The last few weeks have been consumed with cutting out words. I chose a more recent issue instead of one from May because the latter was sun damaged from sitting in my car all year. I started with a single issue and I dissected the first half. I realized that this issue was mostly focused on the election (it was released November 7th 2020.) The selection of words I obtained was homogenous and I was bored by it.
Next I started cutting up the older issue. It is a Sunday edition, so there was a ton of interesting material to work with. I’m still only halfway through that dissection. The next section contains reports on the protests, which were escalating rapidly at the time.
Now that I’m in the process of trying to select words and paste them in, I’ve come to a problem. Not with the pasting, I’ve found that a light layer of mod podge works well and doesn’t buckle the paper too much. The problem is that I can’t see all the words at once. I don’t have a large space to work in my room, and my cats roam free everywhere else. I’m considering taking the project over to my partner’s apartment because he has more open space. The only problem with that is this project is very language based, and for that I need solitude to focus on the words. I know he would give me space to work on it but I don’t trust myself to not get distracted.
I suppose there is another issue. I don’t know how much of a problem it might become as I continue working on this project, but I feel like the format is very constricting. There may be a way to work around it, like coming up with a methodical approach to choosing which words should be replaced and then how to choose replacements.
As I look through each old newspaper, scanning for interesting words and reading certain articles, I find my thoughts veering away from the idea I proposed. Instead I start seeing the words pile up, one word falling next to another, creating automatic poetry in a condensed sculptural pile. That object in itself is beautiful to me. I start pulling words out of the pile and placing them next to each other. Novel images appear in my mind, giving the constructed language visual form. Maybe I should draw them, and paste the captions below. Maybe I should build a story from these collected words, like those movie-trope ransom notes but on steroids.
There are so many ways of putting the words back together, but for some reason I no longer find myself as intrigued by the idea of putting them back into a newspaper. Maybe it’s because the task seems so daunting. I would really want to fill it up and manipulate it into a completely new object. Or is it because I am now finding myself more drawn to these other modes of construction? I don’t want to be a quitter and leave this process only halfway through the circle of completion, but there seem to be so many other opportunities that I would rather explore.
For now, I still want to continue with this idea. I want to complete the circle of destruction of a newspaper and use the pieces to modify a newspaper. My best bet is probably to select a page, a section of pages, or a handful of articles to manipulate.
In hindsight I should have worked harder on this project the last few weeks. There was just so much to do. From online studio classes to working to planning for graduation and the future, and making sure you take care of yourself and stay connected with loved ones. Not trying to make excuses, it was just a very crazy time in my life (and those are just the big things, not to mention the day to day chaos of a global pandemic and a historic presidential election.)
Photos to come later.