Initially I found the book and knew I wanted to alter it but I put it away for a while. The cotton crochet gloves were an old purchase that I had gotten decades ago. The  confluence of book and idea came from watching the HBO series, “Deadwood”, which is set in a mining town in 1876. One of the characters from the series is a fine lady who is addicted to laudanum, a medicine that contains opium. This was not so rare in that era as it was proscribed by doctors for all sorts of ailments and was highly addictive.

In making the work, I used a Dremel to carve the spaces inside and then glued the diorama in the interior and glued the pages closed. I lined the bottle shape with red velvet and set in the bottle with a handmade laudanum label. The outside silk was cut and sewed to make a book cover. The “handkerchief” title and spine label were printed on silk passed through the computer for the lettering.

Emily Marks