Kuma: Drawing Tome

Thoughts: I felt that I required something more substantial in which to place various materials and thoughts - thus we have this tome, stylized after matter relating to Bartholomew Kuma.

Quite a heavy and bulky book, it is actually incomplete, lacking two (or perhaps four) canvas paintings meant to be placed in lieu of proper end pages (those will be submitted and linked at a later time). Due to the size and weight of the book (and thus it's internal stresses), it seems that conventional endpages would be near impossible to manage for further unconventional structural reasons of this item. It is a non-adhesive binding, but this has been put to advantage by having the inside layer of leather act as a slide-pocket for papers or other notes and minutae; a layer of felt cushions the leather from the thick cover board itself. The covers were meant to overlap the text block by a small margin, providing greater protectiveness.

Depending on one's current inclinations, the front cover may either be considered creative or destructive, or ascending or descending. The segments of the reticle, painted in silver, indicate both a gateway, and also a reference to technology, the many types of four classical elements or categories, or created structure. The golden rays are both light - be it illuminating or destructive - and also primal force. As I see the background, stylized as it is after the spotted pattern found on Kuma's clothing and also the strange remnants left behind in the wake of his 'Ursus Shock' capability, it takes on the reflection of the void beyond consciousness, marked only by grouped fragments of abstracts of awareness.... It is like an untouchable ocean.

The back cover, while it might seem at first overly sentimental, is actually not meant to be so. Rather, it's direct intent refers to some things simply being beyond one's nature, or of a differing nature, and far greater than oneself - something to which some people feel they must measure themselves in spirit or understanding. I should note that Kuma's hand structure there is composed to be more broad and robust; it is also slightly larger than my own hand, thus it was not traced from my own. The figures of the hands and the complimentary crescents, take on a reflective quality, somehow fractal-like in my view. The outer golden crescent is something of a balanced grace, organic and natural, and thus a thing of holistic complexity and presence. The inner crescent, integrated into Kuma's palm, is representative of synthesis, technology, and all things created and governed by our own understandings of the world.

The spine of the book reads in gold, 'דוגמה':essentially 'paradigm, model, lesson, or exemplar.' Likewise does the gold also refer to the other golden sections of the tome. So also, in silver, 'אבסטרקטי': 'abstract, intangible, not easily understood, or impractical.' This may seem counterintuitive, but instead is more of a reference to the multiple ways in which human understanding, society, culture, and many modes of teaching and worldviews may all differ, although they are all meant to make sense of the world. They are the artificial matrix by which we survive and advance - the only concrete matter which we could presume to know, outside of our collective quest for the heights of truth, capability, and existence.

In the end, I do not know exactly what this book may contain, but I've yet to work on a system of writing, calligraphy, asemic content, or other frameworks which to place into it. Time will tell. (I joke: seeing the depths of my obsessiveness, it better be something damn worthy.)

Details: A tome for drawing, notes, or general use. About 28 cm x 29 cm, 10 cm deep.

Materials: Vegetable-tanned tooling leather, cartridge paper, hemp cord, embroidery thread, 1/2-inch thick pine board, felt, nickel-plate rivets, Eco-flo leather dye, Eco-flo leather paint, antiquing gel medium, and two buckles.