This tiny short story is what happens when one spends too much time looking at medieval illuminated manuscripts and reading scholarly exegesis of the same.
*****
The Book of Night
There is a corner of the Cloisters Library, among the papers of Sumner McKnight Crosby, where no light shines.
***
The Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St. Denis, devoted as they were to rooting out heresies, bought manuscripts produced by enemies of the Church in order to study what lies they contained and in order to keep them from the hands of the laity.
Unlike the beautiful gilded manuscripts produced by the Church, most were scrawled by mad ascetics in a crabbed hand with oak gall…except for one. One manuscript, written with minium, illuminated with lead, and smelling of salt and sulfur, was an early alchemical text of unknown authorship titled “The Book of Night.” The masons building the Abbey were greatly distressed when the monks bought this particular codex, for wherever the book was placed, shadow fell and light disappeared, making it impossible for construction to proceed.
The head of the masons’ guild tried to reason with the brothers of the order that this manuscript had no place in God’s house, to no avail. And so the masons took it upon themselves to entomb the book within a false wall and burn the plans that showed where it had been laid. The Benedictines were never again able to find the codex, and this act of rebelliousness sowed the seeds for later discord between Masonic guilds and the Church.
***
In 1938, the art historian Sumner McKnight Crosby began supervising the excavation of Saint-Denis. Plagued for years by insomnia, he was surprised to find he had less and less trouble sleeping as the work proceeded; and while he had difficulty retaining workers for the delicate work around the crypt, he himself felt oddly at peace, as if this was work he had been born to do.
The world was not at peace, however, and Crosby had to abandon his efforts in the face of the encroaching conflict—but not before he uncovered a hollow wall where light seemed to vanish into velvet blackness. Although he did not speak about what he found, Sumner McKnight Crosby never was troubled by insomnia again.
On those days where the weight of time and scholarship pressed him hard, Professor Crosby would tell his assistants that he wished not to be disturbed.
They’d see the lights dim through the milky glass on his office door, then darken to an inky black. Inside, Crosby would rest for a few endless minutes within a starless, dreamless corner of Night before hiding the instrument of his respite in an old linen sack and returning to the wakeful world.
***
To this day, if you were to search through the papers of Sumner McKnight Crosby at the Cloisters, you would not find all of Professor Crosby's work. There is one archival box too dark to be seen—the box containing “The Book of Night,” its lead illuminations casting an eternal midnight, waiting for another sleepless wanderer.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Here's the scoop, er, scope
After a lovely back-and-forthing through email, Rick MacArthur and I have a plan jelled. I have not been able to make contact with the prof who'd guide the "creative work" part of the project, so until I do, the scope may not include "for credit" art or other creative activity outside paper-writing.
That said, the outline of the work-to-unfold is below.
*****
As I take on a project full of hateful imagery made part of beautiful objects, the question I keep coming back to is this:
How do I make something beautiful and useful, an akido-like transmutation of hate into love, from a work like this?
I use the word "beautiful" in the Navajo sense of hózhó, wholeness and balance.
*****
Oddly enough, most of the books I need for this effort have been checked out of the University of Texas library, so someone else local is working on a similar project.
There has been a recent spate of scholarly publishing around the negative images of Jews in medieval illuminated manuscripts, so my poking at the metaphoric edge of these things will at least be grounded with some well-thought and well-vetted religious historians and art historians.
*****
The roadmap, aka the outline for this work.
The Indispensable Other: Some Reflections on Images of Jews in Christian Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts
1. Introduction.
1.1. Background on medieval illuminated manuscripts.
1.1.1. What does this form represent?
1.1.2. Who are its patrons? Audiences? Creators?
1.1.3. Was it a primarily secular or religious form?
1.1.4. Why look more deeply into a subset of the form—religious Christian medieval illuminated manuscripts?
1.2. Thesis statement.
1.2.1. Christian medieval illuminated manuscripts are full of carnival imagery with seemingly scatological, outside-the-sacred content. In this paper, I will briefly examine the role of carnival imagery—images of the Other—in medieval Christian art with a particular focus on marginalia and on images of Jews. I will reflect in more depth on the indispensability of the Other-as-Jew for medieval Christian culture as shown in images, and discuss the impact of images of Otherness for medieval peoples and for us.
