Spiritual Passports/Pasaportes Espirituales: The Unseen Images of an Artist Who Never Lived to See Them

What we know of Martha Wood's spiritual quest we know only from images composed in her mind's eye and recovered from her camera after her sudden death in the Andean highlands of Peru—images that she never saw on film. Wood had traveled to Peru with her husband, Andy Johnson, and a group of friends. Pursuing separate journeys, they were to meet at the fabled Inca city of Machu Picchu. But fate intervened, and Wood passed away silently in the quiet hours of night.

Spiritual Passports/Pasaportes Espirituales is a mosaic of extraordinary images and colors, poignant excerpts from Pablo Neruda's poetry, and elegant design brought into vivid focus by the emotions and mystery of Martha Wood's final days in Peru and the spiritual and artistic journey that culminated for her there. Photography was not Wood's profession, but it was her passion for ten years. Through her lens, Wood turned the massive constructions of the Incas—great stones precisely fitted together, terraces of salt ponds spilling down whole mountainsides—into works of abstract art. The photographs also share a visual and spiritual sensibility with an indigenous art form Wood loved—handmade paper. Examples of contemporary Mexican amate paper, reminiscent of the "spiritual passports" the Aztec placed on their dead, complement Wood's photographs throughout this tribute to an artist who never lived to see her finest work.