Carry The Bats! (2020)

The inside cover has a fanciful wallpaper pattern of rose- and dusty-blue-colored peacock-like feathers. Two black Lucite ovals are mounted next to each other, close to the top of the cover. Each oval contains two red beans and a small white seashell. Just below these, to the right, is a panel from a comic book depicting two bats in flight. To the left of the bats is a cylinder collaged with the X-ray of a rib cage. This cylinder has red poker chips closing both ends. A white string is threaded through holes in the poker chips. Tied to the end string beneath the cylinder is a corroded metal weight with a bent cotter pin running through it. The other end of the string runs out to the top of a cylinder and into the top of another cylinder of the same dimension which is mounted inside the framed section. This cylinder, with yellow poker chips on either end, is collaged with an illustration of a yellow tropical flower. The end of the string coming through the bottom of this cylinder is tied to a red wooden bird-calling device. The frame of this book assemblage is covered with a color photograph of the interior of the Hagia Sophia. The interior of the frame is divided into two sections by a shelf collaged with a color lithograph illustration of the first hot air balloon. The top section features a pair of color illustrations of men with technical equipment mounted side-by-side on blue, cut-glass stakes. Behind these pictures is a color photo of a car driving along an abstractly laid out roadway. In this compartment, the side panels are mirrors, and the top is red felt. The background of the bottom section is a black-and-white photo of a narrow, dirt mountain road. Mounted in the top right corner of the photo is a tile with a collaged, etched illustration of a child’s foot, from a painting by Andrea del Sarto. The right inner side panel is a color photo of a Korean War soldier, and on the left is a sailor from the painting Napoleon on the Bellerophon by William Orchardson. The bottom of this section is a color photo of desert sand.