Ann Neslen is a writer, mixed-media and book artist based in Maryland.

I work primarily in artist books, because bookforms are a place where I can combine my love for sculpture, writing, textiles, paper, thread, and cloth.  I am drawn to making art which is tactile, sculptural, and layered.  Many of the components I use, whether it be washes of ink on rice paper, or plaster on board, are meant to evoke the feeling of layers and the patina one would find in nature. Even among manmade things like concrete and metal, there is a point at which nature collects her belongings through adding wear, rust spots, green fuzz and mold growth. I am drawn to how inescapable the natural world is. My artist books are, in a way, fighting nature, by preserving fleeting moments I’d like to remember into physical forms.  Sometimes I use my books to mimic nature as a way to echo what I see and experience. Much like one does when they are lost in a forest, I find I circle around and around the same themes of place, memoir, and what it means to be part of the natural world. I am endlessly asking questions around how we get to be as we are, what it means to have memories, and what does a sense of place do to inform us of our lives and what matters to us.  I wonder about what it means to call home, home. And how one goes about building their lives in pieces, much like a bird builds its nest with the scraps it finds.