On my bookshelves I keep a very dear object, a gold frame with small inlaid photos of lips on each side of the frame. Four different lips, like four different human characters. The frame was a birthday present from an artist friend named Beverly Rayner. Beverly is a mixed media artist, constructing her art pieces around photographic imaginary. She often uses photos of lips and eyes, each telling some mysterious tale.

Yes, of course, eyes are the window to the soul. Such is the aphorism. Scientists insist the secret is in the Iris. Subtle patterns indicate whether you are human or android. Whether you are in your head or in your heart… If you want to know what to make of someone, look at their lips, look at their smile..

Beverly is the consummate storyteller. No object is without a story. Remember what Chekhov said about an ashtray, and so, like a writer, she is always using found objects. She reshapes the purpose of the perfectly mundane, and gives them a different meaning. She is a master of enhancing clutter with significance. She narrates stories of  photographs by altering, reshaping, cutting, tearing them and integrating them with other materials. Her sculptures are assemblage creations always narrating a story out of existing objects, reused in a new context.

I asked her some questions…..

Who inspires you the most?

The human race as a whole is the inspiration for my art – there are endless ideas sparked in my imagination by the oddities of human nature.

What is your favorite place in Bay Area?

I have a lot of favorite spots, but San Francisco is my favorite city.

What was the last great object that you found or that was given to you?

An old, short brass stand with a cross arm. It was lent to me by a colleague in Virginia to use in my recent installation of the Museum of Mesmerism there, and it worked so eerily well in the piece that he very kindly gave it to me.

Where would you go if you had to leave right tonight to a unexpected vacation?

New York. I have been missing it a lot, and this fall there is a show of the Quay Brothers at MOMA that I really want to see.

The latest great show you visited?

Jean Paul Gaultier at the de Young. Phenomenal!

The latest great book you read?

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. A complex weaving of realities with some gorgeous use of language.