Gertrude’s Girdle
2003
electric stylus marks on Japanese paper
25 x 25 inches
The image, “burned” by the electrical arc of a sign maker’s pouncing tool, is inspired by a Gerald Weismann essay concerning Gertrude Stein. Her admitted disinterest in the A-bomb used on Japan, and her early history alongside her brother Leo collecting oceanic specimens at Woods Hole, MA, led to this combined morphology of the Atomic mushroom cloud over Hiroshima and the delicate internal structure of a ctenophore. A ctenophore is a sea creature also known as a combed jelly or Venus’s Girdle.