Erin Fletcher
The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, 2025
leather, handmade paper, acryla gouache, embroidery floss, metallic and matte foil, paper yarn 6.6cm x 6.3cm x 1.6cm
The Wild Swans is a fairy tale from Hans Christian Andersen that tells the story of a jealous step-mother who disrupts the childhood of 11 brothers and 1 sister. The brothers are cast away and undergo a daily transformation from human to swan. After being cast out herself, the sister embarks on a journey to find and free her brothers from their fowl form. In order to do this, she must break down stinging nettles into fiber and knit each of her brothers a shirt, all in total silence, for even one word will be the death of her brothers. On the outside of the box, you are introduced to this cast of characters in their alternative form. When the box is opened you are presented with a shroud of stinging nettle leaves covering a binding with knitted boards. The endpapers are stained with pinks and reds to represent the pain endured by the sister as she struggled through silence and imprisonment to free her brothers.
Erin Fletcher
Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom, 2021
goatskin, handmade paper, cotton embroidery floss, gouache, colored pencil 21.3cm x 14.7cm x 2.8cm
A book bound in human skin is born out of a grim situation. Rarely is there a provenance for the person whose skin is used to create such a unique object, however a story within Dark Archives emerges on how the skin of a dying immigrant woman ends up on three bindings within her doctor’s collection. The story of Mary Lynch is just one of many who have been taken advantage of for the sake of curiosity or the search for medical advancement. Yet sometimes these horrific human experiments do lead to treatments that benefit humankind. The mushrooms illustrated on this binding are varieties that grow from decaying organic material. Their extensive root system runs below the surface to deliver nutrients pulled from the dead to sustain the living plants nearby. The lives that were taken have progressed practices of gynecology, furthered research on the human genome and virology and helped to create treatments for polio and HPV amongst many other advancements. However, this can not outweigh the manipulation and horrors bestowed upon these humans solely because they were deemed inferior or outsiders by medical professionals. Mary Lynch’s doctor cared so little for her life, he allowed her body to rot away from the inside. Then upon her death removed her skin without her consent and stored it for decades before having it used to bind three medical texts on women’s health. Anthropodermic bibliopegy is a contentious subject that Rosenbloom navigates with compassion. My goal was to create a design of equal merit that did not serve to sensationalize.
Erin Fletcher
Stuart Williams: His World & His Art by William Corbett, 2020
Hand-painted calfskin, hand-dyed goatskin, handmade paper, cotton embroidery floss, matte foil 27.5 x 53.1cm (open)
