Peregrine Honig's hand-painted series Awfulbet is a series of unique drawings on brown paper lunch sacks, one for each letter of the alphabet as well. The images in the editioned work, as with the unique drawings illustrate the alphabet through short narratives describing a varied cast of young girls. Their stories give brief insight into the girls' personalities, telling of trauma, their personal tastes, fantasies, desires and quirks. It engenders infants, veils virgins, enhances whores, and cushions death. A laced dress is precious while a laced drink is poisonous.
Lace is protective and seductive, nostalgic and nasty.
I met with Jack Lemon, the director of Landfall Press, in the autumn of 1998. I was working on several series of drawings depicting girls in early stages of sexual comprehension. I was using a very fine line and Jack thought that my drawings would translate well as etchings. He sent the doilies to a paper conservator to be tested for acidity and ordered oval copper plates. Victorian doilies insinuate feminine fragility and coquettish elegance.