writing

One day, the sea will overflow into the valley and roll over all...

I was working on an artist's statement today and writing,  "...paper; fleet and quiet carrier of words and questions...an intent to look with an eye that sees both the mystical and the negligible as valid and acknowledges their equivalents and connections."

Fleet sources and thoughts. Belief in world's beyond our own perceptions. Beauty in the ability in people to create their own realities for whatever reason.

I keep thinking about an illustration of a wave I found in an old children's book and its caption 

One day, the sea will overflow into the valley and roll over all...





Blog Tour


Amy Tavern
http://amytavern.blogspot.com/

My friend Amy Tavern, a jeweler and artist, tagged me to participate in a Blog Tour and to tag three blogs that I like to read. Amy is one of the reasons I started keeping a blog. I was inspired by her commitment to her blog, and the way she posted about her process and artists that inspired her work. I've been keeping this blog since 2009 and if you go back to the first posts, you will see what feels like a completely different person to me now. That's what's so fascinating about these things, they're records of our transformations as people and artists.

I love reading artist's blogs, I subscribe to dozens of them and read them every day like a morning paper. These three blogs, I selected because they combine images of process and work with insightful musings on daily life and all the highs and lows of being an artist. They all also happen to be people I have known at some point through Penland School of Crafts.


Millions of People Happy - Michelle Moode
http://millionsofpeoplehappy.blogspot.com/

Michelle Moode is a printmaker and bookbinder who lives in Spruce Pine, NC. Her work feels like an ongoing collection of ephemeral visual experiences and thoughts. I recently spent two weeks with Michelle at the Paper Book Intensive, making paper, books, and generally having an incredible time. Her blog is a mix of process and personal reflections.


Sawdust and Tomatoes - Christina Boy
http://sawdustandtomatoes.blogspot.com/

Christina is makes gorgeous furniture and sculpture, primarily in wood. I got to know her when we were roommates for two years at Penland as Core Fellowship students. She is originally from Germany and lives in rural Virginia with her husband. Her blog includes images of her process and wood shop, and also lots of envy inducing images of things on the farm that she and her husband grow, can, and eat.






































Jean Fitz's Weblog
http://heartjean.blogspot.com/

Jean is an artist and educator who lives in Chicago. I met her in a class at Penland six years ago. She makes graphic novels, which are funny, honest, and truly unique, and somehow coaxes the most amazing Photoshop work out of middle schoolers I have ever seen. She is also a fearless traveler, and those experiences are recorded in her blog.

Oracles

I've been working on a project titled "Oracles" that combines digital stills with experimental writing pieces. The project emerged from an interest in the concept of "creative utterance", the ability to create by speaking specific words. The source text of all these pieces is the Egyptian Book of the Dead. To create these poems, this source text is run through translation software in dozens of languages to intentionally mistranslate them. Through this process spontaneous new content emerges. The results are unexpectedly lyrical and strikingly visual and the original text is completely transformed. The texts are then edited into short poems.

I would like to make these into an artist's book and video installation. Sight and sound shimmering in and out of focus. Interpreting the oracles.



Cataract

horses
come into sight 
as the stars 
come down 

it seems strange
this empty sky
an insomnia
of whiteness

a cataract
of gold
drawn
from the well


 

Reason





:: Marianne Dages, Reason, letterpress, lead, cord, fur, silk, found image, 2014 ::

Reason

In this life
there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving, diving
burn the tree
to its bones
heap its wood
and sign to me
-
wood
wood
mouth
-
so we can remember
that there is no reason
but the heads of dolphins
diving
diving


:: Marianne Dages, Black Column, 2014, letterpress ::


:: detail of Black Column ::

House






A dream I've had several times.  I live in a little house inside of a community garden. In the dream, the garden is in a park near a river where I grew up and the setting is always a warm and humid summer evening with crickets singing. There is industry nearby, old abandoned factories and junkyards but the park is quiet and the garden is down a long dirt road. A few other people have chosen to live in the garden. The house is small and rustic with robin's egg walls. It's a very nice house, except the hallway to the kitchen is too narrow for a person to pass through.



