As Part of ROLU‘s two week Open Field residency they produced/distributed this reader to add to the larger “collage” they (and the public) are working on. Alex DeArmond, the designer describes it as “a companion to the residency project – writings that either inspire or react to what they’re doing. Plus interviews with them where they talk about their work. Plus some quotes. And some images of the works they are addressing. That’s all. Nothin fancy.” To fit as much information as possible, the main reader was offset printed on cheap newsprint while the supplement was printed on my Risograph stencil printer I keep in my bedroom over one scorching evening. I am really surpised how well the interplay of the colors between the two are working.
The bulk of the reader contains a series of interviews both of the artists and of people they admire. Matt Olson of ROLU has this to say about interviews:
“first of all, i love interviews. they are, for me, the best way to learn. i don’t like writing that is refined, academic or focused in the way that writing usually tends to become. it’s too clear and specific which, for me is just not possible… everything is blurry and changing all the time in my world. the vernacular people use when they talk seems more painterly and there’s room for mistakes and misinterpretations and thus growth. every time i explain to someone what we’re doing it’s always different but, it’s always true too. i think throwing fragments together in a way that feels right at a given moment is, in a sense, more accurately reflective of our state of mind and work than a really linear or clear writing about it could be… the fact that who we associate with often says as much about who we are as we ever could… so we trust that whoever we’re interested in will be a part of the story in an accurate way. i am a huge collector of quotes. i feel like that is what i am made of. fragments of other people that i have incorporated in to my own version of reality. eventually i think of them as my own ideas but, they really aren’t. the quotes from other people being the same for them… fragments of other people’s ideas that they have absorbed. it seems like we are becoming each other and this approach feels like a way of expressing that… make sense?”
Stop by Walker Open Field to make, learn, help ROLU, and be sure to snag a copy of the reader. It is beautiful, insightful and free!