EVIDENCE
It’s a tough decision to disfigure any hard cover book, no matter how worn. I feel like I’m desecrating something precious, almost sacred — in this case, The Brimful Book: A Collection of Mother Goose Rhymes. Amongst a small collection of children's books, The Brimful Book has been with me my entire life. I’m almost paralyzed by its weighty significance, but it’s meaningful only to me. [See “Blue on Blue.”]
A book is tougher to deconstruct than you might imagine. This deceptively fragile looking volume requires some elbow grease and more than one try to yank loose its spine, its core strength. The wrenching, scritchy sound of bookcloth tearing is unexpectedly raw, enough to give me pause while I reconsider what I’m doing. Never mind, too late now. Once the spine gives way, the rest is easier, and now I have at it.
I have a shitload of personal memorabilia. Chances are nobody will want it when I’m gone, so unless I plan to wallpaper my entire house with it, it’s time to at least winnow it down. Why not turn some of It into art. Collage. Then It can be hung on a wall. And if no one wants It, It can be sold for a buck or two in a garage sale, donated to Goodwill, or sure, just tossed into a Dumpster.
I put on some sounds — the Bill Evans Trio, 1962, Waltz for Debby, recorded live at the Village Vanguard. You can just barely hear the cocktail glasses clinking, the background tinkle of people kicking back and having fun, back in the days before things got so complicated.
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I have a series in mind. Despite the fact that each collage will contain similar elements from The Brimful Book, when juxtaposed with the different handwriting samples of four family members who have died, each will take on a subtly different tenor. Handwriting is so specific to a person it might as well be a portrait. I like the contrast between the childhood innocence implied by the nursery rhyme motif and the adult handwriting and all that’s behind that. The fragment of a rhyme collocated with Larry’s agitated handwriting will impart a different feeling than a similar fragment next to my grandmother’s careful script, my mom’s breezy handwriting, or Daddy’s angry scrawl.
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For Gaga’s script, I choose one of her hand-written recipes — this one for Plain Cake with Broiled Icing, still one of my favorites — and a little piece of paper with the notation "Gold $1.00 – belonged to my mother" (who would be my great grandmother) wrapped around a tiny round gold dollar dated 1855. Both papers are extremely fragile, ready to fall apart. Now I have not only my grandmother’s handwriting but also a beautiful little object, the coin, for a focal point, a landing pad for the viewer’s eye.
As I cut and paste, I think of my grandmother. She’s in the kitchen on Van Ness, wearing a starched cotton housedress, standing at the sink. She’s cleaning something, wiping something down, or drying something. Now she’s snooping, ostensibly emptying the trash but really looking to see how many bottles my dad has guzzled dry. Seemingly omnipresent, nothing escaped her notice; in another sense, she was always there for us, especially for Larry, when we needed someone in our corner.
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For my mom’s collage, I choose a penciled note she’d written to me about the way my daughter — then maybe ten — was talking negatively about Gaga and how Mom thought I should deal with it. It’s one of the few times I recall her going below the surface about anything and even though what she wrote was vaguely critical of me, I appreciate the depth of thought behind it. Perfect. And for visual emphasis, I have the “lucky” brooch — featuring a four-leaf clover and a wishbone — she gave me before I left home (the first time). I only ever wore it on St. Patrick’s Day because the latch always slipped open and I was afraid I would lose it.
By the time I've finished her collage, I’m relieved to realize that I’m no longer angry with her, that somewhere along the way I forgave her for being human, for falling in love with someone she shouldn't have fallen in love with. Because who am I to judge.
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For Daddy’s collage, I have unearthed the hand-printed note he’d left on my pillow demanding that I move out. He was drunk, I was 18, and it was really just time to go. In my jewelry box is a little slide-rule tie clip of his, and I’ll include it for the focal point.
Only in recent years have I come to understand how he must have felt about something he'd never spoken of. How every day he must have sat up there in his bedroom, alone at his desk, shot glass in front of him, looking out the window and thinking about the wife and son he had long ago left behind. A son that looked like him; a son he must have loved yet never saw, spoke to, or touched again.
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For my brother Larry’s collage, I have pages and pages of his hallucinatory ramblings to choose from, his handwriting tense, bold, wild. I won’t gussy up his pain, put a pretty bow on it; I will let him howl. I consider this passage: Just a little boy being punished by his naughty mother, on the inside looking out, but choose this one instead: Get fucked or else: Do as you used to before you forgot what you remembered you had to forget.
Now I know he’s talking about the father he was supposed to forget but couldn’t, and all the rest of it. The mess of it. For both visual and emotional weight, I add his tiny turquoise blue baby beads with the name he was also supposed to forget.
I have always been so conflicted about Larry. I’ve put him on a pedestal, when the reality is he wasted his life. Sure, there are underlying, complex reasons, but the same is true for the worst among us. As with all of us, it’s the age-old question of nature vs. nurture. A question without an answer.
Reunited, with uneasy borders. Mixed media. 2020