I was standing in a wet marsh and I was with a medium brown dog. It was revealed that the dog's true name was Horus. When he heard his real name, the dog grew in size and became immensely strong. I remember holding him around the neck and chest trying to calm his shaking fear.

Mushrooms growing in peach pits. A primordial toothed and legged serpent guarding them, silhouette recessed in the mud.

This one is tied with the left hand.

Alum Aleut.




:: 




White Lepiota



We are walking together,
the alder and the oak.

Carrying
a desert of lapwings
under our coats.

Back to the beginning,
back to the seabirds and foam.
The bull slides across the pitch ocean floor 

All the names are gone
White lepiota grows

our mossy hearts - the grind of planets -
songs of tallow and bone.

One foot in the water
- two far travelers -
Setting fires along the road.


- Marianne Dages, 2013














Oculus Song :: First Copy

Oculus song is a meditation on the night sky and our mind's interiors. The images evoke atmospheric phenomena and the geometry of architecture. The text is an original poem composed using an experimental technique of writing using translation software to alter the text and generate spontaneous new content to be edited into a new text.

This artist's book was made in a limited edition of 16, 12 softcover editions, and 4 deluxe hardcover editions. This is the softcover edition. The text was handset in 12 pt Futura and letterpress printed. The imagery is letterpress and risograph printed on a mix of handmade and recycled paper. Written, designed, printed, and bound by Marianne Dages, Huldra Press, 2013.

Dimensions : 7.25" x 4.5", 44 pages
Binding : 3 signature binding in a softcover case

It is available for sale here and here

 :: Cover ::

 :: OCULUS SONG ::
















The bromides flash,
on top of my room.

Luminous pillars,
mortuous colors.

What is lost gathers here,
in the eye of Jupiter.

Its distant operations,
Anchor the dawn.

A frozen horse
with vesper hoof,

Aster Ochre -
The catalyst’s bloom,

how clear the song,
the pyramid moon.

- Marianne Dages, 2013

Oculus Song in Progress

:: oculus song, risograph and letterpress :: 

I'm getting very excited about this project. I've made some changes since the first draft, little changes in wording and layout. Now that I am printing the final text and images, it's all coming together. 

In other news, I've been in a research mindset lately, thinking about language, storytelling, recording dreams. If you would like to see the images I've been collecting as inspiration, please stop by my Tumblr, Tiger Feathers. 


Oculus Song

I'm working on a new artist's book, titled Ocular  Oculus Song. Right now, it is in the model stage, and I am trying to decide on a typeface. The book will include risograph and letterpress printing, maybe some hand painted details. The book will include some of my writing. It's never been easy for me to translate my ideas into writing, it can be like pulling teeth, but it's exhilarating too. 

:: testing typefaces ::

:: handset type ::

:: risograph printing and handmade paper cover ::

 :: risograph printing and tracing paper ::





The Iceland Book

Making progress on the design for my new book. I've spent the last month doing sketches of sorts. Little pictographic drawings, imaginary maps, experimental prints, etc. to get a feel for what I want the look and feel of the book to be. It's getting there.

The inspiration for the book is Iceland. New worlds. Far travel. That's all I'll say for now.

 :: drawings ::

This will be the first time I've digitally designed a book before letterpress printing it. The editions I've made before this have been handset and the imagery hand-carved or manually produced some other way. This book will include many drawings, but I wanted to incorporate photo imagery and to use a typeface that is not available in metal. So InDesign it is.

:: first draft - computer printout ::

I finished my first draft and printed it on a laserjet to get a feel for the scale. Boy does it look different than on screen! 

Everything needs tweaking...


:: first draft - computer print out ::

I've wanted to go to north for years, since I read Bulfinch's Mythology and of The Hyperborea, the land beyond the Northern Wind. I know this book will bring me there, in some way, shape, or form.  

:: Islande ::