2. Challenges.
2.1. Lack of preservation of sources.
2.2. Issues involving access to sources, both primary and secondary.
2.3. Seeing through medieval eyes, not modern eyes.
3. The variety of carnival imagery.
3.1. Types and counts (Counts are optional, assuming I can find access to http://ica.princeton.edu/index.html.)
3.1.1. Hybrid monsters.
3.1.2. Animals and proverbs.
3.1.3. Sexual improprieties.
3.1.4. Mocking the clergy.
3.1.5. Mocking the nobility and others.
3.1.6. Emesis, defecation, and gold.
3.1.7. Depictions of other religions and cultures.
3.2. Iconographic content. What do scholars like Camille (and others) indicate these images meant to the people of the time?
3.3. Are these images found within or without the “core content” of the page? If without, what do scholars think that segregation represents?
3.4. Are images of Jews different from other types of marginal, carnival Others? If so, in what ways?
4. Jew and Christian—imagery of each as the ultimate Other.
4.1. A deeper look at images of Jews and Jewish culture within medieval Christian art.
4.1.1. Patriarchal Jews and contemporary Jews—“good Jews” and “bad Jews”?
4.1.2. Imagined Jews—anti-Semitic imagery in medieval England after the expulsion of the Jews.
4.1.3. Jews as source, Jews as target. (Jews and women as “source” discussed in Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare, 2004, by Lisa Lampert.)
4.2. A brief look at images of Christians and Christian culture within medieval Jewish art. (Optional, depending on source availability.)
4.2.1. Purim— triumph-over-the-persecutor imagery and narratives.
5. The indispensability of the Other, the impact of images of the Other.
5.1. Implications of the imagery for the medieval viewer—imagined Jews and imagined Christians, real consequences.
5.2. Implications of the imagery for the modern viewer.
6. Conclusion.
In brief…
6.1. Is the Other indispensable? If so, what may trigger people to turn from wariness to hate?
6.2. What role do images play in this transformation, and what responsibility do image-makers have?
6.3. Have contemporary interfaith efforts used the power of images? If not, is there something to be gained by emphasizing imagery?
6.4. Areas for further research.
*****
Still waiting for time to get the artwork I made last semester back, and then off to a high-quality scanning service for hi-res images, and then off on a "tour de participants."
But that too shall pass.
Now, off to take another round of antibiotics for The Cussed Bicuspid, and to set to work on some reading.
That said, the outline of the work-to-unfold is below.
*****
As I take on a project full of hateful imagery made part of beautiful objects, the question I keep coming back to is this:
How do I make something beautiful and useful, an akido-like transmutation of hate into love, from a work like this?
I use the word "beautiful" in the Navajo sense of hózhó, wholeness and balance.
*****
Oddly enough, most of the books I need for this effort have been checked out of the University of Texas library, so someone else local is working on a similar project.
There has been a recent spate of scholarly publishing around the negative images of Jews in medieval illuminated manuscripts, so my poking at the metaphoric edge of these things will at least be grounded with some well-thought and well-vetted religious historians and art historians.
*****
The roadmap, aka the outline for this work.
The Indispensable Other: Some Reflections on Images of Jews in Christian Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts
1. Introduction.
1.1. Background on medieval illuminated manuscripts.
1.1.1. What does this form represent?
1.1.2. Who are its patrons? Audiences? Creators?
1.1.3. Was it a primarily secular or religious form?
1.1.4. Why look more deeply into a subset of the form—religious Christian medieval illuminated manuscripts?
1.2. Thesis statement.
1.2.1. Christian medieval illuminated manuscripts are full of carnival imagery with seemingly scatological, outside-the-sacred content. In this paper, I will briefly examine the role of carnival imagery—images of the Other—in medieval Christian art with a particular focus on marginalia and on images of Jews. I will reflect in more depth on the indispensability of the Other-as-Jew for medieval Christian culture as shown in images, and discuss the impact of images of Otherness for medieval peoples and for us.
2. Challenges.
2.1. Lack of preservation of sources.
2.2. Issues involving access to sources, both primary and secondary.
2.3. Seeing through medieval eyes, not modern eyes.
3. The variety of carnival imagery.
3.1. Types and counts (Counts are optional, assuming I can find access to http://ica.princeton.edu/index.html.)
3.1.1. Hybrid monsters.
3.1.2. Animals and proverbs.
3.1.3. Sexual improprieties.
3.1.4. Mocking the clergy.
3.1.5. Mocking the nobility and others.
3.1.6. Emesis, defecation, and gold.
3.1.7. Depictions of other religions and cultures.
3.2. Iconographic content. What do scholars like Camille (and others) indicate these images meant to the people of the time?
