The collaboration between artist Margo Klass and writer Frank Soos goes further. "A Contemporary Book of Saints: Icons - Altars - Reliquaries," now showing at Bunnell through January, presents a conversation between the Fairbanks couple. Building on their previous collaboration, the 2006 Bunnell show, "Constructions," Soos views Klass' box sculptures as if they are icons, altars or reliquaries of saints.

In "Constructions," collected in the book "Double Moon," Soos wrote prose poems inspired by Klass' delicate box assemblages. For three of those works, Soos approached the work as if it was a reliquary the religious tradition of artfully displaying sacred objects, often body parts of saints.

"At that very moment, it caught a chord," Klass said. "We wanted to do more of these little guys."

With degrees in medieval art history, Klass brings an appreciation for those ancient traditions to her work. There's a bit of Joseph Cornell in her approach. Like the New York artist known for his eclectic assemblages of found objects arranged in boxes, Klass collects things.

One joy in looking at her work is trying to figure out what that odd tool might be, what animal that bone came from. She gathers natural objects from the beaches and woods of Maine and Alaska and artifacts from all over, especially junk shops. What something is or where it came from doesn't concern her as much as an object's shape, texture and color does.

"I don't want to know its history," Klass said. "The junkier the better."

Victorian British writer Alban Butler's "Lives of the Saints" inspired them. At their artists' talk at the First Friday opening, they spoke of reading Butler's book.

"I grew up Catholic," Klass said. "For some of you, I don't have to say more than that."

Photo by Michael Armstrong "Holy Seat of St. Donna, Patron Saint of the Art of the Deal," one of the pieces in "A Contemporary Book of Saints," at Bunnell Street Arts Center.

"These things came together in terms of an intriguing sense of aesthetics," she said. "It just seemed to click."

In writing his descriptions, Soos said he was inspired by Butler's archaic and overstated prose.

"People don't get sick in 'The Lives of Saints,'" he said. "They're 'laid low.'"

Soos said at first he thought the descriptions would be light and humorous.

"It would be a good joke," he said. "As the project evolved, I have thought harder of the whole idea of saintliness."

Klass applies her bookmaking skills and sense of Japanese aesthetics to her constructions. The boxes have the fine detail and craft seen in the book art of local artists like Asia Freeman and Kim Terpening. Some boxes have glass-and-mica doors with latches, while others unfold like books.

For artists wanting to learn some of the techniques Klass uses in her constructions, she teaches a box-making workshop Jan. 29-31 at Bunnell.

Soos responded to Klass' work after she completed them, and she didn't create them with a specific saint in mind. The collaboration comes from his response to what he sees in the work. For example, "St. Lazlo, Patron Saint of Thieves" was inspired by a row of pen nibs and a smooth, half-round rock.

"Face it, this is who I am," he writes, "A thief of thoughts, or at least of the words they are made of."

Most of the sculptures are simple boxes, but several are what Klass calls altars, similar to medieval constructions that might contain several reliquaries.

"It always looks like a big book to me," Klass said.

The dominant such work in the show, "St. Fortuna, Patron Saint of Chance," mimics the architecture of medieval altars, with a lunette, or half-moon shaped box, at the top, a central box for the saint and numerous side and lower boxes for minor saints or patrons.

Soos even makes a physics joke in that piece, creating saints that represent the aspects of quarks subatomic particles like "St. Billy, Patron Saint of Up" and "St. Dwayen, Patron Saint of Spin."

"I wanted to make the whole thing about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle," Soos said.

Although Soos' descriptions offer one understanding of Klass' constructions, they're not the only interpretation that can be taken from the works. With objects that delight and amuse or confuse they challenge more careful examination.

"I want people to examine it one on one, come up close," Klass said. "Get in the box itself."

For more information on Klass' work, visit her Web site at www.margoklass.com. Many of the boxes are for sale; two books of their collaborations also are on sale at Bunnell.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael. armstrong@homernews.com.