Fun Friday Resources

Let’s look at some interesting bits of the past from which we can STEAL FROM THE BEST.

From our friends over at Public Domain Review, a collection of “pattern poems” by a 9th-century monk, Rabanus Maurus. I can easily envision these as large-scale canvases, can’t you? What kind of poetry/pattern could you invent in your new career as a post-modern painter?

In the second paragraph of the essay, there are links to other such pattern poems throughout history. STEAL FROM THE BEST, indeed.

Over at the Europeana site, there’s a collection of alphabets, though not as many as I would have thought. You can find a wider range of modern alphabets via Google. (Do not fail to notice at the top of this search page the clickable filters for refining your choices.) Again, STEAL these and make them the construction elements of your new work.

I stumbled across this exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago of an artist of whom I had not heard, Lee Bontecou. Her prints are epic and a little disturbing, but look at the strength, the power of those shapes! Surely there’s something you could steal from that!