Artist:
David C. Driskell
Title:
Doorway
Date:
2008
Description:
The "Doorway" Portfolio contains twelve serigraphs by David C. Driskell in addition to twelve pages of handset letterpress prose poems by Michael Alpert, a poet, writer, editor, visual artist, book designer and Director of the University of Maine Press. Driskell and Alpert worked independently of one another, thus Driskell's images do not respond directly to the text but are inspired by it. The portfolio was printed by Master Printer Curlee R. Holton at the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., and published by Howard Greenberg at Cardinal Point Press, Rockland, Maine.
Eight of the twelve serigraphs of the works from the "Doorway" Portfolio are hanging in the University House Corridor Bay #2.
Doorway text by Michael Alpert:
"When her father died in the forest, his room became a room of refuge… His was a time of sweetness, of chrisom flower, orange light…"
"The Seer arrived on the third wednesday of the afternoon, her voice the voice of the dead. Sparrows fled, as if a hawk were near. As evening settled in our village, she asked us men to share our simplest tale. Because it was she who asked, it needed to be a tale without fear, a tale without hope…"
"With darkness surrounding, light, light like mist, ascends from the earth."
"In a practicing sort of way, your fingers tremble to compose a sheltering music; your closed eyes move to create a fragrant landscape; your ears listen to all the various night-sounds, the parade of unstable henchmen. Then, after that strangeness, that dimly-lit unreason, you find your soul returning, alone, at peace, awakened at last by dawn."
"If I lift a fallen leaf, I'll find her. If I touch a simple stone, I'll find her. If I wait beyond dusk, I'll find her. If I rummage within the forest's shadows, I'll find her."
"She nods. The forest nods. The wind moves through it. The sky."
"Their branches are our wings. They carry the weight of our sadness. They lift our sorrow to their canopy in the sky. They are fragile and whole. They dance wildly at night. Their ecstasy is what we long for, what we most need, what we once were."
"Trees shaking. The little branches shaking. Words adrift in the same wind."
"Arriving at the windy sea, you become that motion, that completed life, that endless force."
"When thunder scared them, they covered themselves with veils. The woodland alone knew the color of their eyes. The sea alone heard their prayers."
Edition # 18/75.
Eight of the twelve serigraphs of the works from the "Doorway" Portfolio are hanging in the University House Corridor Bay #2.
Doorway text by Michael Alpert:
"When her father died in the forest, his room became a room of refuge… His was a time of sweetness, of chrisom flower, orange light…"
"The Seer arrived on the third wednesday of the afternoon, her voice the voice of the dead. Sparrows fled, as if a hawk were near. As evening settled in our village, she asked us men to share our simplest tale. Because it was she who asked, it needed to be a tale without fear, a tale without hope…"
"With darkness surrounding, light, light like mist, ascends from the earth."
"In a practicing sort of way, your fingers tremble to compose a sheltering music; your closed eyes move to create a fragrant landscape; your ears listen to all the various night-sounds, the parade of unstable henchmen. Then, after that strangeness, that dimly-lit unreason, you find your soul returning, alone, at peace, awakened at last by dawn."
"If I lift a fallen leaf, I'll find her. If I touch a simple stone, I'll find her. If I wait beyond dusk, I'll find her. If I rummage within the forest's shadows, I'll find her."
"She nods. The forest nods. The wind moves through it. The sky."
"Their branches are our wings. They carry the weight of our sadness. They lift our sorrow to their canopy in the sky. They are fragile and whole. They dance wildly at night. Their ecstasy is what we long for, what we most need, what we once were."
"Trees shaking. The little branches shaking. Words adrift in the same wind."
"Arriving at the windy sea, you become that motion, that completed life, that endless force."
"When thunder scared them, they covered themselves with veils. The woodland alone knew the color of their eyes. The sea alone heard their prayers."
Edition # 18/75.
Technique:
Mixed Media
Legal Status:
Copyrights:
© David C. Driskell/David C. Driskell Center, 2017
Photography by Greg Staley, 2019
© David C. Driskell/David C. Driskell Center, 2017
Photography by Greg Staley, 2019
Object ID:
TL2020.02.000
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