Inspired by Sandra Kaji-O'Grady's 2007 exhibition '
Cuts and Scores' in the DABLAB Gallery at UTS, I ordered a few pianola rolls from eBay. Sandra's exhibition blurb describes her work as: "new compositions that explore the relationships between musical systems,
spatial order and chromatics through strips of colour meticulously
interwoven with old pianola rolls." My interest was less in musical systems or colour and more in threading strip of written text through the roll to create cut up poems. At the time, I'd been cutting out chapter headings from a book
Triumphs in Bird-Life while collaging into the book (it's an unillustrated volume, I was adding some birds), and thought they'd make a great piece on their own:
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| Chapter headings cut out of Triumphs in Bird-Life |
Turns out these text fragments are too small to fit into the pianola roll, but I liked the idea and started playing with text from other books. Then I did nothing for a couple of years, until a friend commissioned an artwork as a Christmas present for her partner, whose favourite childhood book was
The Magic Faraway Tree. I found a copy in a second hand book store and got cutting. I didn't mean for it to become smutty – but I'm not convinced Enid Blyton was as surprised as I:
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| To the left is the full artwork, framed. |
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