brief update

I've been traveling so much I haven't had much chance to work in the studio, so, not much to report. Work has begun on the drawing, and I hope to have the whole thing drawn in and masked off by the end of the coming weekend. Then I'm going to put the canvasses on the floor and apply the charcoal dust from above and from all sides. I'll take some photos once the banner is completely masked off and ready for charcoal.

process

I've determined the text that will go on the banner, and decided the shape I want the banner to make (after photographing multiple variations of the banner). I've also put three coats of gesso on each canvas. Here's the process from here:
1. sand each canvas
2. project left canvas image, draw banner contour and demarcate shadow lines
3. photograph projection for later printing of reference for shadows
4. tape acetate sheets to canvas, trace banner contours with sharpie
5. roll up acetate sheets and put away for later cutting
6. draw/paint shadows (powdered charcoal and water)
7. project same banner image again, outline letters
8. draw/paint letters
9. repeat for right panel
10. cut acetate masks for both panels
11. spray mount acetate masks on canvas
12. snap radiating charcoal lines
13. apply powdered charcoal to ground
14. apply fixative (mix of vmp naptha and Soluvar)

the final text

After multiple edits, I finally decided on this text for the drawing:

Shine and rise, gentlemen and ladies! Smell the coffee and wake up! Forget and forgive circumstance and pomp. Learn and live nothing but the truth and the whole truth, for all and once, over and over… ever and forever.

studio work begins

Today I finally began work in the studio on the commission. I've only applied one coat of gesso to the left canvas, and I still need to mark off the right canvas before I gesso it.

what to do? part 5

Now I was beginning to feel that the reversal idea was gaining some momentum. I started experimenting with combining multiple reversals (I'd done this before, but with 5 phrases maximum) and I started sketching a diptych with the banner spanning both sides. On April 20th I had a breakthrough, for the first time putting together over twenty phrases in a way that created a new message. And although this first combination was a little too rambling and contained some passages that I ultimately considered too dark (unusual and cruel minds and hearts enter and break) I knew I was close to getting the text I wanted.

serendipity

On April 18th, I went to the Honors College to look at the space again, and afterwards I stopped by to see Ted Estess, Dean of the College. He wasn't there, but I saw on his administrative assistant's desk a copy of "Not Knowing," an essay written by the late author, Donald Barthelme. Another writer and friend of Donald's (and mine) named Paula Webb, had given a copy of that essay to me 3 weeks earlier after I had told her about my re-reading of Tristram Shandy and my interest in the idea of "not knowing" in his work.

thinking about the format

As I was thinking about content, I was also thinking about the physical space and how the content of the drawing would be influenced by the size of the space in which it would be installed. I had determined that my initial impression that the entrance wall was the best opportunity was correct, and it was going to take a large drawing to "hold" that wall. In thinking about this and sketching it in my sketchbook, I began to think a diptych format (a format I hadn't used in years) would be appropriate both in terms of content and in terms of responding to the architectural demands of the space.

what to do? part 4

sketchbook entry, April 14, 2007
thinking more about the idea of the 'great conversation' as the basis of this commission. Thinking of a very long banner that is convoluted and twisted so one can't read more than pieces of it - implying how much we don't know - radiating lines behind implying the effort to know, none-the-less. The question remains - what is the text? Today thinking it's a collection of reversals - selecting the ones that have 'big idea' implications.

Following this note, I wrote down an initial list of 46 potentially applicable reversal phrases in my sketchbook.

what to do? part 3

The American Puritans were fond of making anagrams out of a person's name. Apparently they thought that if a pious phrase could be found in that name, it was a sign that they were one of the elect, and would end up in Heaven. I became interested in the Puritans years ago when I realized that I had some Puritanical impulses of my own, so I began making my own anagrams. The first one I tried was out of "American Puritan" which generated several interesting phrases, my favorite being the oddly poignant, "I am crap in nature."

I reverted to this anagram strategy early on in my thinking about this commission, beginning with the phrase, "The Human Situation" which is the heading for the mandatory curriculum for all Freshman Honors College students. This generated nothing of value, producing nonsense phrases like, "Hi! I heat a mutton sun," and "It in a nut, thou shame."

At about this time I pulled from the pile of books on my night stand, a brilliant book by Tom Phillips called A Humument. A Humument is a Victorian novel titled A Human Document that Phillips "treated" (and continues to treat) by obscuring and connecting letters and words to create an entirely new narrative which bristles with a logic and wisdom all its own. I've admired this book since finding it 10 or so years ago, and I thought I'd take a look at some works in the Honors College curriculum which I could reorder in some fashion. I decided to first try anagramming a phrase, and for reasons I don't remember, I started with Dante's Inferno and the line, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." Fortunately, I could only squeeze out the odd and worthless phrase, "When here a bone, a needy hell, a trope." For twelve days I tried finding meaningful phrases out of various Honors College references, with no luck.

Finally, on April Fool's Day I wrote in my sketchbook, "Easy and Free/Determined and Bound," not knowing this was the beginning of finding a solution for the commission.