3.3. Are these images found within or without the “core content” of the page? If without, what do scholars think that segregation represents?
3.4. Are images of Jews different from other types of marginal, carnival Others? If so, in what ways?
4. Jew and Christian—imagery of each as the ultimate Other.
4.1. A deeper look at images of Jews and Jewish culture within medieval Christian art.
4.1.1. Patriarchal Jews and contemporary Jews—“good Jews” and “bad Jews”?
4.1.2. Imagined Jews—anti-Semitic imagery in medieval England after the expulsion of the Jews.
4.1.3. Jews as source, Jews as target. (Jews and women as “source” discussed in Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare, 2004, by Lisa Lampert.)
4.2. A brief look at images of Christians and Christian culture within medieval Jewish art. (Optional, depending on source availability.)
4.2.1. Purim— triumph-over-the-persecutor imagery and narratives.
5. The indispensability of the Other, the impact of images of the Other.
5.1. Implications of the imagery for the medieval viewer—imagined Jews and imagined Christians, real consequences.
5.2. Implications of the imagery for the modern viewer.
6. Conclusion.
In brief…
6.1. Is the Other indispensable? If so, what may trigger people to turn from wariness to hate?
6.2. What role do images play in this transformation, and what responsibility do image-makers have?
6.3. Have contemporary interfaith efforts used the power of images? If not, is there something to be gained by emphasizing imagery?
6.4. Areas for further research.
*****
Still waiting for time to get the artwork I made last semester back, and then off to a high-quality scanning service for hi-res images, and then off on a "tour de participants."
But that too shall pass.
Now, off to take another round of antibiotics for The Cussed Bicuspid, and to set to work on some reading.
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Brainstorming -- input wanted!
I had a great first meeting with my new prof-to-be, and I'm beginning to brainstorm what shape the further explorations of the Book of Hours will take.
Here are four different nuggets for a possible paper, each of which might lead my creative work and process down a very different path than the one I started on.
Do you have any preferences? Leave a comment and let me know...
*****
Nugget #1. Monkey-business and the Jews: A reflection on the marginalia in the Book of Hours and other medieval illuminated manuscripts.
In Michael Camille's Gothic Art: Glorious Visions and Image on the Edge, we find discussions of the hybrid monsters, scatalogical goings-on, and other babuini (follies) that play in the margins of medieval illuminated manuscripts. Given the prevalent anti-semitic tenor of medieval Christian society and the status of Jews as outsider, one might think there would be more mockery made of Jews in the margins of these manuscripts. However, there seems to be proportionately far less "Jew as Other" than there are creatures from the edge of the world, naked maids, and hairy apes in clerical garb.
In this paper, I will explore whether there have been surveys of the various kinds of Other, to determine whether the seeming lack of "Jew as Other" is an accurate observation. If I can determine the observation is correct, I will share hypotheses as to why this might be. I will also reflect on Eamon Duffy's study of Book of Hours marginalia and on Camille's notions of what The Other meant to those who created, saw and used these medieval manuscripts.
*****
Nugget #2. Inside-Out: A look at time in the medieval book of hours and in Sol LeWitt’s work.
For a medieval Christian, time, according to Michael Camille, "...had a beginning and an ending, a purpose and a plan, which were organized by God from outside time." (Gothic Art: Glorious Visions, 71.) He posits that, for these people, "...space and time were inextricably linked." (Camille 71) In this paper, I will explore connections between the process-focused implicit mysticism of conceptual art by Sol LeWitt and the process-focused exoteric religious imagery of the medieval Book of Hours.
*****
I also like these, but suspect they're not going to offer up as much room for surprises:
Nugget #3. Beating the Bounds: The liminal margin and the relationship between sacred and secular in the English Book of Hours.
Nugget #4. Edgy humor: Reflections on the marginalia in medieval books of hours and the marginal cartoons drawn for Mad Magazine by Sergio Aragones.
*****
I did get a grade higher than normal body temperature (in Fahrenheit, that is) as my final grade for the first MLA course (yippee!!!) -- but haven't gotten the final paper or artwork back yet, and I want to make hi-res images then send the art on a "Tour de Interviewees."
