about The Past Is Cold

The Past is Cold, in the collection of The Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, in La Jolla, CA

13” x 13” Unique accordion book with hard covers. The accordion binding allows the book to be drawn out for display.

Ink, burning, copper leaf, and acrylic medium on BFK RIVES paper. 

Art and design by Eliana Pérez

Poem by Marshall Weber

The placid, icy exterior of The Past Is Cold belies a charred interior, branded with red-hot iron implements, like the hide of livestock.  Pages are peppered with the ashy splatter of fireworks, leaving smoldering cavities breaking through the ruminating teardrop script.  Directional light sources reveal features differently, depending on the viewer’s perspective: metal leaf rings the edges of the burned holes, alternating color and intensity like hot coals; “invisible ink” script written in transparent medium reveals itself only when tilted.

The Past Is Cold text

The Past is Cold

by Marshall Weber

the future is burning

a flaming wheel of knives 

spinning 

into the wilderness 

of mirrors

please 

open your eyes

and tell me again

how this came to pass

this firestorm

of lies made truth

and truth made lies

your body transfigured

into boundary less smoke

your hot tongued story

burnt into stone

the dust is so lovely 

in the sunlight

glittering

notes of music

dancing on a page