vices (the seven deadly sins)

Towards the end of last year I began meticulously cut/carving a set of Encyclopaedia Brittanica. My idea was to carve the seven deadly sins* into the set.

It took months of hard labour to get all seven words completed (these are not laser cut, but are created very slowly by hand) - the first step was to create calligraphic lettering - this was transfered to the encyclopaedia volumes and then the words were carefully cut with a scalpel, a few pages at a time - after the initial cutting, the page edges are then sanded.... (have you ever sanded the edge of a page? crazy!)

I completed the cutting/carving late last year and (hoe-hum) was less than thrilled the results of all that effort..... I felt that the end result didn't capture anything other than my clever technique......


so after a few months hiatus (the cut volumes languishing on my studio bookshelves) I knew what needed to be done.....

they needed to be set on FIRE!!!!!

NOW they encapsulated the idea of SIN.......

and given that I had been thinking about Dante's Inferno and the Nine Circles of Hell (many of which neatly overlap with the seven deadly sins....) AND my previous fiery works I'm surprised that I hadn't considered this action much earlier...... I think perhaps I needed to distance myself from all the labour - to divest it of preciousness in order to do what was 'right' for the work.....


When I set fire to the set I was primarily thinking about (hopefully) capturing a few great shots - and that these would then become the work (as in prior fire/book pieces - the documentation ended up becoming the artwork - not the ephemeral sculpture/ interaction) I was in for a second surprise with this piece - as I found I really like the smelly, charred remains of the books....

I'd love to see these installed, at some later stage, in a pristine white interior - no doubt releasing a little of their knowing sin (and ash-dust pages) to all and sundry.....






* the seven 'deadly' sins rendered here in Latin (with english translations) are:

ira (wrath)
luxuria (lust)
gula (gluttony)
avaritia (avarice/greed)
invidia (envy)
socordia (sloth)
superbia (pride)

you will no doubt notice that only 4 of these are visible in the pics shown - that's because the first three on the list are carved into the top or head of the books.

book remnants...

Yesterday when out and about thinking and playing with books in the landscape I stumbled over remnants of an early book/land interaction.... and spying the piece was quite a surprise – it certainly has me caused me to consider specific aspects of my forthcoming work – but perhaps a retrack is in order.........

I've long pondered the differences between 'book' knowledge and 'lived' knowledge... (or tacit v/s explicit knowledge) and particularly (given my agrarian heritage) how this relates to life on the farm

In late 2008 I picked up a 'W' volume from my collection of old Encyclopaedia Brittanicas.... I strolled over the paddocks here on my farm at Sams Creek – and presented the volume to the entrance of a wombat burrow (opened to the entry on 'wombats' of course)

this silly, mostly off-hand action was captured in a digital still that I later gave the thoroughly intentionally pretentious title 'beneficium eruditio' (gift of knowledge)

I wondered what a wombat may make of book knowledge about wombats.... I didn't have to wait long to find out....

'restitutio beneficium' (return of the gift)

but I had given such little thought to the artistic merits or possibilities of the initial action as an ongoing interaction that I only recorded the 'results' on my tiny digi camera (not the 'big' digi SLR)..... it was only many weeks later that I realised that my action/interaction and the digital record may indeed be something of enduring interest....... so from the initial interaction sprung alternate book/land action/interactions.......

that brings us up to current times with me and my books out in the paddock... again

and that's when I stumbled over this.....

the remnants of that 'W' encyclopaedia... about 25m from its initial point – it had been out in the weather for over 18 months, had been moved (twice) by flood waters (that had washed rocks and stones and branches over the same territory) but there it was.... looking like a little iceberg washed up on the rocks..... (despite the very different material and scale, I immediately thought of David Nash's 'Boulder” work.... )

There's something in this enduring fragile/strong remnant – and it's a something that I'd like to pursue further.....