(Sketchbook cover images: over a five year period, Kjell Bloch Sandved found and photographed the letters A - Z and numbers 0 - 9 on butterfly wings.)

I was honored to be an Artist in Residence at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, September 20 - December 11, 2023. Working at Amazon provided a stimulating contrast between industry-leading technological innovation and the analog, often obsolete materials that I use in my work.

I took this opportunity to revisit and elaborate on two of many mediums and forms: tarpaper and cyanotype.

What materials work on tarpaper? Everything, it turns out, including watercolor, even though tarpaper is a petroleum product. What magic does cyanotype offer in its transformation of ordinary objects to otherworldly forms?

These alternative processes amount to a "book of knowledge", the name of a children’s encyclopedia from the 1950s. I chose “The Book of Knowledge” as the overarching title of my residency.