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Description:
The artists’ words
and images are carved into more than 600 granite tiles installed in
the seat wall around the Town Lake, creating a “book” that is six
miles long. The artists collaborated to bring words to public art
for a project that would create a sense of history and community.
They collected memories and stories to inspire this artwork
that could reach out to anyone who visited the lake. Images
of birds, caliche and fish are combined with greguerías, a form of
writing that mixes metaphor and humor to create new insight.
Funding:
The project was funded
through City of Tempe Capital Improvement Project Percent for Art
funds.
Artists’ biographies:
Karla
Elling is a graphics artist and letterpress printer – the proprietor
of Mummy Mountain Press and Papermill. Elling, who specializes in
the literary arts, has printed the broadsides of the work of more
than 100 contemporary writers including Alberto Ríos, Robert Bly,
Rita Dove and Carlos Fuentes. Her typography appears in public
spaces such as the wall of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
as well as in portfolio editions from Hand Papermaking
magazine, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and the University of
Wisconsin Silver Buckle Press. Elling is coordinator of the
Arizona State University Creative Writing Program.
Alberto Ríos is the author
of nine books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short
stories and a memoir. His poems include The Smallest Muscle in
the Human Body, Teodoro Luna’s Two Kisses, The Lime
Orchard Woman, The Warrington Poems, Five
Indiscretions and Whispering to Fool the Wind. His
collections of stories include The Curtain of Trees, Pig
Cookies and The Iguana Killer. Capirotada is a
memoir about growing up on the Mexican Border. He is a Regents’
Professor of English at Arizona State University.
Harry Reese, Chair of the
Department of Art Studio at the University of California (Santa
Barbara) from 1996 to 2000, began the UCSB Book Arts program in
1978. His work is archived at the Getty Research Institute and has
been exhibited internationally in Germany, Argentina, Venezuela,
Columbia and widely throughout the United States. His public art
projects include works at the Los Angeles Central Library, the
Penland School of Crafts and in the city of Pasadena, Calif.
Artist statement:
Alberto Ríos: The form I
generally modeled the writing on is something called a “greguería,”
a very short form developed by the turn of the century Spanish
writer Ramon Gomez de la Serna. In the tradition of Spanish
literature, it makes a surprising connection, using both high
seriousness and humor to make its point. For example, “To visit the
river quickly, cut an
onion,” or “Nobody owns water—drink some and try to keep it.” The
form is similar to some others, such as epigraphs and gnomes and so
on, but its use of humor as a serious component is what
distinguishes it from the others generally.
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