Book Arts
Ritual
Some years ago, I discovered the haunting beauty and spirituality of the poetry of Jelaluddin Rumi, who was a scholar, teacher and mystical poet of 13th century Turkey. Born in the Afghanistani area of the Persian Empire in 1207, he originated the form of meditation called the "turn," or moving meditation practiced by the dervishes of Turkey. Upon reading some of his poems which express the mystery of this form of meditation, it occurred to me to do a series of self-portraits inspired by my response to Rumi's extraordinary verbal images.
The photographs were done with a 4x5 pinhole camera; lighting was one photoflood; exposures were upwards of 2 to 3 minutes. The prints are VanDyke Brown on Cranes Platinotype paper. The texts were printed on acetate and superimposed on brushed flame-shaped areas of cyanotype. I assembled the images and text into an accordion-fold book with hard cloth-wrapped covers.
The book in question is: "The Essential Rumi," translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, published by Harper Collins, 1995 (ISBN: 0-06-250958-6).
The photographs were done with a 4x5 pinhole camera; lighting was one photoflood; exposures were upwards of 2 to 3 minutes. The prints are VanDyke Brown on Cranes Platinotype paper. The texts were printed on acetate and superimposed on brushed flame-shaped areas of cyanotype. I assembled the images and text into an accordion-fold book with hard cloth-wrapped covers.
The book in question is: "The Essential Rumi," translated by Coleman Barks with John Moyne, published by Harper Collins, 1995 (ISBN: 0-06-250958-6).
The Church Fan Book
The church fan is a ubiquitous, if little noticed, part of the Southern religious experience. Cut out of heavy paper in various shapes and stapled onto a wooden handle, it features a religious image on the front, and usually a small advertisement on the back for the company which has paid the expenses of producing the fans for the church. In the days before air conditioning, these fans were much appreciated by the congregation as they sat through a worship service several hours long.
This body of work expresses something of my fascination with Southern Christianity: its fervency, its adherence to the past, and the contradictions which often appear between belief and action. It is presented in the form of a folding book with pages in the shape of a fan I found in an old abandoned country church. The outer covers are mounted on wooden handles, so it can actually be used as a fan. The images, which are from a variety of formats and origins, including pinhole, medium format, large format, and found images, were layered in Photoshop, with added text in most cases (except the Elvis page). I then printed negatives on Epson transparency film on an Epson Stylus Color 800, then made cyanotype prints from the negatives.
This body of work expresses something of my fascination with Southern Christianity: its fervency, its adherence to the past, and the contradictions which often appear between belief and action. It is presented in the form of a folding book with pages in the shape of a fan I found in an old abandoned country church. The outer covers are mounted on wooden handles, so it can actually be used as a fan. The images, which are from a variety of formats and origins, including pinhole, medium format, large format, and found images, were layered in Photoshop, with added text in most cases (except the Elvis page). I then printed negatives on Epson transparency film on an Epson Stylus Color 800, then made cyanotype prints from the negatives.