If I could only tie up the loose ends before starting to tangle myself in new projects and processes...
:-)
Here are four different nuggets for a possible paper, each of which might lead my creative work and process down a very different path than the one I started on.
Do you have any preferences? Leave a comment and let me know...
*****
Nugget #1. Monkey-business and the Jews: A reflection on the marginalia in the Book of Hours and other medieval illuminated manuscripts.
In Michael Camille's Gothic Art: Glorious Visions and Image on the Edge, we find discussions of the hybrid monsters, scatalogical goings-on, and other babuini (follies) that play in the margins of medieval illuminated manuscripts. Given the prevalent anti-semitic tenor of medieval Christian society and the status of Jews as outsider, one might think there would be more mockery made of Jews in the margins of these manuscripts. However, there seems to be proportionately far less "Jew as Other" than there are creatures from the edge of the world, naked maids, and hairy apes in clerical garb.
In this paper, I will explore whether there have been surveys of the various kinds of Other, to determine whether the seeming lack of "Jew as Other" is an accurate observation. If I can determine the observation is correct, I will share hypotheses as to why this might be. I will also reflect on Eamon Duffy's study of Book of Hours marginalia and on Camille's notions of what The Other meant to those who created, saw and used these medieval manuscripts.
*****
Nugget #2. Inside-Out: A look at time in the medieval book of hours and in Sol LeWitt’s work.
For a medieval Christian, time, according to Michael Camille, "...had a beginning and an ending, a purpose and a plan, which were organized by God from outside time." (Gothic Art: Glorious Visions, 71.) He posits that, for these people, "...space and time were inextricably linked." (Camille 71) In this paper, I will explore connections between the process-focused implicit mysticism of conceptual art by Sol LeWitt and the process-focused exoteric religious imagery of the medieval Book of Hours.
*****
I also like these, but suspect they're not going to offer up as much room for surprises:
Nugget #3. Beating the Bounds: The liminal margin and the relationship between sacred and secular in the English Book of Hours.
Nugget #4. Edgy humor: Reflections on the marginalia in medieval books of hours and the marginal cartoons drawn for Mad Magazine by Sergio Aragones.
*****
I did get a grade higher than normal body temperature (in Fahrenheit, that is) as my final grade for the first MLA course (yippee!!!) -- but haven't gotten the final paper or artwork back yet, and I want to make hi-res images then send the art on a "Tour de Interviewees."
If I could only tie up the loose ends before starting to tangle myself in new projects and processes...
:-)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
The last class is wrapped...
...but the project will continue, in some form, next semester. There's too much to explore to leave it alone, so I'll be doing a Directed Study in Art on The Book of Hours...including further development of the creative portion (the pages.)
*****
12/17/2007: A special shout-out to all those folks who've come here courtesy of Rachel Barenblat! Thanks so much for your visit, and for honoring my efforts (most recently the effort of trying to get gold leaf out of my eyebrows) with your kind attention.
*****
If you're visiting from my Liberal Arts Perspectives class, I sure hope you'll leave a comment! Even if you're not a "member" of Blogger, you can leave an anonymous comment and share your contact info, so I can ping back.
My to-do's:
* Finish my transcription of Francis Raffalovich's interview so I can develop his prototype pages.
* Get high-quality image files made of the Shelly Lowenkopf and Rachel Barenblat prototype pages (I'm tired of these dim yellow snapshots.)
* Explore some of the questions that arose while working through the project (you can find the Whole Big Paper, with questions aplenty, here.)
* Determine what to do with the physical prototype pages created to date.
* Post the reference pics and interviews (assuming I have permission.)
*****
12/17/2007: A special shout-out to all those folks who've come here courtesy of Rachel Barenblat! Thanks so much for your visit, and for honoring my efforts (most recently the effort of trying to get gold leaf out of my eyebrows) with your kind attention.
*****
If you're visiting from my Liberal Arts Perspectives class, I sure hope you'll leave a comment! Even if you're not a "member" of Blogger, you can leave an anonymous comment and share your contact info, so I can ping back.
My to-do's:
* Finish my transcription of Francis Raffalovich's interview so I can develop his prototype pages.
* Get high-quality image files made of the Shelly Lowenkopf and Rachel Barenblat prototype pages (I'm tired of these dim yellow snapshots.)
