This book had its genesis in a workshop which I led for the Calligraphy Society of Ottawa, on the 4th of October, 2008. Each participant started with a full sheet of Arches Text Wove paper on which we transferred an obscure text taken from Writing Systems of the World by Akira Nakanishi. I chose the Vai script, a syllabary from Liberia. You can see bits of it incorporated into the design. The sheets were then passed on to our neighbours who were instructed to alter the papers using a predetermined assortment of tools and sumi or walnut inks until each one of us had participated in the transformation of each sheet of paper. When our enriched original sheets of paper were returned, each participant was given the task of making her sheet of paper into a book. All the sheets of paper were quite different and consequently so were the books.

Special thanks go to Ruth McKee, Heather Mallett, Roberta Heubener, Diana MacDonald, Arlene Longley, Lois Jenson, Nancy Ellis, Judy Bainbridge, Tamra Thompson and Pat Gregoire for their contributions to the pages of this book. I am particularly indebted to Judy Bainbridge who had my sheet of paper when the instruction was to “randomly damage the sheet of paper in front of you”. She both crumpled it up and tore it. Thanks to Rosie Kelly who introduced me to this odd method of bookbinding and to Hans Joachim Burgert for the inspiration for the lettering. I am also grateful to E. E. Cummings for his most appropriate poem. This has truly been an exercise in “letting go”.

The cover and envelope are recycled daphne paper from Bhaktapur, Nepal. It is 8.5 x 11.75 inches (21.5 x 30 cm) closed.