The Look and See Book
I’ll be going back to my book and that’ll require a whole different way of thinking. The Look and See Book, is mostly composition and thinking. It’s not free expression at all. The only free expression about it is arranging what will go on each page, which sometimes will take days. I hope to live long enough to finish it. Time is going so fast.
DELIBERATELY DERIVATIVE ART
Many years ago, while walking through Restoration Hardware with my husband, I noticed a set of French handcrafted journals.
The label read:
French Handcrafted Journals
Not for the Aristocracy…
“Our blank journals pay homage to the 18th century ‘COUVERTURE MUETTE, OR MUTE BOOK, of the French Revolution, each handmade, its pages hand-cut with water, then dried under the sun. The linen binding naturally stained.
Like a magnet I was compelled-- I bought the largest volume and three smaller ones even though I did not know what I would do with them.
Years passed before I finally carried the largest journal into the studio. Intimidated by the first page, I started at the back with making hand copies of anatomical drawings. Anatomy, which was paramount in our studies as a figurative artist, felt like the most natural way to begin this enormous endeavor.
“The study of anatomy is important for artist. Not so that he may answer the requirements of scientific realism, but so that he may penetrate into the secret of a process of structural development.”
-(not a realist artist) Paul Klee, Swiss Artist 1879-1940
Once momentum and confidence gained, I turned to the front. Inspired by the concept of compare and contrast, the journal expanded into a conversation between art and artifact, between ancient objects and contemporary images. There was never a strategy - each page was a new adventure of exploration and revelations through the act of making. I was often uncertain how to proceed, and at times afraid of what the process might demand. Yet the inability to erase mistakes became part of the meaning of the work itself.
What began in August 2014 remains unfinished - a work in progress.
Olivia working at her drawing table in Merida, Mexico, 2020.
The Look and See Book, opened to a page featuring Olivia’s drawn reproduction of The Rose by Jay DeFeo.
The Look and See Book, made of 100% rag paper.
A Mexican mask from one of Olivia’s books, reinterpreted in her Look and See Book.