Civitella Piece: Collecting My Thoughts

Below is a piece I made while at Civitella Ranieri this Spring. Some explanation follows.

When you first arrive at Civitella Ranieri and are shown around the castle, you immediately notice artwork from various previous fellows on the walls in the castle and other buildings. One piece that caught my attention in particular, on a wall in the castle’s stairwell, was a piece by Mark Dion from 1996, the residency’s first year. It was a collection of objects he “excavated” from around the grounds (images below). I’ve always been a person who picks up interesting detritus off the street – when they say “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, I’m definitely that second guy. Looking at the Dion piece I immediately had the idea to do a narrative variation on it. Years ago, before I got serious about comics, I did a lot of collage, including a number of pieces along the above lines, but using image fragmants and text from magazines. Doing it with actual physical objects collected at a particular place and time seemed like a ready-made opportunity to revisit the idea and expand on it. I probably would have been picking stuff up on my walks around the grounds anyway, but having a project in mind made it even more compelling to actively poke around for interesting stuff.

The text refers to things that were on my mind or things that happened while I was there, conversations and exchanges with the other fellows, weather events, etc. The one item I didn’t collect myself is the giant porcupine quill. That was found and given to me by fellow castle resident Zoya Laktionova. The eyeglasses were my own reading glasses which broke while I was there and repeatedly resisted my attempts at repair. A week before the residency’s end I had a long box frame built to house the piece and left it at the castle to join the collection..

Here’s the Dion piece: