The Secret Lives of Books at MASS MoCA

"The Secret Lives of Books" was a part of a larger exhibition called "Bibliothecaphilia" on view January 2015 until April 2016 at Mass MoCA in North Adams, Mass. 
The piece fills a single room. A book rests on an ottoman in the center of the room with enormous ribbons of book pages seemingly escaping it, crawling up the walls. A Tiffany style lamp spills warm light onto a cozy wingback chair. The reader has stepped away for a moment, still immersed in the story and soul of the book. A book has so much power and potential. It can sweep you away to a distant land in a moment or take you on a grand adventure to the center of the universe. The possibilities are endless. It is magical. 
This piece is about the books we read. It is about their potential. It is about the number of hands that they may go through in their lives. Their pages creased and touched by so many. It is about the love affairs they have with their owners and their owners with them. It is about the endless endless swell of knowledge and numberless adventures that they enable us to go on. The many lives we experience through their pages. 
I felt that this may be what energy lies secretly in the book. In its pulpy heart.