Daniel Essig is interested in traces of the past, ancient binding styles, altered books, distressed finishes, and found objects. Since he was six or seven years old, he's been collecting small objects. He have seashells and interesting rocks that he collected at the beach on childhood vacations. He also have his grandfather’s arrowhead collection. He often walked the freshly plowed fields of the central Missouri town where spent his life, collecting these stone relics of the land’s past inhabitants. He has stored up seedpods, rocks, bones, shells, bits of rusty metal, nails, animal teeth, fossils. They represent periods in his life, even just days or moments. He keep my collection of objects in drawers, bottles, and boxes within a single small room in my house. The space has the feel of a German Wunderkammern, a “cabinet of curiosities.” He often sit in the room and scan my collection, seeking just the right object to inspire a new book or sculpture.
(Yes, this guy sounds very familiar as a fellow gatherer of interesting stuff!)
I love his artist statement.
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