NATIVE TREES Graphic interpretation of Native Trees, by Pulitzer Prize–winning poet W.S. Merwin. The project is a meditation on sequence and the physical format of the book. I used a ’50s-era, wallet-size photo album as a structuring device and paired its color, black, with white to suggest a family overcome by darkness, a child confronting an emotional void. Placing photos of a book within an actual book made for some tricky production, in order to seamlessly negotiate the gutter, and I also have the little album opening onto a closed door that, when a reader turns the page, opens on to a wall—all of which made for additional challenges. To get a sense of the piece, please use the controls to click through the slide show, which presents the book spread by spread.
