Suspended Sentence
Thomas G. Carpenter Library
University of North Florida, 2013
Over several months, 103 hardcover books were collected from various sources for this permanent installation which was to be placed on a wall in the UNF Library. Some books were chosen simply for their size, color, and texture, others for their intriguing titles, and some were selected for the personal associations they carried within them. For instance, the two volumes of Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past filled with careful annotations from their initial transformative reading were to be positioned at the center of this installation.
A two-inch hole was cut directly through the center of each book with an industrial-strength drill press (leaving behind large piles of “core samples” extracted from their interiors). Once the books had been drilled through, they were individually inserted onto an 11-foot-long cast-iron pipe. The assembled books were then painted with many coats of amber shellac, sealing them into a singular and solid form. This massive object, weighing well over 250 pounds, was finally lifted into place and bolted to the brick wall of the library.
This book-filled installation in UNF’s book-filled library has remained on that brick wall since 2013, the long and heavy object durably secured at the base of the busy stairway. There, the books, encased in their thick and shiny shellac, like artifacts of another era, are seen in passing, as if hanging in midair, their lines of titles now read as a kind of suspended sentence.
A two-inch hole was cut directly through the center of each book with an industrial-strength drill press (leaving behind large piles of “core samples” extracted from their interiors). Once the books had been drilled through, they were individually inserted onto an 11-foot-long cast-iron pipe. The assembled books were then painted with many coats of amber shellac, sealing them into a singular and solid form. This massive object, weighing well over 250 pounds, was finally lifted into place and bolted to the brick wall of the library.
This book-filled installation in UNF’s book-filled library has remained on that brick wall since 2013, the long and heavy object durably secured at the base of the busy stairway. There, the books, encased in their thick and shiny shellac, like artifacts of another era, are seen in passing, as if hanging in midair, their lines of titles now read as a kind of suspended sentence.
Thomas G. Carpenter Library Interview about "Suspended Sentence"
50th-Anniversary Celebration of the University of North Florida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0CfVB63P8
50th-Anniversary Celebration of the University of North Florida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I0CfVB63P8
From an interview on the installation “Suspended Sentence":
Through your exploration of literature, poetry, and the visual arts, which element led you to the other? Or have they coexisted with one another?
I suppose it’s hard to disentangle the various forces you list or, like the chicken and the egg, to determine which came first. I’ve always been a big reader, yet the visual arts interested me greatly from a young age. I have an undergraduate degree in art history from the University of Kansas; it was only later—after years of living in New York, Europe, and Japan—that I returned to graduate school to pursue an interdisciplinary MA and Ph.D. in the Modern Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studying there with Herbert Blau.
Where do you look for most of your inspiration? Is there a period in your life that you tend to look back on or are you always looking for new references?
Any inspiration that I gain comes from multiple sources that again reflect my interdisciplinary interests and background. So, indeed, my various readings, the materials that I teach in the classroom at UNF (a lot of modern and contemporary poetry and fiction), art that I see during my travels, as well as a site-specific awareness of the landscape in which I might be working, all of these elements combine to create ideas and inspirations for my various projects.
I see that you have a special interest in avant-garde art; how do you relay that message in your work?
My interest in the avant-garde, an area of study that I often teach at UNF, is based upon a desire to imagine new and unexpected ways of making art, placing art, and thinking about art.
Your installations have a subtle yet bold presence. How do you decide on the placement of your words?
The placement of words for my various installations is largely determined by whatever site I am working within. At UNF, especially for the various “writing on water/writing on air” installations that I began in 2007, the university library (with its dramatic stairway overlooking the pond) determined how the language was to be placed and seen; with my installation in Paris, at the Galerie Colbert (2012), it also had to do with the site-specific dimensions of the project—the many interior windows that make up that powerful and historic arcade space.
What is the significance of your poetry mixed with nature, and is there a message you are trying to send the viewer?
