Found Objects #10: Obituary Art

A zine of blackout poems, printed on the risograph.

Now that I’m back in Maine, twenty minutes from my hometown, I’ve been taking advantage of my mother’s closets full of junk for my art projects. But, shhh, don’t tell her. The fact that I’ve been using all her resources validates her need to save everything. I am, however, appreciative that she never seems to mind my weird requests!

This summer, I took a Comics Poetry class with Susanne Reece at SVA Continuing Education, and we were given a prompt to make something with found text. A couple of hours before class, I rummaged around my studio for some newspapers or junk mail, and the only thing I could find was a page of obituaries from Syracuse.

The process of picking out interesting words from the summary of a stranger’s life intrigued me, so I recently made an illustrated collection of seven blackout poems called “Sunday Spirits,” with source material from the Maine Sunday Telegram. This zine is 16-pages, printed on French paper with three colors on the risograph, hand-cut, collated, and stitched by hand. I printed a limited edition of 60 copies.

I used words from the same obituary for each poem, hoping to capture a glimpse of each person’s spirit through the rearrangement of text and accompanying imagery.

Tabling at the New England Art Book Fair this September has inspired me to make more art books. I like the idea of sewing books and experimenting with different types of paper and traditional media to make handmade, limited editions. I am very lucky to have access to a risograph at work, and I want to continue to hone my skills. (For those who don’t know, risograph printing is like digital screen printing, and it’s very addictive!)

Once again, thank you all for reading and supporting my work! I have already mailed copies of this zine to most of my subscribers, and I will continue to mail copies to new subscribers throughout the month of October.

Do you make art books or print on the risograph? I’d love to hear about it!