Blind Raven tells tales

In early 2020, I was invited to show some work in Push/Pull Gallery’s  Black&White&Red group show.  There were only two requirements for the pieces in the show: they could only use the limited palate of black, white, and the color Red; the pieces also had to incorporating text or wording.  This description pretty much describes about 70% of my work, so it was right up my ally. While I had a number of pieces I could have shown, I really want to produce a new group of pieces that fit my overall aesthetic but push the boundaries in some way.

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I had been wanting to incorporate some form of touch or tactical element into my work for a while.  I had been playing around with embossing images of crow/ravens with some drawn images without much success.  A colleague suggest that I should buy something pre-made with an embossed image to play around with. With this show in mind, I thought about doing an image on a page of Braille text.  This would provide not only a tactile element but also a language element. I quickly obtained an oversize copy of the work of Edgar Allan Poe that included the Raven.  I Removed the pages for that specific poem and drew the image of the Raven in Sumi ink and white gel pens. I embellished the image with red watercolor.

The piece was displayed in a way to be interactive; with the frame open so folks could touch or run their fingers over the braille. 
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I am planning to expand on this series in 2024/25