| Title | Secrets of the Line to Tell |
| Artist / Creator | Suzanne Moore |
| Place of Publication | Vashon, WA |
| Publication Date | 2012 |
| Author of Text | Emily Dickinson |
| Medium / Materials | Gouache, ink and gold leaf (hand-tooling). |
| Paper Stock | Monoprint on Rives BFK |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 9.75 x 25.75 inches |
| Edition Size | Unique |
Secrets of the Line to Tell by Suzanne Moore
The work of Emily Dickinson has woven its way into book works and 2D works for the past two years. The complexity and richness of her poetry includes much darker, more candid and personal thoughts than we might expect from a "proper 19th Century lady of Amherst." In researching and presenting Dickinson’s poems, I have been struck by the immediacy of her ideas, including questions of "the edge," the place between existence and what is "beyond". In this powerful poem she describes herself as "One returned, [from "the onset with Eternity"] I feel / Odd secrets of the line to tell! . . .", and offers us a glimpse of "Next time. . . the things to see, . . ." She opens the door to expansive ideas and concepts, in the tradition of her transcendentalist circle. This piece is part of a series of prints I have made as experiments for a book based on the Holst symphonic suite titled The Planets.
Artist Bio
Suzanne Moore is a lettering artist, painter, and printmaker whose eclectic interests fuse in the diversity of her artists' books. She melds word and painted image with form, content and structure into spaces which invite the reader to engage, examine and inquire. Her books blend distinctive design, color use and surface treatments with textual content and contemporary lettering to create work that obscures the line between word and image, legibility and abstraction. Suzanne's work is exhibited widely, and her books have been acquired for private and public collections in the U.S. and Europe. Among them are the Pierpont Morgan Library, The James S. Copley Library (La Jolla), and the rare book collections of Smith College, Wellesley College, Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Washington, and the Library of Congress. She lectures and teaches in the US and abroad on contemporary manuscript book design, conceptual thinking in book design, and on the painting and collage techniques. She was one of three Americans on the team creating contemporary interpretive illuminations for the St. John's Bible, the Wales-based project lead by Donald Jackson. Commissioned by the Abbey at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minnesota, this is the first hand written and illuminated Bible created in 500 years. The seven volume work is lettered and painted on vellum, a true 21st century illumated Bible.