BE AMAZED (AND OTHER WORDS TO LIVE BY)
I created this series of nine cubes for A Letter a Week (ALaW)*. This edition was guided by the theme “Going Dotty,” meaning that dots/circles/pixels were to be incorporated somehow. While I settled on cubes as my structure for this alphabet quite early in the project, the content ended up very different from my original concept when that line between kitchen & studio once again began to blur.
As I was making polenta one day, the formation of circles when oil was added to the water caught my attention. I quickly photographed the pan of spotted water with the idea of indulging in some play time with Photoshop. By using the “Selective Color” sliders, I was able to introduce some vibrant colors into the rather bland photograph. I further varied the colors, and ended up with a whole rainbow of “dotty” designs.
I chose six of my favorite versions—one for each of the six cube faces. Next I spent some time considering words of nine letters or less, with the idea that the letters of the various color could form a word. Each letter of the alphabet is included at least once, for a complete “alphabet,” though there are multiples of several letters. More photos & details about the project can be found in this blog post.
* ALaW was conceived by Australian artist Fiona Dempster. Artists participated by making one letter each week, which meant we ended the year with two complete alphabets. ALaW ran from 2010 to 2015.
