I started the year with a visit to Ed Ruscha’s exhibition in the Gagosian Gallery in NYC.
There are a lot of fascinating pieces all related to books, but the one that strikes you when you walk in is a series of paintings of blank oversized books, each in various stages of aging.
photo credit: nytimes.com
Ruscha’s books reminded me of a wonderful project some of my friends are involved in called Ecriture Infinie.
It celebrates the art and gesture of writing by hand. There are 8 giant blank notebooks that travel the world, and people are “invited to write as if it were the last time they could write by hand. The focus is not so much on the words, but on the gesture, the flow of the pen on paper, recorded on video.”
photo credit: http://www.ecritureinfinie.org
If the notebook isn’t in a town near you, you can go to the website and download a video or photograph of your own handwritten project (or just spend time looking at the gallery of what other people have submitted – it’s so much fun!)
The gallery:
http://www.ecritureinfinie.org/gallery
It was interesting to start the new year contemplating blank pages and the words we can possibly fill them with. I think that an open notebook can mean being open to taking note of what’s around you, trying to give shape, and perhaps meaning, to your thoughts.
And there’s always more to write, isn’t there? There are always more blank pages ahead waiting to be filled… Happy 2013!
