In our modern age of social media, smartphones, and tablets, the mere thought of picking up a pen and physically writing a note or letter is ghastly. But for Oakland, California-based artist Annie Vought, the written word is revered, revitalized and reborn in her Paper Cuts collection.
Armed with an X-Acto knife and patience few of us will ever achieve, Vought first enlarges her correspondence and then begins the painstaking process of carving out the negative space around each letter, until only the original marks remain, whether these be words, drawings, scribbles, or ink stains. The result is a beautiful skin of words and thoughts that calls attention not to the medium on which the note was etched but rather the depth of the message itself, thereby providing a thumbprint as unique as the note’s creator.
[quote] Handwritten records are fragments of individual histories … [T]he author is often revealed in spite of him- or herself. A letter is physical confirmation of who we were at the moment it was written, or all we have left of a person or a time.” [/quote]
