While almost every book tells a story, most don’t have bedsheets and iron worked into their pages.

But when Auburn University Associate Professor and artist Kristen Tordella-Williams created the pair of artist books titled “Void,” she was not just writing them. She was sculpting them.

“I like that the paper appears strong and can be strong, but it’s actually fragile,” Tordella-Williams said during an artist reception on Thursday night. “Iron also appears strong and can be strong, but it’s actually fragile.”

The two artist books appear in Tordella-Williams’ “Dark Matter” exhibition, which is currently on display at the Mississippi University for Women Galleries until Feb. 7. The exhibition includes iron and paper sculptures designed to look like nebulas, uterine arteries, reproductive structures, constellations, plants and the “Void” books.

Tordella-Williams said the books that appear in the exhibition were inspired by the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the subsequent closure of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a abortion clinic that was also called the “Pink House.”

Tordella-Williams told The Dispatch she lived in Jackson for seven years, while she was teaching at Millsaps College.

“It was just part of my daily life because I would drive past there on my way to work,” Tordella-Williams said. “And you would see the Pink House was still there and still happening until Roe v. Wade overturned.”

Often, she said, the Pink House would be surrounded by anti-abortion protestors. A group of volunteer escorts, which became known as the “Pink House Defenders,” would bring patients inside of the clinic and help them to avoid the protests.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Tordella-Williams said, she reached out to her friend and Millsaps College English professor Liz Egan, who had acted as a Pink House Defender herself before the clinic’s closure and relocation to New Mexico.

Using an online form, the pair collected stories from other former Pink House Defenders and consolidated them into the book’s quotes and messages.

Tordella-Williams said she created the large pieces of paper featured throughout the exhibition “Dark Matter” using her old bedsheets, which she washed and then incorporated into the paper pulp. For the books, she mended pages with “craters” or holes in them, and then printed the words on the pages using stenciled laser cuts.

Following the cutting of the words, she sprayed glue on the pages, sifted iron onto them and then rusted the pages to create more life on them.

The artist said she was excited to show the books at Mississippi University for Women, as a way to continue the conversation about reproductive healthcare and the Pink House in the state.

“Presenting the books specifically in Mississippi, I knew I had to get them done to show them,” Tordella-Williams said. “…It makes them more meaningful.”

Director of MUW Galleries Beverly Joyce said “Dark Matter” will be on display until Feb. 7. The work of local artist Lukuise Swanigan will also be on display in the smaller gallery until Feb. 27.

The galleries, she said, are free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, following the university’s calendar on closures.

“I think we’re almost like a secret to people, and either they don’t know about us or they don’t think that they’re supposed to come,” Joyce said. “They think we’re only here for (MUW students), but we’re here for everyone.”

MUW Galleries also started a Friends of the Galleries program earlier this week, she said, allowing those who want updates on exhibitions to stay connected with the program. Otherwise, updates are available on the MUW Galleries Facebook page, she said.