Kneel to Heal – Josephine Foster

OTOHan releases its second title - the first illustrated chapbook from musician Josephine Foster.

Written during a bout of illness that prevented Foster from playing and performing music, Kneel to Heal is a grateful offering to the restorative power of nature. Across 24 pages, Foster muses upon the simple joys of just being in the world, her figures traversing a landscape of words and imagery that is both playful and deeply felt.

There is an uncluttered simplicity to Foster's art, at once charming and profound; a sense of calm and openness reflective of her feeling during its making "of being drawn profoundly into and toward silence" Conjuring the easy fluidity of Shel Silverstein, or the dreamlike, transportive scenes of Marc Chagal, Foster's brushwork digs deep into the soil whilst looking up to the stars.

There are no weighty proclamations, no authoritative conclusions, just a shared wonder and a sense of time unfurling alongside the book's creation that offers solace both in its giving and its receiving. The joys of the natural world may be fleeting but Foster seems to suggest that there is no cause for despondency in this, merely an acceptance that this is how reality is. Nevertheless, "what emerges from the mystery.. and that real reality.. will heal".

The book arrives as signed and numbered 24 page staple bound booklet, printed in black and white on Keaykolour 100% recycled paper. Printed by Aldgate Press. Thanks to Max Bondi for his advice. 

Josephine Foster

Coloradoan Josephine Foster’s route is a free, chromatic music, a tuneful montana of mind–an expansive harmonic space dominated by mountains on the horizon. As highwater as the music is, as broad the stylistic palette of it, her music really exists in service of the lyrics.

She has performed for an audience of burros, concerts of Federico Garcia Lorca poems set to music. A music of wandering and a music of roots. An impermanent tradition passed down for generations. Let your loved ones know.