{"id":441,"date":"2014-05-11T18:34:10","date_gmt":"2014-05-12T01:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=441"},"modified":"2014-05-11T18:34:10","modified_gmt":"2014-05-12T01:34:10","slug":"word-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/?p=441","title":{"rendered":"Word Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"calligraphy\"<\/a>

A wall in the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul<\/p><\/div>\n

I spent this morning thinking about the intersection of writing and art — how we can be moved by a piece of art that involves words, even when the writing is undecipherable. Or when you are ignorant of the language, as I was recently in Istanbul, where I was captivated by the Arabic script that decorated walls of mosques and palaces.<\/p>\n

Last night was the opening celebration in Mendocino for the show \u201cBoundless: Art of Letter, Word and Book,\u201d which curator Janet Self describes as a \u201chands-on conversation about art, language, books, and engagement in the modern age.\u201d I have several pieces in the show: a poem collaged onto a cast paper fish, the poetry box<\/a> from my vegetable garden, a handmade book that employs a complex flower-fold structure (suggested by Alisa Golden in \u201cMaking Handmade Books\u201d<\/a>), plus some broadsides and tiny chapbooks.<\/p>\n

\u00a0As I looked around the room, I saw uses of the written word that sparkled with creativity. Janet has posted some pictures on her Flockworks blog site<\/a>. Among my favorites were \u201cHouse of Cards,\u201d a walk-in house shape whose walls were linked postcards from all over the world, sent years ago to members of the same family, and inherited by the house-maker. I chatted with Harry Van Ornum, a calligraphy student who, having filled his practice paper with lyrics by a favorite singer, turned the paper sideways and continued, making of the words an abstract form. Janet Self, faced with a huge collection of her father\u2019s Reader\u2019s Digest Condensed Books that no thrift store would take, repurposed the pages into large, flowing geometric sculptures.<\/p>\n

My favorite encounter was with a young man who stood entranced in front of a calligraphic painting by the late Jim Bertram, one of the artists who helped found the Mendocino Art Center in the 1960s. It was part of a collection being sold as a fund-raiser for Flockworks, the tiny nonprofit that creates such community art projects as the \u201cBoundless\u201d show.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cExcuse me,\u201d he said. \u201cCan you tell me if that calligraphy is in some language?\u201d<\/p>\n

Having met and written about Jim Bertram<\/a> not long before he died, I was able to tell the young man that no, the beautiful shapes were not words. I told him about the quote I found while researching this artist: <\/em>Line expresses the inner thought. It is a narrative of what we really want to tell each other but somehow can\u2019t seem to verbalize.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cNow I really want that painting,\u201d the young man responded. \u201cI don\u2019t have any money. But next payday, I\u2019m coming back to buy it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I spent this morning thinking about the intersection of writing and art — how we can be moved by a piece of art that involves words, even when the writing is undecipherable. Or when you are ignorant of the language, as I was recently in Istanbul, where I was captivated by the Arabic script that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,167,59,153],"tags":[423,424,195,194,164],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":447,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maureeneppstein.com\/mve_journal\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}