An Experimental Book Called After Hawaii

by Samia A. Halaby

At first I began working on the wall going in wild directions adding one paper after the other thinking of how to challenge the notion of the window in painting. My ceilings are nearly 12 feet high and the extension began to be hard to pursue on a ladder. I ended up on the floor. Sheets began to be added as hinged leafs in a book.

Those parts that extended out like a multi directional scroll were accordion pleated. I explored how the image and how composition would work on such a support. The traditional rectangular picture plane is damaging to abstraction. But the rectangle is present everywhere in our culture. Its economy in storage, transportation and daily use is hard to challenge except in the most extraordinary circumstances.