“Patience” (the French name for the card game of “solitaire”) is an accordion made from 18 assembled playing cards. Each card shows a married couple, facing each other as if in a mirror. The 36 portraits are ancestors of my mother and are based on paintings, copperplate engravings, and original contemporary photographs from the 17th through 19th centuries. Each portrait is assigned a card symbol (spade, club, diamond, heart) in combination with a Roman numeral I–X or a letter: Q(ueen), K(ing), or J(ack). The couples are assigned roles from the playing-card procession in Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” The relevant text passage (in the original English) precedes the playing cards as a motto, or possibly a form of card-game instructions. At the end of the accordion is a list of the names, birth and death dates of the 36 playing-card “actors.”

[...] First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. [...] turning to Alice, the Queen went on, “What’s your name, child?” “My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,” said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, “Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!” [...]

The pictures were edited in Photoshop and printed using Giclée technology (with 11 different colors); the text (Futura Light Condensed) is letterpress printed. Double-sided accordion with printed paper-covered boards (14 x 17.5 cm, extends out to 3,7 m) housed in a plexiglass box with lid (15.4 x 18.9 x 1.9 cm), Bamboo Paper from Awagami Factory, 40 pages, 25 numbered and signed copies, Flörsheim 2023

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