator for the hive-she lays all of the eggs. Worker bees feed the larvae in the hive; eggs that will become the next queen are fed royal jelly for their entire incubation, other larvae are fed royal jelly a few days and then switched to honey and pollen. Honey is a natural preservative, and the Egyptians used honey in the mummification process.

Participating in the Mother of God residency has been a wonderful opportunity to share the artistic process with a group of women artists, exchange ideas about feminism and art.
Over the course of the 6 weeks my book project grew to include a larger set of monotype prints. The small accordion books are printed using both linoleum block printing and silkscreen.