Mary Ellen Long's books

Mary Ellen Long's relationship to book is unique in the way it expresses her relationship between earth and spirit in a very physical way. She displays three books that were without covers and damaged to the point where they were all unreadable and held together by three cords of wrapped wire. The books had been left to the elements and as a result their appearance was decayed, fragile, almost romantically beautiful. These books had been part of an installation, a performance work and now are presented as sculpture. By removing the binding, and replacing it with wire, she was able to seal and bury the book and let natural corrosion take place. The installation portion of this work reads as a sort of funeral. She releases the book (along with its original content) to nature and in turn nature acts on it. It (nature) both acts on the text and well as reads the book. One finds one self asking if the original content was still there in the physical aspect of the book or did it leave the book along with the ability to read it? Samantha Leaden, Chelsea Almeter