Epístola & Diástole
Artist's Book
Is it a book? Or a box? Or everything at once?
Epístola & Diástole is a tribute to love. To our love of words and images, and to that painful, passionate, insane, magical emotion that moves us.
This wooden keepsake box with little drawers contains love letters in different formats: a passport, medicine packages, a wrinkled piece of paper, a recorded love confession, amongst others. The artist's book was conceived, designed, printed and handmade by me and visual artist friend Mona Herbe (Claudia Hermosilla). Claudia's art brought my writing to life through her illustrations, photographs and design (I was only capable of drawing a stickman for the flipbook).
A small booklet with the transcription of the letters was printed so that we could get an ISBN number, because of course, love-boxes-artist's-dreams-books do not belong in libraries. Or do they?
The book was self-published in Lima in 2006, in a limited edition of 55 copies. All the texts are in Spanish.
The booklet with the letters and stationery (writing paper, envelopes and stickers) were published in an edition of 500 copies.
The box was manufactured by a friend's carpentry studio.
The detente was hand-embroidered by Paquita, and then replicated by a local, industrial embroidery company.
Everything else was done with love, by hand, by us.
Photos by Mona Herbe.
You can see more of this project and her amazing work here:
www.behance.net/MonaHerbe
@mona.herbe
