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.