Chapter XXII

As part of an altered book project I did a few years back, I glued pages together and then cut away the center of them so that I could make them into ‘frames’ for some of my photographs. It was an attempt to illustrate the book ‘Two Years Before the Mast’ by Richard Henry Dana Jr. using my own imagery and some very particular words from the book. I kept the sections of pages that were cut away with the thought that I might use them for something one day.

There were folks in the past – I can’t recall who at the moment – who would cut pages with words in half and then realign the cut halves to see if they could find or discover or create new narratives or phrases. I have also seen folks pick words from pages and use them selectively to create new or different narratives or phrases (I count myself in this group; that aforementioned altered book as an example). When I was recently going through my ‘junk’ drawer I came across the cut-outs and decided it was time to try something with them.

After the most recent trip out to Vancouver Island, I knew I had some images that might lend themselves to, or align with, the words in Dana’s book and started trying to weave narrative.

As the book is about being on a sailing ship for two years, there is plenty of references to wind and weather so I’ll be trying one or two that might align with my storm images.

More anon.