The Dictionary Project

Brickbottom Artists Gallery, Somerville, MA — Spring 2005

An exhibition of work by over 50 local, national and international artists who have worked on — and been inspired by — pages from the NEW CENTURY DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1957,NY)

The pre-Internet exhibition was about dictionary pages, words and friendship. I found a copy of THE NEW CENTURY DICTIONARY in a lucky trash pick across the street from my house. The book contained myriads of 3-hole punched pages and thousands of lovely black and white images. I started to give them to people in my print studio as gifts. “Pick a word… any word” I would say and pull out the pages that matched their word choices. Suddenly I thought about sending the pages to many people and if they sent them back, creating a show of their efforts.

The Dictionary Project was born. People received 3–6 pages, they could choose random pages, or if there were specific words or images they wanted I would send those if they were available. Suddenly people would ask me if their friend who was a poet could participate, or someone they knew who loved to sew and sing and liked words, could they be involved? I said yes. It was inclusive and I had to trust that it would work out and it did. The age range for participants in the show was 21–86. There were young graffiti guys, involved as well as conceptual artists, painters, printmakers, and devotees of collage, sculptors and fiber artists. Dictionary pages were woven, painted upon, ripped into tiny strips and rolled onto spools. They were stained with tea, sewn into tiny books, photographed, and enlarged to fill entire walls. It was a wonderful show and something I hoped to continue with, but it hasn’t happened yet. Physical dictionaries have almost vanished from the world!