The Fleshing Enchiridion
The most important functional artifact (gift) from Reverentia. This book is bound in white-tailed deer parchment, pictured in To Hold Deer(ly) and gifted to me by my mentor, Dustin Lamberta. It is bound using a long-stitch binding with artificial sinew, and the pages are made from white mulberry (Morus alba) paper. The mulberry was foraged from Accord, NY, and made following traditional Kozo papermaking techniques. White mulberry leaves provide sustenance to white-tailed deer in the spring through their berries, leaves, and twigs.
The book contains writing that follows the practice of fleshing an animal hide - from procurement to post-fleshing (or pre-tanning?) If you are interested in the language embedded in the book, and PDF of the writing is accessible in my website menu, titled The Fleshing Enchiridion. In several instances, their are monoprints where scraps of white-tailed deer parchment were used as a matrix. Rather than waste the anchor points of my parchment, I chose to celebrate them for their importance in making the material, and communicate the intense pause a stretched hide experiences.