I’m interested in integrating my poetry into and upon a particular situation or setting. However, my work is, by design, nearly always fragile and fleeting, making a mark upon the landscape that eventually fades away, leaving no trace of itself but the memories of the event. A message, if there is one, certainly involves these kinds of memories, an awareness of time and place, and an embrace of the ephemeral.
Your 2013 sculpture for the UNF library, Suspended Sentence, is different than your other installations. Can you tell me a little about your design process? How is this one similar, and how is it different?
Yes, Suspended Sentence is very different from my other installation work precisely because of its relative permanence as compared to my short-term installations on water and windows. This piece will be attached to the library wall for many years to come, offering a more enduring presence than I am accustomed to engaging.
As it was designed for the UNF library, commissioned by Dean Shirley Hallblade, I very much wanted to use books as a key part of the project, especially at this historical moment when libraries and books are in such a tenuous and uncertain stage. The 103 books in this installation each had two-inch holes drilled into their centers; they were later inserted onto a ten-foot galvanized steel pipe, which was then attached to the library’s brick wall; finally, all the books were painted with many coats of thick and luminous shellac. Like a long-forgotten mosquito trapped in ancient amber, the many books of my piece are now sealed together, extending from the brick wall, and suspended in time indefinitely.
I sometimes half-jokingly/half-mournfully imagine that, with time, my project’s books will one day be the only ones remaining in a library that is, like it or not, transitioning toward a kind of post-book site of digital media. Visitors may someday point toward my installation with a degree of reverence and wonder for the book’s forgotten form and stature.
I do see your recurring use of books among natural surroundings and the bold subtlety in their placement and design. Are these key elements for you?
I like your formulation of “bold subtlety,” and it describes something of what I seek—a simplicity of form that nonetheless resonates with a larger scale of awareness. The “writing on water” installations at UNF (and elsewhere) are an example—the pieces, as poems, are composed of only a few words, and yet each letter is anywhere from 6-8 feet in size. As such, there is no mistaking, or even missing, their presence floating out on the water or attached to the windows in the library’s stairwell.
How would you say that creating these installations has reached the students on campus, in particular your students and those in other programs?
Much of my installation work involves a kind of guerilla activity in which traditional spaces of exhibition are bypassed and, instead, my pieces are found in unexpected and surprising locations. Students are then confronted by or even obliged to see the work (whether they want to or not) as they, for instance, climb the stairs and look out its windows. I’m an English and not an art professor, so I feel less beholden to or confined by more conventional exhibition expectations.
Do you ever incorporate your experience in the arts, and your installation projects, as teaching tools in the classroom?
I do occasionally bring up my installation activity with students, but only to illustrate an issue or idea being dealt with in the classroom. However, for all my UNF installations, many students over the years have helped with the projects, often in meaningful ways—out in the kayak, scaling tall ladders, and taping large letters onto windows. Any learning involved (and I believe there is a lot) arises from an awareness of language-as-material, its malleability and vulnerability, and the often long and arduous processes involved in my installations.
Through your exploration of literature, poetry, and the visual arts, which element led you to the other? Or have they coexisted with one another?
I suppose it’s hard to disentangle the various forces you list or, like the chicken and the egg, to determine which came first. I’ve always been a big reader, yet the visual arts interested me greatly from a young age. I have an undergraduate degree in art history from the University of Kansas; it was only later—after years of living in New York, Europe, and Japan—that I returned to graduate school to pursue an interdisciplinary MA and Ph.D. in the Modern Studies program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studying there with Herbert Blau.
Where do you look for most of your inspiration? Is there a period in your life that you tend to look back on or are you always looking for new references?
Any inspiration that I gain comes from multiple sources that again reflect my interdisciplinary interests and background. So, indeed, my various readings, the materials that I teach in the classroom at UNF (a lot of modern and contemporary poetry and fiction), art that I see during my travels, as well as a site-specific awareness of the landscape in which I might be working, all of these elements combine to create ideas and inspirations for my various projects.
