Inspired by the activities of a paleontologist, I patinated the copper electroformed, magnifying glass. This treatment paired with the nobby and organic frame gives the feeling of something excavated from the earth—

Using the magnifying glass, to mine the content like a paleontologist making discoveries and trying to land on a name of the thing you see before you—makes greater the metaphor by further punctuating its meaning with every gesture.

It is a kind of “switching station,” making tangible the space between your body and the text, the lines between sentences, adjusting, and negotiating focus.

Looking closer, the strained relationship established between the tiny words of poetry and its meaning; it would seem that together the magnifying glass and the shrunken text enact the contradictory forces at play in the naming of things—at once a distilling and an opening up.