I Wonder
By Marian Bantjes
Marian has incrusted her pages with decoration, linear curves married to straight lines, step-and-repeat patterns that mystify, tiny, multi-colored, and intricate, a synthesis as organic as lyrics and musical notes. Each page is a cornucopia of texture, and snuggled within are her words. Fresh, lucid, sage, and romantic that echo the decoration. Many words are light-hearted, some deeply personal, a few are set in a personal font, coded and decorative, titled "Secret," that are perhaps infused with romance (decoration in itself is a romantic idea). The chapter on the Griffth Park Observatory in Hollywood is a gem in the essence of the word. A jewelry collection whose existence is strange--in an observatory? One to rival the exquisite output of Julius Arthur Rosenberg. The chapter is worth the price of the book. Marian is a dear friend and rarely have I encountered written words that so accurately replicate an author's spoken voice. The book is beautiful and ideosyncratic, at first glance the binding appears to be simple, textured foil. A closer inspection reveals Marian's genius of densely varied curves that miraculously step-and-repeat, a baroque and subtle reminder that Marian's genius and kind, introspective heart is to be visited time, and time again.
--Doyald Young