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Traversing Erie: East Toward Buffalo, West Toward Cleveland Artist: Christopher Pekoc Media: electrostatic prints, shellac and gold leaf on polyester film, brass rivets and machine stitching. Size: 84" H x 109" W An explanation of the artwork follows: In 1999, a group of artists who live along the shores of Lake Erie were invited to create works of art specifically about the lake for an exhibition that was scheduled to open in May of 2000 at SPACES, an alternative gallery located in Cleveland. The title of the show was "Great Lake Erie: Imagining an Inland Sea" and William Busta, a former Cleveland gallery owner who now acts as an independent curator, asked me to participate. He was organizing the show in collaboration with curators from alternative spaces in Buffalo (Hallwalls) and Detroit (the Detroit Artists Market). This statement explains the artwork that I created for that exhibit. It is the largest work I have produced since the mural I executed for Brett Hall located in the Main Branch of the Cleveland Public Library (see photograph #11). It required more than 400 hours of labor to complete and is constructed of 100 sheets of 8 ½" x 11" polyester film, fastened together with brass rivets. Polyester film is a tough, flexible, transparent material that does not break down over time. Each sheet of film bears an electrostatically printed image (see photograph #4), made with a photocopy machine, of either the surface of Lake Erie, a page from a Lake freighter's logbook or a combination of the two, sewn together. A logbook is an important nautical document that records the daily progress of a ships voyage. Only the Captain of the vessel is authorized to make entries in it. The logbook pages that I used belong to the Steamship Wm. G. Mather that is now a museum, permanently docked in Cleveland's Harbor. The director of the Mather Museum, Holly Holcombe was most helpful by approving my request to reproduce the logbook pages in my artwork. The Mather's logbooks are now part of the Cleveland State University Library's Special Collections Department, directed by William Barrow. Mr. Barrow lent significant support to my efforts by providing access to the books as well as by suggesting a method of reproducing the pages in a way that would not jeopardize the strength of the books' binding. As I began this creative effort, three things were clear in my mind. I knew that in order to convey the scale of the lake to a viewer, I would need to create a large work of art. I also wanted to link my artwork to the shipping industry that was such an integral part of the lake's history. Finally, I wanted to use the shape of the lake as my central image, but present that familiar configuration (especially to those of us who grew up living on the lake) in a fresh and unusual way. Using a nautical chart of the lake as a guide, I produced a carefully drawn outline of the body of water and the rivers that flow into it. Once the outline was complete, I divided it into two equal parts, producing an eastern and a western half. I stood the halves upright, with their bases resting on the bottom edge of the artwork. I found that when they were positioned that way, they resembled misshapen, human like forms with strange heads (caused by the rivers that flow into the lake at either end). An imaginative viewer will see two towering "Lake figures". These figures could be interpreted as the personification of the "spirits " of the eastern and western parts of the lake. The log book pages "flesh out " the bodies of the "Lake figures" and help to emphasize the size of this inland sea, by drawing attention to travel time and distance. The shoreline is defined by the stitching that occurs where the water and the log pages meet (see photograph #9). In my composition, the "Lake figures " are surrounded by water. This image of water was generated from a black and white photograph I took of the lake. Enlargements were made from my photograph using a special photocopy machine that increases an 8½" x 11'" picture to 18" x 24". After increasing the size of my photograph to seven feet by nine feet, the overall dimensions of the artwork, the enlargements were taped together to form one piece and then cut into one hundred 8½" x 11" units. The individual units were used as the masters with which to print the water onto the polyester film. Each water sheet was printed twice, first in black and then with an overlay of blue. This produced a deep blue-black color that I liked and caused an interesting "slightly out of register " printing effect. Once an image was printed onto the polyester film it was fused in between two additional layers of film that served to protect it. The resulting three-ply "sandwich" was then sanded, using the wet sanding process, (see photograph #5), distressed and treated with heat (see photograph #6) so that it's surface was rippled, suggesting water in motion. Then gold leaf (see photograph #7) was applied to the back of each sheet to create a rich, light reflective surface. The individual sheets were coated with two to three layers of shellac (see photograph #8 of freshly coated sheets drying on a drying rack) to add more richness and rubbed with steel wool to give them a subtle sheen. Then the lake outline was created by sewing (see photograph #9) part of a sheet bearing a water image to a portion of a sheet bearing a reproduction of a log page. Finally, all one hundred of the pieces were joined together at the corners with brass rivets to become a single unit. The grid created by the edges of the sheets, punctuated by the rivets is reminiscent of the steel plates and rivets that are used to construct a ships hull. This display of "Traversing Erie…" provides a view of my artistic efforts at the present time. By comparing this work with the mural I painted for the Cleveland Public Library (see photograph #11), I make reference to a creative accomplishment that occurred in the past. To complete the picture I have included the future by introducing 21st, (as in the 21st century) The Journal of Contemporary Photography (see photograph #10, showing clockwise, from the left: Hardbound Deluxe Edition, Photogravure illustration from Deluxe Edition, Boxed portfolio of 15 individually signed, unbound, hand pulled photogravures from the Museum Edition, Trade Edition). 21st is an exotic publication that is without with out parallel. It combines critical writing by internationally acclaimed writers and poets along with the highest quality reproductions of work by respected contemporary photographers. Next year's Volume V, available in October of 2001, will pursue the theme of "Strange Genius" and feature a series of color reproductions of my work as well as a two thousand word essay about the work, written by Justin Caldwell of Sotheby's in New York. As a testament to the high level of quality to be found in 21st, I have included the following partial list of major institutions, museums and libraries that have been purchasing the signed and numbered Deluxe and Museum Editions as well as the elegant Trade Editions: the Art Galleries of Ontario, Bibliotheque d' Art et d' Archeologie, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, Harvard's Fogg Museum, Fratelli Alinari Archive in Florence, Italy, the George Eastman House, the Getty Research Library, the International Center of Photography, the Library of Congress, Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Photographic Art, the National Gallery Library, the New York Public Library, the Royal Photographic Society, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries, the St. Louis Art Museum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Yale University Library. I am pleased that my work will be represented in this fine publication. Traversing Erie… is dedicated to my Mother and to the memory of my Father, who died shortly before I finished it. I am grateful to both of my parents for raising me in an environment that allowed creativity to flourish. Christopher Pekoc / Sept. 2000
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