Mary Ellen Long ~ Colorado

Artist Statement: "My direct relationship with the land is celebrated in my book art. I perform my own personal rituals in my forest habitat in Colorado such as burying paper or whole books under winter snows, creating art forms that empathize with the cycles of the earth, or telling stories of event and history which grows from my need to connect with a primal consciousness — that respects and coexists with the natural environment.

"My book art has become a way to personalize the enormous impersonality of this land's dynamic, freezing in time the flow of natural transitions and patterns around me - a way to translate the spirit of this small portion of the earth's landscape."

Mountain: Missionary Ridge
By Mary Ellen Long
Durango, Colorado: Mary Ellen Long , 2006. One-of-a-Kind.

5.125 x 5"; 8 pages. Accordion structure. Two stones form the front and back covers. Pages of handmade paper.

Mary Ellen Long: "This book is part of a series about mountain profiles and metaphors. Each of the series has a story and the Missionary Ridge book commemorates a fire on the ridge above my home. The rocks that serve as bookends are from the area of the fire."

The text: "INTO THE SPIRAL WHORLS OF FIRE THE STORMS OF THE MILKY WAY BUDDHA INCENSE IN AN EMPTY WORLD BLACK PIT AND LIGHT YEAR FLAME TONGUE OF THE DRAGON LICKS THE SUN ASUNDER"
$500