Cyanotype Runes: Casting Memory into Light

Some of my projects begin with an idea.

Others begin with a material I’ve hoarded or I mean sourced away.

These rune sets began with light.

For the last several months I’ve been experimenting with cyanotypes, not only as photographic prints, but as objects. I wanted to see what would happen if one of photography’s oldest processes could become something you could actually hold in your hand. What if a photograph became an artifact? What if a rune carried the memory of sunlight itself?

The result is a collection of handmade resin rune sets unlike anything I’ve made before.

Every piece begins as an original cyanotype. The deep Prussian blues, soft white edges, and accidental gradients aren’t painted and they’re created through exposure to sunlight. Each image is torn apart, preserved inside crystal-clear resin, and transformed into a tactile object.

No two runes are exactly alike.

A New Way to Read Runes

Runes have always fascinated me because they exist somewhere between language and intuition.

They are symbols.
They are history.
They are stories waiting to be interpreted.

Embedding them inside cyanotypes feels especially fitting. Cyanotypes are themselves records of time and the trace of light made visible. The runes become little archives, carrying both ancient symbols and contemporary photographic processes.

Each cast holds its own landscape of blue.

Some are bold.
Others fade softly into white.
Many reveal unexpected textures created by chemistry and sunlight.

The imperfections are intentional.

Nature helped make every one.

Three Collections to be Fully Released August 1st!

This first release explores three distinct bodies of work.

Cyanotype Rune Collection

The foundation of the series.

Minimal.
Graphic.
Deep indigo blues preserved inside clear resin.

These feel almost like fragments of the sky frozen into stone or ice!

Botanical Gold Collection

This series layers dried flowers, botanical fragments, and delicate gold leaf into each casting.

The flowers become suspended in time while the gold catches light from every angle.

They feel ceremonial and part offering, part relic, part keepsake.

Each botanical inclusion is unique, making every rune set impossible to reproduce exactly.

Timekeeper Collection

The newest direction introduces antique clock gears paired with gold leaf.

I’ve always been interested in memory, ancestry, and the way time shapes identity.

Old clock mechanisms feel like tiny monuments to time itself.

Encased beside the runes, the gears remind us that every reading happens at exactly the right moment.

Time isn’t something we’re chasing.

It’s something we’re participating in.

Than Runes

Each collection will include far more than a pouch of symbols.

Every set will arrive with:

• A complete handmade resin rune set

• A one-of-a-kind throwing tray created specifically for that collection

• One of my Making Faces sculptures to accompany your readings

• Care and interpretation materials

• Packaging designed as part of the artwork itself

I wanted the experience to feel like opening an artist’s cabinet of curiosities rather than a mass-produced product.

Everything belongs together.

The tray becomes part of the ritual.
The sculpture becomes a witness.
The runes become a conversation.

Objects for Slow Looking

Much of my work asks people to slow down.

Photography asks us to notice.

Meditation asks us to notice.

Nature asks us to notice.

These rune sets ask the same thing.

Pick one up.
Hold it to the light.
Notice how the cyanotype shifts.
See the tiny details
The fibers.
The flowers.
The gold.
The gears.

Every detail records a moment that actually happened.

The sun exposed the paper.
My hands mixed the resin.
Time cured each piece.

Nothing is rushed.

An Expanding Practice

These runes are part of a larger body of work exploring cyanotypes, botanical collecting, memory, ritual, and preservation.

They sit alongside my photographic practice, my Organic Tarot project, and the Making Faces sculptures as another way of asking how objects can hold stories.

I don’t think of them as products.

I think of them as small portable artworks, pieces that invite reflection, curiosity, and connection.

Every set is handmade.
Every set is one of a kind.
Every set carries a little bit of sunlight inside it.

I can’t wait to begin sharing them with you.