“Poetry is the great enemy of chance, despite also being a daughter of chance and despite knowing that chance in the end will triumph.” - Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988)

-

There are grids of boxes with numbers, outlined in red, set in columns or rows. Often, along their edges, evenly spaced rectangles in linear lengths. Counting up from “1” happens across or down. There are boxes for checking off, also. Usually, somewhere prominent, a word or or two: “Euromillions” or “POWER BALL.” In some cases the surface is divided into colorful sections. Their compositions are overwhelmingly structured, logical even. They point out their function, they invite a viewer into their structure. One wonders if these are keys with which to access something. They leave one curious about what might be inside if the combination is guessed correctly.

In a city, in an apartment, in a box. Atop one another in delicate angles separated with sheets of glassine or slipped into thin transparent covers. They have been held on to, added to, taken out, displayed, exhibited, stored. Before, collected from corner stores around the world - they are freely given - and saved for later in bags or coat pockets. Perhaps on a train or sitting on the street outside of a café, a gentle mark or exploring line. A scrawl of text, a fragmented portrait, a mysterious creature, a landscape abstracted into shapes and color. The tickets, so evidently structured, so obviously in service of a purpose, find themselves liberated from their intended use. In a lovely turn of events, their destiny has changed.

Love. Self worth. Forgiveness. Transformation. Our deepest cravings and the “yes” within. A dream nurtured for nearly 30 years. Tenderness. Ecstasy. Fantasy. A relationship with ourselves becomes what it is. In this volume - made of eight papers, gathered by hand, sewn with thread, fixed with glue, trimmed and wrapped - we and these tickets live yet again.

-

This book emerged out of our close collaboration over three years. We consider it a work itself, not only because its material and form reflects the sense of accumulation and fragmentation found in its very contents, but because of how it came to be. This book was truly permitted to become the book it already was. It was not designed. There was no preconceived notion of what it should do or whom it should be for. Instead we engaged in the, at times, difficult task of allowing, meandering, listening, noticing. The forces that were present in ourselves, the process, and in the work are here too in this volume. Thank you.