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 whatever image came to me that day. 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 Austin and College Station.  

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 future.  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.