Questionable Value

I admired the illustrations in this crumbling 3000 page turn-of-the-century dictionary, so I cut out every single illustration to save. Small detailed illustrations have always excited me, from my earliest memories of book reading. Despite being out of date, with much of its information incorrect or obsolete, I couldn’t bear the idea of all these detailed little illustrations in this dictionary being discarded. To me, they represent someone’s time and labor, and therefore have value, even if that value has no place in our current culture. Cutting out circles came naturally as a way to frame and center each image. Circles with images suggested the idea of coins, and so I painted the space surrounding each image gold to illuminate that connection. On the back of each “coin” I tried to find vague but semi-sinister intent in the happenstance collection of words in proximity to each other, stringing together suggestive phrases that felt like a surreptitious undercurrent in a collection of knowledge that purports to represent truth and neutrality. I have admired the artist El Anatsui for many years, and wanted to try using his technique of wired together bits of material to create draping textile-like forms. The circular forms and suggestion of wealth and armor reminded me of the feather capes that Hawaiian kings once wore, Ahu Ula. Creating a “protective” yet flimsy cloak suggesting past wealth in the midst of the pandemic seemed like an appropriate symbol for the omnipresent anxiety of 2020, a regal garment of questionable value.