the collected works of Shakespeare, et. al
From my very first Instagram post in 2018, I have incorporated vintage book pages into my art. My first excited, found-materials pieces were my attempt to capture in artwork what I couldn’t convey through poetry: the experience of living with chronic migraine.
the books I curate for collage fodder reflect my own history, my own interests, and my own idiosyncrasies; therefore, each mixed media painting ends up being at least somewhat autobiographical in nature. It’s a core sampling, a snapshot, like one square of the grid in an archaeological dig. What artifacts are in this sector?
Physical / Spiritual Archaeology
Spiritual Archaeology is a bit like regular-degular archaeology, but with less dirt. We dig through all those layers of paint and collage to find the meaning in the mayhem.
What can you learn from perusing the selections in my collection?
large tomes:
three (?) copies of The Complete Works of Shakespeare
one copy of The Complete Illustrated Works of Shakespeare
somewhere between 6 and 12 dictionaries of different decades, formats, and print size
a few thesaurus for good measure
The Collected Works of Robert Frost
The Year in Science [year]
Abnormal Psychology Textbook (1963)
Grey’s Anatomy, Seventh Edition (1920s)
Books on gender/gender roles
a 1937 edition of Etiquette by Emily Post
On Becoming a Woman: a book for teenage girls (1951), written by the Associate Dean of the School of Medicine, College of Medical Evangelists
The Book of Virtues for Young People
other non-fiction:
various illustrated single volume science encyclopedias, the rest of the set long forgotten
long outdated primary readers I got during a library weeding
long outdated computer “reference” books from a library weeding
What can you learn from perusing the selections in my collection? I intentionally curate outdated information, with a particular eye for language and the sciences. I also have a thing for the construction of gender and gender roles. The work I do with these books is literal and metaphorical deconstruction: I take the books apart as I deconstruct their concepts on gender, etiquette (social class is a construction of white supremacy, and that Emily Post books is WILD), and virtue.
how do I use my vintage books?
As it stands, my vintage book collection exceeds the space I have to contain it. I have to get creative with storage, which in some cases has included deconstructing the books and storing the pages and cover separately. That’s fine! I love having big piles of loose paper within arm’s reach when I’m printing or painting.
Stacking these vintage pages with more contemporary materials like magazine clippings, song lyrics, children’s books, or current events adds meaning to whatever piece I’m creating, or even changes the meaning entirely. In my Bear Country collection, pages from The Berenstain Bears paired with songs I curated from my friends in the Gen X - Millennial cohort turned into energetic abstract paintings on family roles and identity. Pages from Hamlet and old-world botanical symbolism, plus my old love letters and some Florence + the Machine turned into a series about breaking free of the limiting and limited narratives for women and femmes in relationships.
Each of these collections combined my own history, my own interests, and my own idiosyncrasies at the heart of the work. The heart and the soul and the guts of the work are what make the Work work. I had to know what I liked in order to include it in my artwork. The excavating meaning — the Spiritual Archaeology, the inner work — starts with that kernel self-knowledge. It starts with showing up, with a desire to know and be known, even — especially — in the face of the unknown, blank canvas.
