in process : winter 2022 : present : past lives & mother lines
book arts / prologue chapbook + full length novel
dedicated to meghan ferguson mráz (1984-2019)
IN PROCESS // Past Lives & Mother Lines: Stories of an Artist Named Jupiter (b.1984) weaves prose, artifact, illustration, research, and magical realism into a full-length autofictional novel. It is accompanied by a chapbook-length collection of poetry, 33: A Prologue, the Makings of an Artist Named Jupiter (b. 1984). Both grow out of The Infinite Scroll Project, but in an evolution, these volumes move into new literary territory; while still channeling autobiographical and historical stories, they play with names, timelines, and narrative elements throughout, to give a different kind of arm's length to the writing and make a different kind of invitation through the reading.
An ode to female friendship, Past Lives & Mother Lines is inspired by transformational and mystical relationships between women, and especially by the late Meghan Ferguson Mráz, my artistic collaborator, songwriting partner, and best friend for a decade, whom I accompanied from start to end on her breast cancer journey and served as primary live-in hospice caretaker as she died at 34. In the novel, she becomes a character called Mede. The narrative arc traces the friendship in life and extends through the aftermath of Mede’s death, exploring how the presence and loss of a creative soulmate alter the creative process, how the nurturance of other women artists buoys against the storm of despair, and how the grace of time reveals that death is not finite but rather a transference of energy. Thematically, the project strives to remember femme bodies to the ancestral and contemporary webs of sisterhood that interconnect us as much with each other as with the divine. It’s curious about how calibrating to love, grief, and awe – to the miraculousness of being – might liberate us from legacies of trauma and open us to realities of peace/fulness.
My aim is for Past Lives & Mother Lines to be published as a trade book. And also, in some representation, both it and 33 want to be translated to an openly accessible digital format and to limited edition artist’s book folios; the folios will be hand bound with silk screened covers, frontispieces, and inserts, based on original handcut collages and drawings (see images above).