First artist''s book by Jenny Holzer consisting of line drawings of found and appropriated diagrams.
What did you write?
This is a bit embarrassing, but one dark to light green material made me think of the depths of the ocean, so I wrote oceanographic information. That was lame, and it sent me to the Brown Library to find more subject matter: a return to the library. Next I did a blue fabric piece with text about time and space, and I began to draw the diagrams.
Maybe this started with seeing the old boyfriend''s physics diagrams. I thought they were great. I loved drawings of time. I also saw that trying to represent time was kind of absurd, kind of grand.
You re-drew the diagrams you found in the library?
Very carefully, and painfully, on paper. Hundreds of drawings. I would only try once. I had to draw perfectly on the first time, and if I couldn''t, I''d stop and start a new one. It was a horrible test. I tried to draw the diagrams free-hand just as they are in the books. Ridiculous. Straight lines. Hatch marks.
Extract from Joan Simon''s interview, "Jenny Holzer Describes the First Artworks She Made as a Young Artist—And They''re Not How You''d Imagine" in Jenny Holzer. (New York: Phaidon, 1988).