rub-BEing from Jan Hodgman (Anacortes, Washington, USA)

[De Villo Sloan]

Mail-art by Jan Hodgman (Anacortes, Washington, USA) 

August 8, 2014 - Jan Hodgman is a member of the Asemic Writing for Mail-Artists group at IUOMA-Ning. Having this example of her work, I can better understand her interest in asemics. Even if this work is not intentionally asemic, it has asemic characteristics. Elements of writing and drawing are integrated; and, despite all the linguistic theorizing, many excellent asemic writers began with doodling. I greatly admire the organic quality of this work and the formation of the symbols (a binary principle it would seem) into a system. As can happen with visual poetry in general, I am not sure if a vertical or horizontal view works best, so here is another perspective:

The white space – absence – is a powerful aspect of this work, I think, at least the symbolic implication of absence. What I also find very interesting about this piece is that Jan Hodgman makes the grain, the contours of the paper, a part of the work through rubbing. This emphasizes the materiality of art and text. Visual poet David Baptiste-Chirot has created tremendous visual poetry and asemic writing through chalk rubbings, which he has named “rub-BEings.” I see Jan Hodgman’s work as a rub-BEing as well.

Many thanks to Jan Hodgman for sending me this very thoughtful and interesting mail-art!