Book 22    Bones of Contention I. Penn, C.  (2008) (Fig.  20). Bones of Contention I. Severely altered book.  Remade  book with collage elements, bones, aluminium mesh, string, bone stand. 39cm x 32 cm by 29cm. Book 22. Collection:  Cheryl Penn.

This work falls into the category of a severely altered book.  The title of the book was  based on an experience one day, when standing in the queue to pay,  the cashier and packer had an extended conversation which had nothing to do with the job at hand.    This ‘bone of contention’ brought to mind all the individual and collective  contentious issues in the  world. Bones of Contention, the original book referred to bones which were alleged to be half bird and half reptile,   hailed by Darwinian supporters as  the missing link that proved a species could change.

I started to paint out all text  not relevant to issues of contention, leaving  behind words and phrases such as ‘Victorian values and society’, ‘the Industrial Revolution’,  ‘the success of colonization’, ‘Hitler’, ‘Second World War’, ‘Politicians’; in fact anything that could be construed as contentious.  I asked people to write lists of their personal contentious issues.  I sourced issues in newspapers, magazines and academic articles until  I had an overstuffed, unwieldy, ugly book.

It was looking so fractious that I took six months of collecting and careful painting, pulped it and remade the book.  When remaking the pages, I inserted aluminum netting, onto which I had decided to sew bones.  This step came after doing research on bones of divination which often have contentious results.  Onto the bones I painted or drew symbols which were ‘uneasy’ symbols;  death, unhappiness, loss, betrayal – those REAL bones of contention for which mankind has always had a symbolic language.