Monday 26 January 2015

Earthly. Cheryl Penn and Marie Wintzer

I’ve periodically posted single images from this collection of  altered photographs on Collaborative Canto and the Visual Poetry/Asemic Writing blogs, but this download contains all the images Marie and I have been working on for a few months.

It was certainly a long term project and it was interesting to see how the alterations Marie added to the photographs changed over that period. Some images maintain their minimalism, (particularly those done at the beginning of the collaboration), and,  as time progressed, so did their complexity.   These are not taut, surgical images, rather they retain the organic structure dictated by the original artworks - books made from clay.   I had intended to do an installation of about 500 clay books (I MAY still…?) but boredom set in after about book 30.    Marie breathed new life into these clay books, rooted in earth - (a most physical manifestation thereof ) and they became pieces of data in Ether Realms.  These secondary structures, as ethereal as data are collected and available for download here:
https://www.scribd.com/doc/253274958/Earthly





Forewords:
Made of Clay.

Taken from the dust of the earth, these books became something else, data images that happened in Ether Realms.  It’s always trying to breathe new life into old ideas - like us, they’re never quite ready to die.

Cheryl Penn  






Making books out of clay, 
the work of a potter [shaping soil into pages]
the work of a writer [chiseling words out of sodden earth]
the work of a gardener [growing roots across fields]
the work of an architect [building stories through dust]
the work of a musician [composing songs engraved in ether]



The beauty of those clay books needed no enhancement, their stunning naked aura was evident to any eyes curious enough to see. But one can always  demand more of books… 
Marie Wintzer




“One can always demand more of books” - wise words Marie, and I agree wholeheartedly - they cannot be constrained, forever demanding new readings.

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