The original project was a mixed-media piece starting with a print or prints from a linoleum block print.

I pencil sketched onto the blank block some intriguing shapes which would also lend texture. Various cutting tools, gouges, mini-scoops designed for the purpose, at-the-ready and the digging began.

Eliminating the unwanted soft linoleum material to leave the wanted and raised in order to accept ink, paper then pressed on it, transferring the relief shapes - all of this executed while thinking 'reversed and in a mirror.'

I ran several rather prime colors on different colored papers I had dutifully purchased, but again not really knowing where or what or why. I settled on a neutral brown rather than white to show the brilliance of the inks better without being too dingy looking or limiting. More than likely it took a second trip to the art store when I realized white paper was just too limiting and ... well, boring.

Up to this juncture I still wasn't sure where this was going. But I trusted the creative process - it is seldom a clear path or necessarily a logical one. THAT's a part of what makes art really art.

Because I was using public transportation to and from campus, the project needed to be portable. That seemed very limiting but it WAS winter in Denver and the wielding a huge bulky thing in blizzard conditions was a factor in my early decision-making, bleeding inks or wilted paper another. Cost too, was an element besides it was My Responisbility (that is, eco-friendly and as non-polluting as possible). Reused materials became a moral aspect in the rapidly compounding project. (That was okay, challenges intrigue me.)

Saved boxes from my last move, the cardboard was certainly lightweight and malleable, paintable and easy to mount on anything. And repurposed.

Loathe to do the typical or expected, practicality gave up with cutting and folding the corners diagonally compact ng for transport.

I still had no real finite image in mind, but the pieces were satisfying enough for the moment.

Another night of tossing and turning, all these images flooding my head, nothing resolving. It's not like you can just make notes to yourself, in the middle of the night, like recording a dream or To Do List.

I kept toying with using cut-up parts of those lino block prints, but only in my head. Roaming around my consciousness, the concept of deconstruction from another course simultaneously pulled at my synapses.

Then and there I realized that perhaps - just perhaps - I might be uniquely equally left- and right-brained compared to the average biped. Creativity coupled or infused with technical, theoretical, and the analytical? Whew.

 

Screwing up courage, I cut up the several precious block print sheets. As usual time was a factor and using the equipment on campus a limited window; I had to use what I already had - no time for restarts or big mistakes.

The use of adhesives can be stymying, but my trusty advertising layout background of yore (beyond desktop publishing) with rubber cement and Bestine (solvent) solved the initial issue of repositioning, trial and error moving elements around. But not a permanent solution.

Four basic colors, four sides - hmmm, this was not 'saying' much to my mind's eye. Another dire move, cut those four sheets into strips, but not wide enough to spanto the whole piece though. Rats! Something else might fill in? What?

THE FRAMING PROCESS WAS JUST AS CONVOLUTED AND MIND-BOGGLING AS CREATING THE ARTWORK ITSELF.

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EPHIPHANY: The more I slept on it, the more variations and options I saw. Imagining an octagon shape instead of a boring old square got more and more pleasing. But first, let's try it out; I cut the corners off diagonally, then folded them back, adhered with duct tape. It greatly reduced the carrying size.

The square corners had always bugged me, more and more now, and I liked the folded-back look, so they got lopped off permanently. Cool - an octagon, but not a regular even-sided one. Hmm..... this puppy will a b*t*h to frame someday.

With corners removed, things just naturally gravitated to symmetry, left to right, top to bottom. And the whole thing fit under my arm ... even in a crowded rush-hour train car. More shifting of pieces, swapping portions of each color to opposite sides - visual relationships taking shape, making some sense now.

But why? Why, indeed. There was something else here I wasn't immediately aware of, but it nagged and tugged at me to reveal itself.

Truth: In my youth, when feeling artistically'stuck,' I might have toked on a pipe in hopes of envisioning something less earthbound or pedantic. Maybe because of that history (and not necessitating revisiting it), something DID click out of the barrage of 'what if's,' and out of the blue.

WHAT IF these odd squiggly things, these bizarre shapes were some sort of ancient or alien alphabet? Maybe they could be trying to communicate a message ... with each other ... or to uthe viewer, to us? No big surprise in this, one of my big skills in graphic design certification education was and is, typography; typography stems from calligraphy.

NOW things were getting really interesting - in my head at least - building some sort of scenario made the rest of the design process clear and focused .... at last!

 

 

HERE GOES: Typographic or calligraphic characters (letterforms) from disparate regions of their world long for connections with distant 'relatives' (same shapes, different colors). At the same moment, they sense the need to better themselves or at least commune with each other.

Several of the select brave ones in their sectors at the four corners of their compass are selected, sprout legs, morph into mobile figures and their big journey begins.

In order to accomplish their massive mission, they must first surmount a huge parapet, avoiding the armored corner sentinels (symbolized by the four metallic acrylic cloth squares), then hack through briar patch (pen/ink cross-hatching) and prickly graphite 'wire' and a mini-desert to, at long last, witness the most delightful surprise - the all-power, all-knowing tower of might, the center of everything esteemed and sacred - the Golden Mecca of Everything Good and Typographic (the center composite print in gold metallic acrylic paint and cloth). Ta-Dah!

I know, I know, I'm probably the only one who gets all this; it was and is my little mental game of process and progress. But it DID bring about the title for the piece - that's huge.

unmounted

When I entered "Calligraphic Boardgame" into a juried art show - at a wonderfully transformed church, The Emmanuel Gallery in downtown Denver - a neat space for art shows on the Auraria Campus, the jurors did not wall-mount it as one would have presumed.

Instead, it was displaced flat, horizontally on a white cube plinth, evoking an actual game board setting. Sweet!

This time around though, eight years later, it CAN also be hung and it's sturdy enough that legs COULD be added without much trouble for a true tabletop installation for gallery or show.

Deriving from a cloudy stance of non-comprehension to one of embracing both Deconstructionism and the Creative Process, the "Calligraphic Boardgame" project brought huge revelations and insights initially and even today. Alongside exponential self-confidence growth it has become my humble and telling signature piece.

Next, see the puzzling process the framing entailed. .. .CLICK HERE.

- Steve Perkins
www.evolvedesign.biz
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