Ego and Soul and Thistles
Ink, pencil, and fingerprint on found book paper (c. 1940s–1950s)
3x5 / 2018

I made this work on a small fragment of book paper from the mid-twentieth century, using my own fingerprints pressed in ink. Inside each print, I wrote the word soul or ego in tiny pencil marks, holding touch, language, and identity in the same gesture.

In the lower right corner, I included a quote by Alan Watts -“The saint will not be found in church” -as a quiet orientation toward lived devotion.

The dots and hash marks scattered across the surface record prayers I made while drawing, functioning as both notation and offering. At the center, a thistle emerges- an ancestral plant of protection and beauty- leaving against a circle containing hexagonal forms that reference the honeybee and nature’s hand, placing my fingerprints in conversation with those of the natural world.