This work grew out of my brief stint as a street photographer. I’d barrel down the street with my minolta camera looking for critical moments, storied faces in context. After a while I realized I was much more interested in what people were saying than the way they looked. So I continued to use the camera as a way of getting to know people, but I stopped putting film in the camera. Eventually I stopped carrying the camera altogether.

This study of human discourse became the foundation of most of my later work.

The use of translucent paper allows the reader to visually hear echoes of past and future conversations. Significant lineation (breaking lines for sense or breath break as in verse), use of lower case and limited punctuation seemed a natural way of translating human speech.

So I hit the pavement with my first self-published offset printed book. One of the first book dealers I went to in new york city looked admiringly at every page, muttering things like fascinating and beautiful, laughing at some of the dialogue. Then he slammed the book shut and with a straight face said, “Come back when you’re dead.”

The man at the Drama Bookstore (after all, this was a script for a play) looked at this oversized book of mine, and made me an offer — “If you can find one shelf that thing will fit on, I’ll buy your whole edition. I left without a sale.

versations was an outgrowth of my thesis project at the mfa graphic design program at Yale University. A copy of all thesis projects were to be given to the art of the book room in the sterling library. Since my project was published after graduation, instead of giving them a copy.
I sold them one. I got a kick out of that. Heck, they could afford it.