This work is done in honor of recipes that are loved and handed down to family and friends.  A handwritten cookbook from 1855 was my muse in creating this work.  The grease stained pages showed that the book was well used.

I transferred pages of the book to vintage dinner napkins, which I had hand-dyed with onionskins.  Both the book and the dinner napkins were gifts from my dear friends, Karen and Todd.  

I wanted to convey the beauty of the handwritten word where each writing style is as individual as the recipes.  The hand stitching of a word from the text on each of the napkins is a tribute to the attention it took to handwrite the recipes.  In the act of stitching, I became acutely aware of the individual nuances of each personality of the writers.  My sister, Julie Thurber, helped me with the stitching.  That act of hand stitching took Julie and me to a typical 1855 experience of sitting on her front porch each carefully stitching and talking.  The pace of the process was slow and methodical in contrast to our usual hectic schedules.  It was a lovely place to be.

By including the mylar sheets that I used to transfer the text, I wanted to offer attention to my tools.  These sheets ended up having a ghostly presence, which seemed to dignify the ghosts of the writers of these recipes.