Connections

Connection is a body of work I made while studying in Florence, Italy, in 2012. The language barrier was a struggle for me, so I looked for connections, or moments of understanding, where ever else I could.

Letter Maps: The pages come from an Italian book I found for free outside a paper shop. While I couldn't read the content very well, I understood the individual letters. The letters then became the system I used to create the web or map-like drawings. For each of the web drawings, I picked a letter and circled all of them that occur on the page, such as the letter "e" in this one. The subsequent web is a different way of understanding the text.

Connect the Dots: Similar the the Letter Maps, these drawings use the found book pages as the starting system for their creation. In each drawing, all of the dots (i.e. periods, dots of "i's," colons and semi-colons are connected. As the series progresses, some areas are shaded in to form new shapes. 

whole/hole: Another result of struggling with Italian was that I started paying more attention to anomalies in my own language. The one I latched on to the most was the homophome of "whole" and "hole." It intrigues me that the same sound can mean two opposite things: complete and lacking. This iteration of the idea is a collage using an old Italian newspaper and simple geometric shapes.

Re-envisioning of a Paper-Disk Hygrometer: While I was working on this body of work I went to the Galileo Museum and found the most curious contraption called a Paper-Disk Hygrometer. I have no idea what it was intended for but I was inspired by its hanging stack of paper disks. When I got back to studio I remade it using Italian newspapers and wine bottle corks. 

Paper Disk Hygrometer: as seen in the Galileo Museum in Florence, Italy. Made by George Adams Sr. or his son, George Adams Jr. in London in the second half of the 18th century.

Spring 2012