Description
Poem by Margaret Kaufman, book layout and design by Claire Van Vliet, this is a trade version of the original, limited edition artists’s book work that was published by Janus Press in 1988.
Margaret Kaufman describes ‘Aunt Sallie’s lament’ as “a poem that is the autobiography of a spinster quilter stitched with mutterings that accumulate as the cut pages are turned becoming a diamond quilt shape”. She reminisces about a love lost but not forgotten and the ‘mutterings’ appear at the edge of each page, remaining in view as the page is turned. The leaves of the book, designed by Claire Van Vliet, resemble the patterns of a quilt, using an accordion-fold format that can open out to 105 inches. The work seeks to elevate the status of a quilt from a decorative, if functional, object to a complex historical record.
