Belfast, ME: Jan Owen Art, 2023. Softcover. A splendid unique book by the celebrated calligrapher, Jan Owen. On her website she states: "I was born in New York City, grew up in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York and loved to draw and read as a child. Now I live in Belfast on the coast of Maine with long winters to write and beautiful summers. I walk to the beach to watch the sun rise and the tide come in. My day begins with brushstrokes to music, on to lettering and then to the words. My first books were long, hanging accordion fold books, large pieces that could be seen all at once and then folded away. I played string bass with a symphony orchestra for many years and the music always kept moving forward. I wanted my art to be still and include brush strokes and layers of words all visible at once. Amanda Degener of Cave Paper gave me a large, already bound book of her walnut paper which forced me to think about progression and it became Requiem. Now I like planning the pacing and arrangement of pages, words and images."
She writes about this marvelous book: "To be complete, a symphony requires three things: the composer, an orchestra and an audience. I worked to bring those together in LUX PERPETUA: Mozart, the libretto and passages from the score and responses to the music. I was not fond of Mozart until the orchestra I played with performed his Jupiter Symphony where Mozart soared beyond the conventions of his time. I began to listen to Mozart's Requiem and have made several artist books writing the libretto. Mozart died before it was complete and from his deathbed asked a student to finish several movements. He hummed the themes and gave directions but those sections do not have his passion and brilliance. LUX PERPETUA includes words by Mozart, poets, musicians and myself Rereading a book or listening again to a piece of music, we bring our new selves to it in how we understand death, new joy, fear, anger."
With this complex work, Jan pays homage to Mozart and his music, and much more. The texts from the requiem mass are interspersed with quotes about music, death, and religion by such figures as the composer and pianist Ferrucio Busoni, conductor and poet JoAnn Falletta, Beethoven, Robert Louis Steveson, and of course Mozart himself. Busoni wrote of Mozart: "Mozart has light and shade at his disposal, but his light does not blind and his darkness still shows a definite outline....He is young as a youth and wise as an old man - never ancient and never modern, has been carried to the grave, yet lives still." And in a 1787 letter to his father, Mozart writes "As death strictly speaking is the true goal of our lives, I have this past year been making myself familiar with this truest friend of man that his aspect has ceased to appall me, I find it comforting."
Jan's work, with its handwritten texts and the accompanying designs is extraordinary in concept and execution. The book is entirely hand lettered in ink and acrylic on McGregor handmade paper painted gold. Woven Tyvek and colored Hollytex polyester have been incorporated. The book is Coptic bound with linen thread, each signature wrapped with polyester. With cream paper covered binders board covers. The book is housed in a light gray cloth covered drop spine box. The book is accompanied by a typed copy of the text in a sewn booklet with a paper cover. In fine condition. Measures 10.75 x 13 x 1 inches. Unpaginated [24 pages] ARTB/031924. Fine. More