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| "Fat Pears and Blushing Peaches"" 9 color reductive linoleum print by Coco Berkman |
June 16 is Bloomsday, the annual celebration of James Joyce's novel "Ulysses". "Bloomsday"is named after one of the novel's main characters, Leopold Bloom, or as his beloved wife calls him, "Poldy". June 16 is the day wherein the novel takes place.
A colorful cast of characters, Priests and Prostitutes, Drunks and Spinsters, Publicans and Musicians weaves their way throughout the pubs and common rooms and libraries and streets and strands and beaches of "our Fair City", Dublin Town.
What's the big deal? What other holiday named for a piece of literature?
Jame's Joyce, with a finely honed determination of a great writer had embraced the moment he lived in so thoroughly that he indeed created a time machine capable of transporting any future person to visit Dublin Ireland on June 16 1904 and walk her streets and speak to her citizens.
Joyce spent years of his life writing Ulysses and is quoted as saying, "The demand that I make of my reader is that he should devote his whole life to reading my works" Yow. O.K. So.
I promise to give it a shot James. You are worth it!
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| "The Crackerbox" 12 color reductive linoleum print by Coco Berkman |
I’ve been working on a series of prints with imagery inspired by “Ulysses” for more than 3 years now and have completed 4 linoleum prints, 1 soft ground etching and 1 reductive woodcut.
I’m no Joyce scholar. In fact, I have yet to finish reading the book!
So why might you ask, am I spending hours drawing imagery gleaned from those beloved pages?
I find my “project” a good strategy for continuing to pick up the book and dive in deeply and am always, always, richly rewarded with more insight, intelligence and even humanity. I believe that reading Ulysses is a consciousness raising device [even if you don't understand one sentence logically!]
While I would like to go to a Bloomsday event, I don't actually feel the need to read the book. Just want to look at more of these prints!
ReplyDeleteMe too. I tried to start reading it a few times and would much rather experience it through the prints. It might be fun to do a "scene" from the end of the book before you even finish reading it!
ReplyDeleteTheses are really wonderful. Really captures some of the brutal humanity and experiences from the book. Inspiring to see how the written word can inspire visual images.
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