Words

Speaking of geeks....I wrote old Dr. Oopy an email in which I geeked out on him regarding my love of art that (which?) includes words. I'm thinking primarily of the works of Jenny Holzer and Ed Ruscha -- the former deals exclusively with words, and the latter has painted other things (pictures...huh!) but paints a lot of words, too. Like, he paints just words. Sometimes it's just words, sometimes phrases. Jenny Holzer I've mentioned on the boards before. She's my favorite living artist, and I'm thrilled that the MFA in Boston (which I can enter free with my student ID, praise be) has one of her pieces -- it's an LED screen that scrolls some of her Truisms, if I'm not mistaken. (I was at the MFA today but neglected to pay this a visit.) Jenny Holzer. If I had to steal anyone's art and pass it off as my own, it would be hers. First of all, I love the look of words. Typography honestly turns me on. The idea that the way a word looks influences its meaning or reception is so thrilling to me. A phrase resonates differently with you depending on the way you see it -- is it scrawled in graffitti on brick, or is it carved in roman capitals in marble, or is printed in sans serif font on a poster? Of course, the different styles imply different authors, and different types of authors -- disaffected youth, some stately organization, a corporation. (This is why I love Holzer's series of Survival statements printed as subway posters -- you initially think they must be ads for something, but there is no attribution line...nothing to indicate who wrote them or what for what purpose. Imagine seeing: this printed in sans serif caps, say, yellow letters on a pink background, on a poster in a busstop. What would you make of it?} Then, it's also the mere look of the letters I like...the alphabet itself, and the way the letters are formed and how they look next to each other. I love words with an "e - consonant - e" pattern, like serene (extra good) or austere. I can't explain why -- it's just satisfying somehow. And the shapes of A, e, f, J, N, W, R....these are great to draw in creative lettering of your own device. I'd go on, but I'm starting to scare myself with how autistic I sound.