Summer Wheat: Forager

Edited by Jennifer Sudul Edwards, PhD
Contributions by Diedrick Brackens, Jen Sudul Edwards, Jennifer Krasinski and Anne Ellegood

Designed by: Content Object, Kimberly Varella
Casebound Hardcover, 232 pages
Publisher: Rizzoli Electra with the Mint Museum, 2024
ISBN: 978-0-8478-7340-1
Dimensions: 8.75 × 12 in.


The mesmerizing and electric palette of Summer Wheat is filled with rich jewel tones punctuated by neon bursts of pigment. During a visit to the artist’s studio back in the summer of 2022, with a PMS swatch book in hand, I was able to get exact matches to each of the colors in Wheat’s palette. Because of this, the cover—an 8-color silkscreen on black fabric—is nearly an exact replica of the artwork itself. The inside of the book features a full signature dedicated to the 3-story window installation at the Mint Museum—called Foragers—printed in 4c fluorescent. The neon color space of the fluorescent palette gives the same kind of light as Foragers and bathes the reader as if they were in the atrium of the installation. On the contrary, the essays are printed in 1c on an almost onion-skin-like paper, and the notes, conversations, and reflections are like whispers that seep from the plates. The endpapers and front and back matter are printed with bronze metallic ink on black paper. Images in the back of the book are snapshots from the aforementioned studio visit that key into Wheat’s practice and methodology, including shots of tile pieces, stones, screens, plastic bags filled with paint, and a color palette. The aesthetic, both in content and form, is prompted by Wheat’s interest in Alchemy and her forthcoming work, Jewel House, whose schematic of bronze doors is reproduced on the title page.

Photography by Chris Gardner