The artist Athena Tacha has been publishing “pocket booklets” since 1972. These small, accordion-folded pamphlets contain intimate autobiographical writings, texts that deal with minute aspects of the artist’s everyday life: meditations on fears, habits, pleasures, aging, cleanliness, loneliness, vulnerability, and more. They are printed in black on various colored papers.

This one from 1974 is titled “The Process of Aging (Fragment of an ongoing thorough self-analysis and description to be completed by the end of my life).” The first fragment of Tacha’s ongoing thorough self-analysis and description to be completed by the end of my life was recorded at the age of 38 and chronicles the artist’s history of self-scrutiny beginning with adolescence. She examines changes in her physique that have occurred since and offers insight into their causes. A daring and unflinching self-portrait of a woman on the precipice of middle age, Tacha seems less interested in commenting on society’s observations of women as they age as she is in documenting the process in vivid detail as a means of navigating these observations in an intimate and personal way, turning the process inward and taking ownership of aging.

Athena Tacha is a multi-media artist well known for her numerous public art commissions. Originally from Larissa, Greece (which also happens to be a major locale for many Greek minerals), she was the curator of modern art at the Oberlin College Art Museum and taught sculpture at the school from 1973 until 2000.

This booklet is in good condition with some wear consistent with age.