The Handwritten

At this point I'm sure it's abundantly clear that a portion of my artistic practice discusses/employs handwritten texts, both found and personally created. They've been at the forefront of my recent work, and bubbling beneath the surface long before that.

Maybe they came into the picture early, when I thought comics were my calling. Maybe a bit later when I first picked up a can of spray paint and discovered public walls. Maybe once I found Kosuth, Weiner, Nauman and witnessed the power efficient text can have within the world of visual art. I'm still working on understanding exactly how they became so central, but looking back through the portfolios that are rarely seen, it's clear that they are; that the private/public dichotomy inherent in the handwritten text brands much of what I make.

Currently, I'm fascinated by the rich resource for the handwritten that the internet has become. Google searches for the obvious keywords return tens of thousands of results. Tags on Flickr return much the same. There are dozens of specialized, curated sites as well, cared for by people with obsessive taxonomies and extensive networks of contributors.

Two such sites, ones I've returned to for a while now, are The Grocery List Collection and Pictures of Walls. Both are titled quite accurately, both are bringing the untyped word to the web.

The Grocery List Collection:



Pictures of Walls:



Image 1: Grocery Lists #118
Image 2: Grocery Lists #129
Image 3: Pictures of Walls #11
Image 4: Pictures of Walls #13