This series started in 2020 as the pandemic began to spread rapidly and California Governor Gavin Newson declared a shelter in place order. In my studio I had paper, ink, watercolors and some old children’s dictionaries. Each day there were reports on the radio of the growing epidemic, racial injustice, police brutality, raging fires & floods, elections, insurrections and evidence of the rise of fascism. I started drawing the most available subject, me. In the dictionaries I found definitions and illustrations serendipitously relating to my feelings and the events of the day. They were collaged along with the self portraits into an artists’ book. As these events escalated, more drawings were made and then more books followed. A total of nine were finished before I ended the series after the more than two years since the pandemic started. (Lauri)

This series is in the collection of artists’ books in the U.C. Berkeley College of Environmental Design library.