* Explore some of the questions that arose while working through the project (you can find the Whole Big Paper, with questions aplenty, here.)
* Determine what to do with the physical prototype pages created to date.
* Post the reference pics and interviews (assuming I have permission.)
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Details
While waiting for the gilding adhesive to dry, thought I'd share some more details.
The book text behind and to the left of Shelly's portrait sketch is a page from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which I heard tell was one of Shelly's favorites. The dark material behind and to the right of his head is some cunning calligraphic mass-printed paper I found in the scrap-booking aisle of a chain art supply store.
I drew his sketch on tracing paper with an ink bottle stopper-dropper, and the ink has a shine where it pooled.
On the page where I've written out parts of his interview, the white glue-looking substance on the red square (watercolor) is gilding glue.
As I type these words, I'm waiting for it to dry enough so I can apply more gold leaf. The white streaky line on the black paper to the right is also gilding glue, drying so it can receive more silver leaf.
I'm sketching in Rachel's face with a pale watercolor wash. The collage portion is mostly Japanese paper with various fibers, dyes and metallic threads/powders spangled in. I've also used ribbon, metallic thread, and a variety of metallic and non-metallic pens on both page spreads.
You can see the white leaf adhesive on some of the Rachel layout text page watercolored insets...waiting for them to dry so I can apply more metallic leaf.
My apologies for the totally abysmal lighting on all these snapshots -- I haven't learned yet how to diffuse my camera's flash indoors, so I get harsh shadows when shooting with flash. Most of the photos have a very warm yellow cast. If you can imagine the base paper as being bright white, you can understand how dark the snapshots are.
Making these pages is a very "touch and go" process. I touch the materials, do a few things, then must go away until things have dried or set.
And I must go in search of fresh photos today...I am running low on new things to share on Chatoyance, and it's supposed to rain tomorrow.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Snapshots in time
The things we do for love. And that’s what this project keeps feeling like—a labor of love…or is it love’s labor lost? All I need, to quote the marvelous Marvell, is world enough and time.
But I am running out of both, at least for this specific class project. I’ll post the final draft of my project paper December 11 on Chatoyance, since I figured out how to use Blogger’s “read more” code there but not yet here.
I’m feeling looser and the work is flowing faster on the prototype for Rachel Barenblat’s book spreads, so there is some kinesthetic learning and muscle memory from my arts and crafts past waking up.
The project is a shared, community effort in many ways. Not just because of your support and interest, and those other friends known and unknown who have stopped by this blog.
I also had help from those folks who live close by. My friend Beth came over today (I took a vacation day from work) and spent the day cutting mattes while I worked on pages and the paper. Our working side by metaphoric side was very reflective of the guild craftsmen who worked to fill the demand for books of hours back in the Middle Ages. Many hands, joined to one process.
Speaking of process…the deeper I dug into this project, what had been peripheral (process) became central. I found the unexpected tie between the project’s process and Sol LeWitt’s “Sentences on Conceptual Art” one of the most interesting things to have surfaced during this work.
To quote Sol: “The artist’s will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion.” Is that true? I don’t know…but there were times when my will was weak, and the barrel of process I put myself in provided enough momentum to keep going.
Ananda Coomaraswamy defined art as “imitation, expression and participation.” It’s been (and will continue to be) a delight to participate in this with you, and this is not the last post.
There will be more after my last class, after I see what my professor thought of the work.
And I’m doing a directed study in art next semester focused on the medieval Book of Hours, so I will be able to riff on the theme even further.
(What’s the HTML for “a nicely theatrical bow as the author exits for the moment”?)
But I am running out of both, at least for this specific class project. I’ll post the final draft of my project paper December 11 on Chatoyance, since I figured out how to use Blogger’s “read more” code there but not yet here.
I’m feeling looser and the work is flowing faster on the prototype for Rachel Barenblat’s book spreads, so there is some kinesthetic learning and muscle memory from my arts and crafts past waking up.
The project is a shared, community effort in many ways. Not just because of your support and interest, and those other friends known and unknown who have stopped by this blog.
I also had help from those folks who live close by. My friend Beth came over today (I took a vacation day from work) and spent the day cutting mattes while I worked on pages and the paper. Our working side by metaphoric side was very reflective of the guild craftsmen who worked to fill the demand for books of hours back in the Middle Ages. Many hands, joined to one process.
