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Our own Cheryl Sorg's work is being displayed at the Encinitas Library. Her work went up last Friday and will be there until March 31st. The show is of past, present and current works she has been producing, which is quite a treat. If you've ever visited her website and read her bio you would see that her work has been displayed at some renowned museums and galleries. Pretty cool that we get the chance to see her work in our own back yard.
We featured her on the site a while back where she dismantled surf mags to create some amazing pieces. This time around she is dismantling entire novels and reassembling them into huge forms that can be read from start to finish.
I began by making small-scale pieces for the purpose of photographing them, the photo being the final ‘product’. Quickly I set aside the camera, however, and focused entirely on the making of the sculptures and installations themselves, wanting to see how they would morph - expand - without the resulting photo in mind. Along with this new focus came a new set of parameters designed to alleviate my guilt over ‘destroying’ books, objects I consider sacred .... that the books must remain in their entirety, and readable, in the final pieces.
I achieve this in most of the pieces by cutting the book (two copies of the book, actually, in order to get both sides of each page, and therefore the text in its entirety) apart line by line - sometimes even word by word, letter by letter - and assembling the text with clear tape into a variety of configurations. The content of the texts is integral to the the work, the stories within their pages informing and inspiring the shape each piece ultimately takes.
Many of the books I use in my work tell stories of obsession, or the obsessive pursuit - Moby Dick, The Odyssey and Lolita are prime examples. As I strive to keep the work within the strict parameters I’ve set for myself, and as the pieces become larger, more complex and time- and labor-intensive, obsession serves not only as the leitmotif, but as my own (for better or worse!) personal methodology as well. Should literature follow in the footsteps of music and film, with books going to the wayside like so many LP’s and VHS tapes, I make my contribution to their preservation with my archive of re-configured books. In my own obsessive fashion, I am building a unique ‘library’ comprised of classics and personal favorites - a large, idiosyncratic, readable-only-in-theory, and most unwieldy library to be sure!"
I have been lucky enough to live next door to Cheryl for the past 4 years and have been able to witness the hard work she puts into these pieces. She once told me that a finished piece can take a 1000 hours or more to complete! She cuts an entire book up line by line, word by word or letter by letter to create her masterpiece. Pretty amazing seeing that she has two young kids as well!
She is having an artist reception March 14th from 1 - 3 pm
For more photos of the exhibit go to her Facebook gallery.
Also below is a bit from her artist statement. It gives you an idea why she does what she does.
Enjoy.
"Literature, and its ability to transfix and transport, has served as the inspiration for my work for a number of years. A humble but passionate translator, I use books to create large and elaborate constructions, forms in which a viewer can get lost, as in a well-told tale.
"Literature, and its ability to transfix and transport, has served as the inspiration for my work for a number of years. A humble but passionate translator, I use books to create large and elaborate constructions, forms in which a viewer can get lost, as in a well-told tale.
I began by making small-scale pieces for the purpose of photographing them, the photo being the final ‘product’. Quickly I set aside the camera, however, and focused entirely on the making of the sculptures and installations themselves, wanting to see how they would morph - expand - without the resulting photo in mind. Along with this new focus came a new set of parameters designed to alleviate my guilt over ‘destroying’ books, objects I consider sacred .... that the books must remain in their entirety, and readable, in the final pieces.
I achieve this in most of the pieces by cutting the book (two copies of the book, actually, in order to get both sides of each page, and therefore the text in its entirety) apart line by line - sometimes even word by word, letter by letter - and assembling the text with clear tape into a variety of configurations. The content of the texts is integral to the the work, the stories within their pages informing and inspiring the shape each piece ultimately takes.
Many of the books I use in my work tell stories of obsession, or the obsessive pursuit - Moby Dick, The Odyssey and Lolita are prime examples. As I strive to keep the work within the strict parameters I’ve set for myself, and as the pieces become larger, more complex and time- and labor-intensive, obsession serves not only as the leitmotif, but as my own (for better or worse!) personal methodology as well. Should literature follow in the footsteps of music and film, with books going to the wayside like so many LP’s and VHS tapes, I make my contribution to their preservation with my archive of re-configured books. In my own obsessive fashion, I am building a unique ‘library’ comprised of classics and personal favorites - a large, idiosyncratic, readable-only-in-theory, and most unwieldy library to be sure!"
Photos by Cheryl Sorg
