Fans

The only problem books presented for Polansky was how to exhibit them without running the risk of damage from handling. Polansky found the solution while researching the history of books and bookbinding. When she learned that the earliest books were made of palm leaves bearing written notations, she realized that such leaves fastened at one end, could be spread out like a brise fan and read consecutively without handling. The fan motif provided her with another form for her bookworks and solved the problem of displaying them in future exhibitions. Like the earlier books, the fans were a synthesis of handmade paper, fragments of nature and personal memorabilia. Her beloved grandmother is immortalized in her books and other works with paper castings of her lace tablecloths, bedcovers, doilies and other treasures Lois inherited.