Cathy Fields, the director of the Litchfield County [Connecticut] Historical Society, invited me to submit a piece to their annual fundraiser in which local artists donate work which is auctioned off as part of a gala evening. I'm not exactly local to Litchfield, but I have family there -- Cathy is my sister. The theme for this year's auction is "Litchfield State of Mind."
I started with one of those phrenology charts. I found one in the public domain (in fact it is from one of O.S. and L.N. Fowler's mid-nineteenth century works on phrenology) and erased all the words from the image. With the help of several people who know Litchfield better than I do, I generated a list of 50+ words that reflect different aspects of Litchfield. I then put these words in to the head. Painstaking work, I must say. I mixed serious with humorous, important with trivial. My goal was to raise a smile without being offensive. Finally, I added a thought bubble saying, "Litchfield," and got this:
I started with one of those phrenology charts. I found one in the public domain (in fact it is from one of O.S. and L.N. Fowler's mid-nineteenth century works on phrenology) and erased all the words from the image. With the help of several people who know Litchfield better than I do, I generated a list of 50+ words that reflect different aspects of Litchfield. I then put these words in to the head. Painstaking work, I must say. I mixed serious with humorous, important with trivial. My goal was to raise a smile without being offensive. Finally, I added a thought bubble saying, "Litchfield," and got this:
I printed a nice copy on Hahnemuhle Ingres paper and arranged it into a Turkish map fold, which I cased in quarter cloth over boards. I don't know how it will be received in Litchfield, but I had fun making it.
 |  |  |
RSS Feed