Arrhythmia
Beginning in April, 2024 Alain Co and I came together with a loose jumble of research ideas spanning from old medieval books of hours, to miniatures, to mental health with the ultimate goal of creating a book together. We wanted to explore the idea of cycles: cycles that are compulsory, sometimes hidden, and occasionally broken. We both also had a goal to create a positive complication to how mental health struggles have shaped our lives, and so, as I’m writing this, it has marked a 1 year process from conceptualization to production of our book Arrhythmia.
The act of keeping a journal is a professionally recommended method to cope with and process feelings and trauma that those struggling with mental health issues, or even occasional bouts of stress, understand. Whether someone keeps daily journals, weekly journals, or occasional notes, these books represent cycles and almost reverence to oneself in our yearning to understand our own thoughts and behaviors. Alain and I began our initial research for this project by looking at the Medieval Book of Hours. A Book of Hours implied a commitment in early Christian tradition of reciting a prayer from the book every hour, hence the characterization of the book. Although not compelled by our fear of God, we viewed our journaling practice to have similarities to those prayer books. Our journals signaled to us opportunities to learn from ourselves through the act of writing. While writing, sometimes truths would appear as if by the hand of a benevolent God and we were better for it. By combining the texts from both of our journals we created poetics that reflected on the cycles that initially inspired us to create work together. These cycles are demonstrated as personal behavioral patterns, difficulties forming and maintaining relationships, generational traumas, and societal restrictions. Within our book, Arrhythmia, we created a cycle of it’s own and divided it up into 7 chapters that explore how we experience and cope with specific traumas and mental illness: CUT, WANT, MIRROR, SAFE, HELP, PAST, & CHOKE.
We didn’t just want this book to be a trauma dump, but also didn’t want it to be a pedantic mental health journey that reduces our histories to that of being ‘unwell’ and then ‘healed’. As many folks who experience mental illness know, it adds complications to everyday life. Alain and I focused on our personal experiences with the ‘attachment theory’. Within the field of childhood psychology, the type of love that was modeled to us by our parents while we were children is formulaically how each child continues to model love throughout their lives as they grow up. When a familial system models behaviors such as neglect, physical and/or mental abuse, or emotional instability, that is the framework from which the child develops under and bases all future relationships upon. This developmental framework is part of what defines the attachment theory at large that describes 4 main attachment styles: healthy attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. This book draws upon that research and shows, rather than tells, what it feels like to have developed unhealthy attachment styles due to past trauma. In addition to sharing the thoughts of the artists associated with their attachment patterns, it also shows us the ways in which we can heal and cope through community and love. Research shows that consistent communication with healthcare professionals and healthy communication with one’s own community is instrumental in rewiring the brain to recognize past attachment patterns as unhealthy and be flexible and accepting towards learning and adopting new attachment patterns.
Arrhythmia consolidates all of this into an experience that readers can hold in the palm of their hands. The experience includes the highest highs and the lowest lows, but also a lifetime of unexplainable undulating middle grounds. Something that Alain and I both recognize to be our strength and our weakness is to find stability within ourselves by finding external communities. And through what we’ve learned, to develop strong relationships we have to be vulnerable. This concept brings us back to the form of our book, which is a miniature. Miniature books are no larger than 3” in any direction (but several institutions have slightly varying guidelines) and ours measures 3” exactly, with the case extending to 3.75” in height. The scale of our piece reflects the conceptual importance of vulnerability because our book, case included, is meant to be cradled in the palm of your hands. We chose the casting material of our case, bronze, to emphasize this point even further as well. Bronze is a metal that is known for showing visible signs of oxidation quickly. So each piece will continually transform the more and more that it is handled, changing the color of the bronze into rich and unpredictable hues of the metal. Alain and I wanted this piece to be interactive and to show the change and impact that one person can have on the health and wellbeing of others.
Process
Both the binding process and the casting process for this book were integral to combining both the content with the form of the book.
Arrhythmia is bound using raised cords and letterpress printed using photopolymer plates upon French Paper’s synthetic vellum paper in a small edition of 15. The spine of the book is wrapped with Moroccan Goat Leather and the covers are hand embossed with silk. We wanted this book to have opulence while also relating back to some of our research topics beginning with the Medieval Book of Hours. The predominant binding style during the Medieval period was sewn raised or recessed cords or leather.
Handsetting type for this project was out of the question and we opted to use photopolymer plates to print the interior text of the book.
Our book is sewn onto raised cords with a flat spine and hand sewn headbands. Raised cords are a highly attractive and incredibly durable binding style that add flair to any bookshelf. Since Arrhythmia is so small, one can fit one’s fingers nicely between the cords while holding it in a surprisingly ergonomic fashion as well.
To make the cases for our book, Alain uses a method called Lost Wax Casting. The oldest objects we have discovered that use this technique are approximately 6,500 years old and can be found in early Indus Valley civilizations, in modern day Pakistan. This method involves creating a sculpture, in wax, of the object in which will eventually be that of solid bronze. For our book, texture was our friend and Alain designed a sculptural effect inspired by the doodles from inside of both mine and their own journals. The result is a landscape of both rigid and organic forms that melt into your fingerprints as if it were always your own.
Once the wax is carved and sculpted, the form is then dipped into a silica slip. The wax goes through several dipping stages, taking around a day to dry between each layer. The end result is a lumpy white mass that holds the original wax piece.
This silica shell is then fired in a furnace at a hot enough temperature to melt and drain all of the wax and also to harden the silica shell. Once the piece has cooled then you’re left with a hollow shell that is the exact shape of your original wax sculpture. This is where the name ‘lost wax casting’ comes from. At this point, you’re ready to pour molten bronze which comes from ingots that have been melted at 2100 degrees Fahrenheit.
The bronze is then poured into the shell to fill the cavern left by the lost wax, and after it’s dried, the artist takes a hammer and thwacks the silica shell until it breaks off in small pieces. Now, the artist has a bronze piece that likely still needs a lot of touching-up, and so from sand-blasting to polishing to welded details, Alain creates these cases in small batches to ensure high quality and attention to detail.
The end result of both the binding methods and the casting methods is a durable and aesthetically provocative piece that combines historical methods of making with contemporary design choices.
Our piece is currently on sale through my website www.troctopuspress.com for $500. All profits are split evenly between Alain Co and myself. Troctopus Press is an independent artist book press and game design hub with a mission to support a community of diverse artists through creating collaborative editions of artist books and zines.
