Worry Book
Interactive artist book.
The prompt for this book was to capture a meta-narrative: a story personal to me that also resonates with a wider audience.
I am a worrier, as are many other people across the globe. I wanted to express the experience of worry as well as the adaptive act of storing worries somewhere besides in our own heads. Borrowing from the Central American mythology of the worry doll, I explored the idea of storing worry in the objects and loved ones we surround ourselves with.
One thing that really excited me was how parallel the experience of moving through this book felt (to me) to the experience of moving through a moment of worry. This book contains one single sentence*, drawn out across many spreads, with an interruption every couple of words. That’s how worry feels to me – like an interruption that can suddenly appear, such that you have to pause for a moment, acknowledge it, and tuck it away somewhere. Pausing mid-sentence to draw these little objects out of their pockets and tuck them back in feels, to me, like a material expression of that specific sequence in our minds when we worry.
*The full text of the book: Once, a worried mother said that if you tuck a worry doll (or six) beneath your head at night, the doll will worry in your stead, so you can sleep in peace.
Production Notes:
This book was designed in Fall 2013 for a course in Artist Books with Helen Frederick at George Mason University School of Art.
Printing: Laser & inkjet.
Materials: Rives BFK, Kitakata, Unryu, book cloth, embroidery thread.
Type: Univers & my own handwriting.