Running From the Nothing That Pursues

Running From the Nothing That Pursues

At the end of 2020 I took three online courses that helped me complete this project. They were ConcerTINa with Seth Apter, A Mark in Time with Jen Crossley and The Bookmaker with Roxanne Evans Stout. This project was an amalgamation of the ideas in these workshops but ultimate felt free to go its own way.

The project started with a tin (suggested in both ConcerTINa and The Bookmaker). My tin was a Tarreyton Cigarettes tin with a date incised in the back of 6/8/25. 

For the front cover I selected a holy water font and removed the Virgin's head and replaced it with a horse. I attached three corn on the cob skewers into the font and some jewelry behind the head. With the addition of some paint and papers, the front cover was done. 

On the back cover, I attached a glass lantern slide and some papers. The text in the photographs in the lantern slides says:

West New Brighton

Staten Island

NY

November 16th, 1889

Dear Sir:

This morning came the photographs for which I am heartily obliged to you. They are beautiful works but as for the likeness I cannot judge. My likeness as always seems strange to me, and I am not aware of feeling as they look. But this I suppose is a universal experience. My wife likes the one marked 1909b more than any ever made of me, and that is the highest possible praise. There is, I am sure, something very elusive in my expression and yet you must have caught it, if my wife can say so much.

I beg to thank you sincerely for your kind courtesy, and with every good wish I am

very truly yours,

George William Curtis 

As it turns out, there is a Wikipedia for a George Williams Curtis of Staten Island, NY, which, in part, says: "George William Curtis (February 24, 1824 – August 31, 1892) was an American writer and public speaker, born in Providence, Rhode Island, of New Englander ancestry. A Republican, he spoke in favor of African-American equality and civil rights." The rest of his biography can be found at this link. 

When you open the tin, it reveals the inside cover of the tin and the cover of the book.

The inside cover of the tin has a lantern slide of an individual who is not Curtis. I decided that this guy would be a veterinarian. 

With the book removed, the inside back cover of the tin is revealed.

The book contained in the tin was made from card stock, handmade paper made from fern and eco-printed paper. The cover of the book is from an old edition of The Arabian Nights. 

Thus we have...Running From the Nothing That Pursues.