by elemental forces...

this is what happens when you use a coffee table book as a blotter. i was trying to save a drawing on thin paper with too much ink. luckily i not only saved the drawing, which was kept flat and intact by the heavy book; but the situation left some marks on the book's back cover, which really enhanced the mystical qualities of the landscape of black mountain college...it reminded me of one of my favorite books...

The intention of this book is to examine natural forms occurring in ACCIDENTAL EFFECTS that are produced not by the artist, but by elemental forces at work on the pigments - very much like the accidental effects produced at the seashore by the action of gravity, heat, cold, waves, and the action of wind on water, sand, mud, and rocks. (...) In the act of making the various designs and shapes shown in this book, the artist cannot but be impressed by their universal, all-permeating character, how they occur throughout the natural world in completely unrelated living organisms, as well as in inanimate things.
James F. O'Brian, design by accident, 1968