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 after materail was cut away. 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 (raised) in order to accept ink, paper then pressed on it, transferring the relief shapes - all of this executed while thinking in reverse and mirrored.

I ran several rather prime colors on different colored papers dutifully purchased, but again not really knowing where or what or why. I settled on a neutral brown rather than simple white to show the brilliance of the inks better without being too dingy looking or limiting.

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 creative.

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.)

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

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

Another night of tossing and turning, all these images flooding my head, nothing resolved. And it's not like you can just make notes or sketches to myself 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 means for restarts, do-overs or big mistakes.

 

The array of adhesive options can be stymying, but my trusty advertising layout background of yore (pre-desktop publishing) using rubber cement and the solvent, Bestine solved the initial issue of trial-and-error repositioning, moving elements around, adjusting, tweaking. But rubber cement is not a permanent fixative.

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?

EPHIPHANY: The more I slept on it, allowed my subconscious to work on it, the more variations and options I saw. Imagining an octagon shape instead of the expected square or rectangle felt more and more pleasing. But how? First try, I cut the corners off at 45 degrees - diagonals - then folded them back, stuck with duct tape! It greatly reduced the carrying size.

The square confined corners had always bugged me, more and more now, and I liked the shape with them folded-back, so they got lopped off permanently. Cool - an octagon, but not a regular even-sided one. Hmm..... this puppy will a bitch to frame.

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. Something. Something. to gel the pieces, make sense of them.

Truth: In my youth, when feeling artistically'stuck,' I might have toked on a pot pipe in hopes of envisioning something less earthbound or pedantic. Maybe because of that history something DID click out of the barrage of 'what if's' - out of the blue.

WHAT IF these odd squiggly things, these bizarre shapes were some sort of ancient or alien alphabet, letters or symbols? Maybe they could be trying to communicate a message ... with each other ... or to the 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 involved 'alien' letters made the rest of the design process clear and focused .... at last!.

THE DESCRIPTIVE SPIEL EXPLAINING THE PIECE: Typographic or calligraphic characters (letterforms) from disparate regions of their foreign world long for a connections with their distant relatives (same shapes, different colors). At the same moment, they sense the need to better themselves while communing with each other.

 

True to any fairy tale worth its magic wand, several of the select brave ones in the four corners of their compass are selected representatives, sprout legs, morph into mobile figures - and their big journey begins.

In order to accomplish their noble 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), prickly graphite 'wire' and a dry sandy 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.

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 choose not to wall-mount the piece as one would have presumed.

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

This time around though, a decade years later, it CAN and is wall hung. It is now sturdy enough that legs COULD be added without much trouble for a true tabletop installation.

Deriving from a cloudy stance of clueless non-comprehension to embracing both Deconstructionism and the Creative Process, the "Calligraphic Boardgame" project brought far-reaching revelation and insight to its creator. Lending some exponential confidence-building and personal growth it has become - if one must have such a thing - my humble and most telling signature piece.

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

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

- Steve Perkins
www.evolvedesign.biz
email: evolvedesign@dc.rr.com: evolv