Dear Mary is a unique work created from vintage class photos, an old yearbook, embroidery thread and beads. The cover and endpapers are cannibalized from a 1931 college yearbook. Inside are nine vintage college photographs, each in its own cardboard folder, which I have altered with hand-embroidery, beading and appliqued fabric scraps. The photographs are bound together accordion-style with decorative hinges of Japanese kozo paper. The only text in the book are the messages that were handwritten to “Mary” by her classmates from an unnamed college in Waterloo, Iowa:
Mary:
We have always had good times
when we were together but the trouble
is
we weren’t together enough
“Love”
Russ
