Week 50: 26th August – 1st September
I’ve been invited to propose a new print work for an art fair at Christie’s in London. The fair is called Multiplied and the stall is being curated by members of the London based group AM Bruno around the theme, “I’m telling you stories. Trust me”.
After considering the possibility of using divination as a storytelling technique, I started to think of the work I’d been making and reading about previously. My first thought was to produce an image that was representative of a tarot style card so that I could continue to explore ideas of allegory in art and history. Unfortunately, inspiration for developing work around this idea wasn’t forthcoming, so I went back to the drawing board to reconsider how I would approach the brief.
Tasseography
This particular drawing board was in fact covered with tea leaves, where I’d split open a tea bag and started to draw into the leaves to make an image. I’d started working with tea to create images relating to tea leaf reading (or tasseography) in order to make tea bag books. However, through playing with the material I realised that I could also produce these kinds of images in reference to divination and symbolism for the AMBruno exhibition.
My previous understanding of tasseography was that the leaves were read according to the symbolic shapes that they created. However after further research, I also found that from around the beginning of the 20th Century fortune telling cups had been produced, displaying grids containing different symbols. The readings were then determined by which symbols the tea leaves congregated around in the cup. I found this interesting and decided to use a similar method in depicting my own symbols.
Symbol meanings
Before deciding which symbols to use, I drew a circular grid with a pentagram in the middle creating 26 sections. This brought to mind the idea of an alphabet so I decided to create images for each of the 26 letters. I looked up the most common symbol meanings to determine a list of images and began to draw them.
Although each of the images could refer to a particular meaning according to their provenance in tasseography, I hoped that any audience viewing the work wouldn’t be tempted to try to determine the ‘correct’ meaning, as for me that wasn’t the intention of the work. However, I still found it interesting to think about the selected images and their given meanings, and how they might relate to one another. For example, why would a cow symbolise money, or an apple tree foretell a journey abroad?
Print work
After digitally drawing the images, I had to determine how best to produce them for exhibition. The specified dimensions for the print were 36x46cm, slightly larger than A3, so although I’d decided to make a digital print, it made me reconsider how I might print this. I settled on printing onto brown paper which I would then adhere to a good quality backing paper using a process similar to chine collé. This created an almost object-like image on the paper and gave tactility to the print.
First responses to the work were good and showed a level of engagement with the image beyond the skill that it took to create it or the meaning within it, as if people instinctively felt that they could respond to it without any prior knowledge or haptic involvement.These positive reactions have made me think about how I might develop this print into a larger body of work. I’m now considering using different images or even alchemical symbols. The aesthetic of the work also suggests a game board or moving pieces. Additionally I am also considering printing back onto ceramic as with the original inspiration for the work.
More info:
http://www.tasseography.com
http://www.crystalinks.com/tealeaves.html
http://www.mojomoon.net/tleaves.html
