Transgressing The Page / Bhubesi Women (II) - from Cheryl Penn

[Marie Wintzer]

 

Transgress
1. To go beyond or over (a limit or boundary); exceed or overstep
2. To act in violation of (the law, for example)

As far as the page is concerned, I think that Cheryl is transgressing it with every piece of art she is sending out. Guilty as charged. Her books never look like any other books that ever existed, and this one, well, I think most of you know the story...

 

 

Probably hundreds of hours of work to obtain a beauty of a circular book, with amazing backbone binding. And then, one fine day, an idea, and nothing we could say would change her mind. It HAD to be chopped up to be sent out as mail art.

 

 

For this book Cheryl has collected pages from an extremely mixed bag. Law reports, music sheets, medical journals, art books, newspapers, magazines. Torn and re-assembled. I can't see the fine details of the circular book on the photo, but judging from the piece I am holding in my hands those pages have been transgressed considerably. Re-layered, re-painted, re-written. Yet when you look at the "finished product", there is a striking unity and repetition to it. Is a page = a page = a page = a page?....

 

 

I can't think of anyone else who has de-constructed and re-constructed and de-constructed again as much a Cheryl does in her work. Lucky us, we are on the receiving end of the cycle. Do you remember the "Bone of Contention" book? It followed the same pattern. One of the greatest artist books ever made. Axed for mail art. I think that there is a fundamental part of the process, of the artist's idea in his mind, born even before starting a piece, that we cannot understand as observers that we are. The artist's secret place where WE will never enter. This is how I feel very often when I look at one of Cheryl's pieces. Admiration, the impression of possessing and understanding a part of it, but that the rest of the iceberg will stay forever under water.

 

 

Transgressing the Page was escorted in its travel by four fabulous women. I don't know if you are familiar with the Bhubesi Women, the Women who hold up the World. They live in a book called The Chronicles of Lyrehc. Well, that's not entirely true. On certain days you will find that they walk right beside us.
This is another one of Cheryl's series of which I will never get tired. The painting is fantastic (those eyes will get right through you), and the poetry... well, I will let you appreciate the beauty of it, here are two of them:

The Galactic Flaneur
She can hear the Far Off
voice
That says
Come Home
But Still she w(o)anders
Making Bridges to Where
She does not belong and
Swimming in any inviting
Sea. She's what you may call
Free-Bound.
Paradox Situational.

 

The Singer to Sleep
Two turns after the sun
has set there is a cry
over the sea
a voice on the wind.
Disembodied?
No.
She alone KNOWS
in the right dark night
light is best seen.
When dream travels take
you far from here
hers is the song
that calls your
wandering home.


OK, I can't really stop here and keep the other two for myself :-)) for you:

The Distant Drummer
Breathing beats
Softest Sound
But a gentle throb
Wind on Water
Heating out bound
My beat is yours
Tread in Two Worlds-
Hers an Mine
Share her smile
Hear her Heart.
Beat.

 

 

The Ulu
Carving another beginning
Cutting off the Redundant
clean cuts
for far seeing
No more
obscurity
Just veiled clarity
As all Clarity is.
Active Third Eye
Calling Three Weeps
Which hover around her
In restless Sleep
She is BECOMING

 

 

I think I might have met all of them...

[cheryl penn]

You're making me GIGGLE you two :-)))XX - ya, Boekie-titus has NOTHING on choppymatitus :-)) X

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Boekie-itis was a bad enough bug, once it set it, it didn't leave, but it spread and spread, and spread..... Now I have to consider choppymatitus? Is there an anitbichoppy for this? Hmmm, looking around studio...spotting many candidates for chopppy-chop!

[Lesley Magwood Fraser]

Now I can hear chopping noises coming through the ether.....

[cheryl penn]

O yes - MomKat - they're moving to carry Greece tomorrow :-)  LMF - I know - I am the LUCKY recipient of some of your re-workings - NOT ENOUGH!!  Although, I'm not whining - I do have ALOT - BUT NOT ENOUGH!  :-))).  Be careful of choppymatitus - its catchy!! :-)

[Marie Wintzer]

Thank you Katerina! I think we commented at the same time so I missed it.

I'm now looking for things to chop up :-)

[cheryl penn]

What happens when I run out of books? I'm nervous - AND I'm not kidding :-(.  By the way The Ulu is a real thing - an all purpose woman's knife - I think its Inuit?  :-) X

[Lesley Magwood Fraser]

I can hear popping sounds coming up the hill to Kloof! You are right Cheryl, things sit for too long - ie my piles of drawings which I get sick of looking at, so I chop them up and hey presto! Instant mail art and books (I do rework them though) If something is too precious I photocopy them and collage them with layers of other stuff. One work runs into another too.... and a whole new theme/concept is born. Ibhubesi is ROARING!!!

[Marie Wintzer]

I knew she would pop, I have a very accurate popping sensor :-)))

Thank you Cheryl, I'm glad you like the blog. This art re-birth process can sometimes be such a mysterious thing, seen from "outside". A certain compulsion, surely. I think I'm understanding a bit more with every piece. Maybe.

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Marie, you have so captured Cheryl's amazing art work: constructing-deconstructing-constructing...and through your words and photos, we can "transgress" Cheryl's pages, Cheryl's mind. (Which is indeed a beautiful "iceberg"...3/4 hidden, but FAB for sure!) 

And look at those Bhubesi women! More to come? 

(Ahem, Cheryl...you have also MY address in Greece ;-)

Great blog...thanks for sharing, Marie!

[cheryl penn]

o yes - I wanted to say - Bhubesi - I know the Zulu word for lion is ingonyama (sounds delicious!) and later learnt that ibhubesi was another one - as is imbube I think.  So lion sure was at the heart of these women, no matter how I look at it :-) - Ingonyama - she is in the making :-) X