Who would think of creating art from the obituary pages of a newspaper?
Dianna Frid that’s who.
The obituary artworks she’s created are currently on display at the Winnipeg Art Gallery as part of an exhibit called Headlines- The Art of the News Cycle.
Dianna reads obituaries, hundreds of them, in the New York Times. She cuts out interesting ones and pastes them into a scrapbook. She circles phrases or combinations of words in the obituary that are thought-provoking or intriguing.
Then she chooses one of the phrases she’s circled
cuts out colourful letters to create its words
partitions the words in interesting ways
and displays them in four black squares.
The phrase the shape of a spoon comes from the obituary of Adrian Frutiger who designed type or fonts. His fonts are used on signs in public places around the world. Many fonts you use when you are creating a document on the computer were designed by Adrian Frutiger or inspired by his work.
Adrain Frutiger once said in an interview “If you remember the shape of a spoon you used to eat your soup then the spoon had a poor shape.”
He went on to explain that when you are reading something if you remember the design of the font in which it is written it is a poor font. The font should help you read and understand the message of the written words without you actually taking notice of the font …… just as the shape of the spoon should help you eat something and enjoy it without you noticing the spoon’s shape.
Inspired by that phrase Dianna created her artwork.
“Look at me when I talk to you” the words of this art piece come from the obituary of a man named Clifford Nass who did research into how technology impacts personal interaction. He discovered that people were often far too busy multi-tasking on their various screens to actually spend time in meaningful exchanges with one another.
In a talk at Stanford University Nass encouraged people to make face-to-face time with others a priority and suggested we need to bring back an old admonishment he rarely hears now, “Look at me when I talk to you.”
This piece was inspired by the obituary of a musician named Lucia Pamela who liked to tell audiences her album Into Outer Space with Lucia Pamela was the result of her building a rocket, touring the Milky Way and stopping on the moon to record her music. She was the ‘only one from earth’ in a place called Moon Town where the recording was done.
You can see many more of Dianna’s interesting obituary art pieces on display at the WAG right now.
Since seeing Dianna’s art I have been looking at the obituaries in the Winnipeg Free Press with a new eye trying to spot unique phrases.
Here’s a couple I’ve found recently.
“nothing left to lose”- This came from the obituary of Stephanie Bednarczyk who left Poland after World War II and came to Canada with as she often put it “nothing left to lose.”
“two peas in a pod”– This came from the obituary of James Birch an airline pilot from England who came to Canada in 1953. His obituary said that he and his wife Jean were made for each other like “two peas in a pod.”
I’ve always enjoyed reading obituaries, in fact, I often use them to find names for the characters in my fiction writing, but Dianna’s art has inspired me to look at them in new ways.
Other posts……..
What Next? 