Notes from the Studio
The Golden Hair of Medusa
I thought would might be interested in learning more about an edition in progress and want to share these notes with you. This is from January 1, 2024.
Hello and Happy 2024. This is the first of occasional updates on The Golden Hair of Medusa, a companion book to A Golden Thread: The Minotaur. Making a book about the myth of Medusa has been on my mind for several years. I have depicted the image of Medusa in various artworks over the past four decades, including early self-portraits as Medusa when PhotoShop was in its infancy in the 1980’s, and larger than life charcoal drawings in the ’90’s. Images of the Gorgon, representing cancer and illness, were also central to the edition, “Caught inside a dream unfolding,” completed in 1999. This past summer, I digitally type set Hawthorne’s text of the short story, The Gorgon’s Head, in InDesign, and composed each page, tweaking typography for multiple hours.
Printing will begin once the paper is received. Numerous pages are ready to go to press, while others are being finalized. I continue to work many hours every day, tweaking typography (more on this next time) and creating additional drawings, calligrams, border designs & initial caps inspired by illuminated manuscripts and historic Japanese woodblock printing.