Speaking of process…the deeper I dug into this project, what had been peripheral (process) became central. I found the unexpected tie between the project’s process and Sol LeWitt’s “Sentences on Conceptual Art” one of the most interesting things to have surfaced during this work.
To quote Sol: “The artist’s will is secondary to the process he initiates from idea to completion.” Is that true? I don’t know…but there were times when my will was weak, and the barrel of process I put myself in provided enough momentum to keep going.
Ananda Coomaraswamy defined art as “imitation, expression and participation.” It’s been (and will continue to be) a delight to participate in this with you, and this is not the last post.
There will be more after my last class, after I see what my professor thought of the work.
And I’m doing a directed study in art next semester focused on the medieval Book of Hours, so I will be able to riff on the theme even further.
(What’s the HTML for “a nicely theatrical bow as the author exits for the moment”?)
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Pilgrim’s progress
Hip-deep in making prototype layouts, and I’m surprised by the amount of intense adrenaline coursing through me as I work these through.
It feels like a combination of “readiness rush”—that feeling I used to get before a track meet, the feeling of no turning back as I pelt head-first into the moment—and performance anxiety, something exacerbated by doing this project right out here in public.
But where else would I do this? As I’ve been learning more about the historic Book of Hours, how much it connected to one’s secular community as much as one’s private devotional space, I’m struck by how inadvertently appropriate it is to blog the process with you, my virtual community, close at hand.
Anyway, here’s a series of snapshots of the page layout process so far for the Shelly Lowenkopf spread. Do I know what I’m doing? Nope, at least not in the sense of planned, deliberate effort.
For example, I initially thought I’d do these spreads in a horizontal format. But my study of the historic Book of Hours led me back to a vertical format. Interestingly, my quaternary grid becomes lots more cruciform…and also much more like an iconic window…in a vertical format.
I also thought I’d be doing more drawing, but I find myself drawn to collage, at least for now.
Many folks I know could do this sort of page design through digital collage, but for some inchoate reason it’s important to me that I make things tactilely, fingers on the material.
I made a choice to use relatively commonplace material, at least for now. I find most of what makes for an interesting textural surface can be had a mass chain arts-and-crafts stores, and there’s something nicely subversive about browsing the scrap-booking aisles with Shelly’s pages in mind.
I’ll start on Rachel Barenbaum’s spreads this week, and should finish out Shelly’s spreads enough for my course in the next week or so as well.
The process is slow and very intense…not knowing where this is going, being surprised and at times frustrated by what’s happening, feels like a good thing.
To quote from Shelly’s interview, “You don’t have to know why…you have to trust you can.” In the doing, the action, there’s the trust.
It feels like a combination of “readiness rush”—that feeling I used to get before a track meet, the feeling of no turning back as I pelt head-first into the moment—and performance anxiety, something exacerbated by doing this project right out here in public.
But where else would I do this? As I’ve been learning more about the historic Book of Hours, how much it connected to one’s secular community as much as one’s private devotional space, I’m struck by how inadvertently appropriate it is to blog the process with you, my virtual community, close at hand.
Anyway, here’s a series of snapshots of the page layout process so far for the Shelly Lowenkopf spread. Do I know what I’m doing? Nope, at least not in the sense of planned, deliberate effort.
For example, I initially thought I’d do these spreads in a horizontal format. But my study of the historic Book of Hours led me back to a vertical format. Interestingly, my quaternary grid becomes lots more cruciform…and also much more like an iconic window…in a vertical format.
I also thought I’d be doing more drawing, but I find myself drawn to collage, at least for now.
Many folks I know could do this sort of page design through digital collage, but for some inchoate reason it’s important to me that I make things tactilely, fingers on the material.
I made a choice to use relatively commonplace material, at least for now. I find most of what makes for an interesting textural surface can be had a mass chain arts-and-crafts stores, and there’s something nicely subversive about browsing the scrap-booking aisles with Shelly’s pages in mind.
I’ll start on Rachel Barenbaum’s spreads this week, and should finish out Shelly’s spreads enough for my course in the next week or so as well.
The process is slow and very intense…not knowing where this is going, being surprised and at times frustrated by what’s happening, feels like a good thing.
To quote from Shelly’s interview, “You don’t have to know why…you have to trust you can.” In the doing, the action, there’s the trust.
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