“Sometimes inspiration comes from unpredictable sources that I wish were more easily and predictably harnessed. A catalogue from an exhibition of Norman Daly’s invented civilization of Lhuros gave rise to thinking about what preconceived notions archeologists bring to excavations, and how they bring their own stories to those buried foundations, totems, gods, bits and pieces. I’ve always been interested in comics—from those written by Windsor McKay to Alan Moore’s The Watchmen to their explanations of microeconomics—because of the way language and image are connected, and have to work together. Also, newspaper articles, observations of people and situations in the city, science writing, all get filed and turn out to be useful later on. I’m easily distracted. A couple of masks brought back from Indonesia many years ago hang near my desk. They aren’t overtly menacing, but just looking at them reminds me to knock it off, and get back to work already.”
—Susan Daitch, author of Paper Conspiracies (City Lights, 2011)