GAIL'S CONTRIBUTION TO PAM'S BOOK



Pam's book entitled "Retablo of Resistance"challenged me to complete eight signatures, which consist of two pages folded in half using all sides. After selecting my center page from an assortment of pre-made papers supplied, the journey began. Her theme was very close to mine in that resistance and resilience takes you to the same place, survival!

The page I selected was about the freedom and the necessity to vote, so apropos leading up to the November 3rd 2020 election. I printed BLACK LIVES MATTER on black paper and collaged it diagonally across the page.  I also added 2020, VOTE, and WOKE with adhesive black letters and VOILA! done.



The cover and back pages were much more complicated. Using another transparent gel medium mask, I superimposed fragments of mono prints, metallic papers and Adinkra symbols. The symbols were cut away from the mono print paper with an exacto-knife, leaving an empty space, while creating a relief affect. This technique has become a new way of working for me, as this book project has encouraged me to push the boundaries of possibilities on a small scale, which I hope will be useful later on a larger scale.



On the right side of the next page I repeated part of the mask, while superimposing a statement from my artists book: "We Wear the Mask" inspired by a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar.  The statement reads as follows: The wearing of mask in our History can be attributed to the creation of American culture as we know it today. What we couldn't show on our faces poured out in our music, dance, poetry, visual art, etc. Creative expression was our saving grace, as it fulfilled two important tasks...it produced an outlet preventing one from imploding and it created a vehicle by which we were able to hold on tight to our connections to our home land. On the left I collaged the crocodile with the word resilience down it's spine.


On the final set of pages, to the right is the crocodile drawn over the letterpress statement that is an important feature in my artist book. My use of the trusty crocodile symbolize the epitome of resilience, as they live in the water, yet breathe in the air.... In this image I chose to only shade and design the negative space leaving the crocodile blank with just the text. The image on the left is a mono print featuring a mask in the center with two fertility dolls on each side of the mask.













 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gail's contribution into Aziza's Book

Image
This was the beginning of my idea, where I used a combination of printed papers from Monotypes, along with my gel medium transfers. Adding colored paper offered less contrast than white paper, however, the results took on a dimensional appearance that magically merged the two media. While introducing Aziza's theme of "the resilience of weeds" I added some weeds growing in my yard. I dried them and then attached them to the collar.  I am happy with the way the swirls within the print appeared through the face. The absence of the rest of the face does't bother me either, as it just reminds me of the parts of a persons face that you no longer see due to COVID19. The nose actually belonged to another mask drawing and the eyes belong to a monotype of a face. The merger was accidental, while playing around with different ideas. The image is reminiscent of Ed Paschke's work, a Polish American painter, but only after the fact, not inspired by. The Cross belonged to my Mot
Read more

GAIL'S CONTRIBUTION TO KAMALA'S BOOK

Image
This mask represents the "metaphoric mask" that my ancestors had to wear to disguise their feelings and disappointment while negotiating through a racist American society.  However, through further research it is also a fact that they had to disguise how smart they were as it relates to knowing how to read and speak proper English. Literacy threatened the major justification of slavery--that black people were"less than human". Therefore, it was to the slave's advantage to express "bad English" to whites because, as Fredrick Douglass (1817-1895) said, "Ignorance is a high virtue in a human chattel; and as the master studies to deepen the slave's ignorance, the slave is cunning enough to make the master think he succeeds." (Paulette Brown-Hinds, Black English during Slavery). In Kamala's book, half of the mask opens to reveal the inside of the page. There, you will find the shape of Africa with a sampling of names of different languages
Read more

Gail's Two-Page Entry for Francine's Book

Image
          This was the beginning of my idea for Francine's book. After receiving her book I had to go sit down and take it all in. That's when I knew it was time to roll up my sleeves and get to work, as my first book challenge has begun. She started her book with an amazing fabric collage in the theme of Black Lives Matter. So in keeping with that theme I used a previous BLM design from a recent drawing of mine and superimposed a gel medium image of a mask from a series of mask drawings created last summer.    On this page I was trying to figure out the layout. I decided to glue the transparencies together first with, you guest it! gel medium. I think at this point I could do a commercial for Liquitex matte medium. If anyone knows how to get this stuff off of your fingers let me know, even when I think it's off, its not. On the second page I was inspired to use the silhouette of a girl swinging, supplied by Francine. I was quite familiar with the silhouette because I own o
Read more