https://mailartdossier.blogspot.com/2013/06/mail-art-dossier.html
mail collaboration with Jeff Crouch 2013, series of 8.
https://mailartdossier.blogspot.com/2013/06/mail-art-dossier.html
mail collaboration with Jeff Crouch 2013, series of 8.
https://slowforward.net/2024/12/08/seis-saudade-cecelia-chapman-jeff-crouch/
Asemic mail collaboration, Saudade, six from the 16 postcard series with Jeff Crouch
A surreal fairytale and fable series based on Galician and Western European folktales transmitted orally through millennium. The original, disturbing folktales were re-written as dream-like fairytales with happy endings in the 17th century. Themes of truth prevailing, generosity rewarded, obstacles overcome, and love and kindness winning over evil appealed to later audiences. Despite this, the dark and violent, neolithic folklore of survival continues to influence culture to today. I decided to write my own tales. Project in process in film, postcard, book.
Film here:
Red Hood https://vimeo.com/1021234822
Moon Is A Dagger https://vimeo.com/980599103
https://ceceliachapman.com/line-painting
Outlaw Seals, glyphs and talismans 2023. Series of 10. 8.5 x 11.5 inches, 21.6 x 29.7 cm. Watercolor, collage, gouache, personal stamps, ink, graphite. Asemic writing is an experiment breaking laws of grammar, spelling, punctuation, paragraph, sentence structure.
OUTLAW SEALS
An outlaw who practiced ritual writing was resting under a tree by the springs and eating her lunch when demons gathered to party. She watched the demons do their demonic, perverted things and throw garbage in the waters. Their wicked energy was disturbing everyone. So she walked over with a burning stick, and writing in smoke in the air, stunned the demons. The outlaw gathered them all and put them in a jar sealed with her seals where they were helpless until the jar was opened.
After thousands of years the place of the jar was known as The Hall of the Jar. It was a place of star watching and a pure springs with a code of conduct:
1. Value all life
2. Pollution of streams and rivers is prohibited
3. Do not contend
A Guardian of the Hall welcomed a guest from a foreign land who asked about the jar. The visitor laughed when he heard the jar was full of demons. In the dark of the moon the guest sneaked into the Hall and opened the jar. The demons flew out. They laughed at the visitor and threw him into the sea. But the sea felt polluted by him and waves threw him out.
The escaped demons had watched the outlaw’s good deeds and remembered them for thousands of years. They decided to follow her example and do good. After a while the locals got used to the ragged demons in their country wandering around trying to help people, doing good, and studying how to write. The people made the demons heroes of a thousand skills and disguises. That is another story.