Pillow Books
An update on my collaboration with Kelly Pals.
Waxed Flowers and Candle Crafts
By Jes Reyes
Turn your attention:
A wild rose.
A tuplip.
Hold, be sure, rather.
Occasionally, tight together,
and rising center.
Hold the petals, and set this
strange object aside, upward.
Floral tape, extremely
psychedelic colors.
Rinse under cool water, shape it
fresh before support. Jointed
like the end.
A rose is a rose.
Amount of
the color does matter.
Face the blossom, the petals,
holding the stem.
Artist of petals,
reheat the wax, the flower faceup,
and leave it.
Rate bottle. The
experiment was a success.
Set it in away from it’s sides, and
Save it for another waxing project.
Last year, the fabulous Susan Hensel gifted me many fibers that she hand-dyed. A box from this lovely supply was a bunch of silk handkerchiefs. I sat on these for a bit, unsure what to make with them. It was when Fresh Eye Gallery paired me up to collaborate with Kelly Pals that I knew we could try to incorporate these into our project.
I showed them to Kelly and asked if she had any interest in them.
“We can make books,” she said. A bright smile across my face.
“I love to make books!” I expressed joyously.
We spent many Fridays mornings meeting together at the Fresh Eye Arts studio in St. Paul where we talked and worked on our books side-by-side. This process included stitching and exploring photos of our mothers together. We used felt sheets to stabilize the book; otherwise the silk was too floppy on its own. The felt sheets became spaces for us to draw, collage, stitch, and more. I did erasure poetry and played with image transfers, both becoming essential components that shaped my pillow book. Hence, the poem at the top of this post! This opened up some ideas for Kelly where she photo copied her family photos and incorporated them into her work.
The result: Pillow Books for our Moms, a collaborative project containing two books made in homage of our mothers who we both lost due to terminal illnesses, an experience we connected over earlier when we started brainstorming on our project’s theme. Kelly came up with the idea of calling them pillow books. I get it: They look similar to children’s soft-covered picture books. Also, dealing with loss is hard. So, why not make our art soft like a hug? We wanted to show how much we loved our moms. How much we wanted to hug them.
Our project is part of Eye to Eye 2024. I hear there’s a real gang of other artists who gathered together to collaborate too. All of us will be showing this work in an exhibition at Fresh Eye Gallery in Minneapolis. It opens on August 9th, with the reception that night from 6-8 PM. Come out and see our books in person!
Thanks for reading! Let me know if you have any questions or comments. I’d love to hear from you!
Xo,
Jes