I see that you have a special interest in avant-garde art; how do you relay that message in your work?
My interest in the avant-garde, an area of study that I often teach at UNF, is based upon a desire to imagine new and unexpected ways of making art, placing art, and thinking about art.
Your installations have a subtle yet bold presence. How do you decide on the placement of your words?
The placement of words for my various installations is largely determined by whatever site I am working within. At UNF, especially for the various “writing on water/writing on air” installations that I began in 2007, the university library (with its dramatic stairway overlooking the pond) determined how the language was to be placed and seen; with my installation in Paris, at the Galerie Colbert (2012), it also had to do with the site-specific dimensions of the project—the many interior windows that make up that powerful and historic arcade space.
What is the significance of your poetry mixed with nature, and is there a message you are trying to send the viewer?
I’m interested in integrating my poetry into and upon a particular situation or setting. However, my work is, by design, nearly always fragile and fleeting, making a mark upon the landscape that eventually fades away, leaving no trace of itself but the memories of the event. A message, if there is one, certainly involves these kinds of memories, an awareness of time and place, and an embrace of the ephemeral.
Your 2013 sculpture for the UNF library, Suspended Sentence, is different than your other installations. Can you tell me a little about your design process? How is this one similar, and how is it different?
Yes, Suspended Sentence is very different from my other installation work precisely because of its relative permanence as compared to my short-term installations on water and windows. This piece will be attached to the library wall for many years to come, offering a more enduring presence than I am accustomed to engaging.
As it was designed for the UNF library, commissioned by Dean Shirley Hallblade, I very much wanted to use books as a key part of the project, especially at this historical moment when libraries and books are in such a tenuous and uncertain stage. The 103 books in this installation each had two-inch holes drilled into their centers; they were later inserted onto a ten-foot galvanized steel pipe, which was then attached to the library’s brick wall; finally, all the books were painted with many coats of thick and luminous shellac. Like a long-forgotten mosquito trapped in ancient amber, the many books of my piece are now sealed together, extending from the brick wall, and suspended in time indefinitely.
I sometimes half-jokingly/half-mournfully imagine that, with time, my project’s books will one day be the only ones remaining in a library that is, like it or not, transitioning toward a kind of post-book site of digital media. Visitors may someday point toward my installation with a degree of reverence and wonder for the book’s forgotten form and stature.
I do see your recurring use of books among natural surroundings and the bold subtlety in their placement and design. Are these key elements for you?
I like your formulation of “bold subtlety,” and it describes something of what I seek—a simplicity of form that nonetheless resonates with a larger scale of awareness. The “writing on water” installations at UNF (and elsewhere) are an example—the pieces, as poems, are composed of only a few words, and yet each letter is anywhere from 6-8 feet in size. As such, there is no mistaking, or even missing, their presence floating out on the water or attached to the windows in the library’s stairwell.
How would you say that creating these installations has reached the students on campus, in particular your students and those in other programs?
Much of my installation work involves a kind of guerilla activity in which traditional spaces of exhibition are bypassed and, instead, my pieces are found in unexpected and surprising locations. Students are then confronted by or even obliged to see the work (whether they want to or not) as they, for instance, climb the stairs and look out its windows. I’m an English and not an art professor, so I feel less beholden to or confined by more conventional exhibition expectations.
Do you ever incorporate your experience in the arts, and your installation projects, as teaching tools in the classroom?
I do occasionally bring up my installation activity with students, but only to illustrate an issue or idea being dealt with in the classroom. However, for all my UNF installations, many students over the years have helped with the projects, often in meaningful ways—out in the kayak, scaling tall ladders, and taping large letters onto windows. Any learning involved (and I believe there is a lot) arises from an awareness of language-as-material, its malleability and vulnerability, and the often long and arduous processes involved in my installations.
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