When I started telling people about the piece, they immediately it was some kind of wiseass comment about religion, but I didn't have that intent at all. I've always loved the letters of the alphabet as objects aside from their job of being meaningful symbols for communication of ideas. I chose the Lord's Prayer because it is something that almost everyone is familiar with in this culture.The first books were really precious, made by hand, and very valuable. Today, anyone can self-publish a book and books can be made cheaply. So that's what was in my head. I wanted to make something that was labor intensive (although I didn't realize how hard it would be).
There are 281 letters in the Lord's Prayer. I made each letter using a press mold, which is a kind of mold with a letter-shaped impression in it. So I had to make a mold for each letter. I found some plastic letters that I used to make each press mold, kind of a lower case Times Roman-like font, the e is about 5/8" tall. The letters were too fragile to remove from the molds, so had to press each letter onto a small piece of clay, wait for the clay to firm up, and then cut the letter free with a sharp scalpel. Even then, sometimes I broke the letter, but after a while I got pretty good at it. Except for the m's and w's, which were miserable.
The dots above the i's are held in place by a tiny piece of high-temperature wire. Wasn't sure if that was going to work or not, so I really glad when it did!
The letters were bisque-fired and then dipped in white slip with tweezers, then fired again. Then arranged on a base, again with the tweezers. I worked on this off and on for about two weeks. I will try to get a better photograph because it's really beautiful in person. The lighting in the gallery is kind of funny.
Miss you all terribly!! Love Beth!
