Black Rock Press: Jaime Lynn Shafer
Attending the guest lecture held by
the Black Rock Press was a great way to learn about other forms of art. I have
never created book art, as I am a digital media minor; however, Jaime Lynn
Shafer sparked an interest for me in this form of art. Listening to Ms. Shafer’s
explanation of her work, I could tell how passionate she is about her work and
the meaning behind them. Many of her pieces focus around social issues, while
others focus on highlighting local geography. Her projects are very time
consuming, which shows her dedication to creating lovely pieces of art.
One of the most prolific pieces of
Ms. Shafer’s is titled 17927. The
title stands for the revoked zip code of Centralia, Pennsylvania. The town was
once a coal mining hometown, with around 1,000 residents. However, the town is
now deserted due to a fire that started in 1962 in Centralia’s town dump. The
dump resided over an old coal pit, which caught fire and has been burning every
since. The fire did not gain national attention until the 1980’s when a little
boy fell into a sinkhole caused by the fire. In order to shed light on this
occurrence, Ms. Shafer created a book that contains a map of Centralia prior to
the fire and a map of Centralia now. The town is basically deserted in the
present day. The book also includes a three dimensional sinkhole with the image
of fire at the bottom, surrounded by statements regarding the event. The
attention to detail in this piece is stunning, as the visual representation of
this event explains everything that happened in Centralia.
Another one of Jaime Lynn Shafer’s
pieces is titled Code Red. The title
of this piece reflects the code that is spoken out in public schools in a
crisis situation. Recently, there have been many public school shootings
occurring, which is something that Ms. Shafer takes to heart. Her wife works in
the Washoe County School District and ran into one of these crises recently.
The school that Ms. Shafer’s wife worked at in Sparks, Nevada had a gun threat
recently in which Ms. Shafer could not contact her wife. She waited with much
anticipation to hear back from the one she loves most, which left her sickened
by how often situations like this occur. Thankfully, the situation here in Nevada
never resulted in anything bad happening, but the anxiety factor still
resonates with Ms. Shafer. Therefore, she created this piece of book art in
order to highlight the terror of school shooting situations and other crises. The
book includes an image of the single text that Ms. Shafer received from her
wife, saying “Don’t panic, but we are in lockdown. Active shooter…” Also, the
book folds out to display a brick wall, a red man holding up a gun, and a
series of words that are places where children have found guns in their homes.
Hearing Ms. Shafer speak about this piece really made me feel sickened as she
poured out her emotions when explaining the idea behind this piece and it made
me think about how prevalent these school shootings have become.
Overall, I am extremely happy that I
attended this lecture by Jaime Lynn Shafer. The dedication she has to her work
is extraordinary and you can see this through her books. With each piece, she
triggers emotions in those who look through her books since they all focus on
real life issues and situations. After attending this lecture, I am interested
in this form of art and hopefully seeing more artists’ works like Ms. Shafers.
No comments:
Post a Comment