maryciani.com  maryciani5@gmail.com  979-575-1825 

“An extraordinary vision by a master of technique and insight.”

– David Woodcock, Professor, Department of Architecture, Texas A&M University

FLOOD River Village City Storm Deluge

84 pages with 66 full-page drawings in six chapters.  

ORDERING THE FLOOD BOOK:

Enter Ciani or Flood in the BOOKSTORE at blurb.com

or: http://www.blurb.com/b/6408462

Three Things to Know About This Book:

1.  RESPONSE TO DROUGHT:  It was a response to the great Texas drought of 2011.  Two years later I looked out from Berkeley toward San Francisco and saw a city of white towers rising above the fog, and the Golden Gate bridge, and other bridges, and round hills – as if there were villages connected around the sparkling bay.  I had a lurch of the heart and decided "I will draw water, abundant water."  I had never drawn water before. Only later did I realized that the drawings were a response to that disastrous drought, my first brush with climate change.  I had suffered heat and drought, so I would draw cool water!

2.  TOO MANY IDEAS:  Every morning I had a cup of coffee, closed my eyes, and drew what I found in my mind’s eye.  I found a calligraphic line that flowed down the page.  I used a vertical format and high horizon line so that the tipped ground plane became a stage for the action of flowing water. I played with 3D forms on the ground plane rather than 2D shapes on the picture plane as I had usually done before. I drew for almost two years on the West Coast and the East, in Berkeley, Bolinas, Belfast, Washington DC, and home again in College Station.  (After publishing the book, and having an art show, I continued to draw Flood drawings.)

3,  FINDING THE STORY:   I shuffled the drawings like storyboard sketches – as did my animation students – and found a timeline from first rivers to villages in harmony with the river, to cities ignoring the river, and then storm – the age we lived in when I drew the work – and finally deluge, the age we live in now.  I realized only as I was hanging the drawings in a show that this narrative had two meanings: the story of climate change, and the story of a life. 

I worked as a book designer in New York City for three years, and in San Francisco for two, so it was a pleasure to put this book together using the tools of Blurb.com.