Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Is Bigger Always Better?

Ulysses: page 264
The pages have been pretty easy to copy lately, or is it, transcribe? Still, I stick to just over one page a day. I could do more, but have not.
I read a nice article/essay by the publisher of Booklist magazine, Bill Ott, about his attempts to read Ulysses. He tried many years ago, decades actually, and didn't make it as far as page 100. But now, he is listening to it, and is almost halfway through. I have a feeling his book version was the same as the one I am using, because he said it had 783 pages, which is exactly the number of pages of my library copy. When I am done with this project I shall have "read" Ulysses, but not understood much of it. Most of what I learn, I learn through reading about it when others write about it. I know it takes place on June 16th. I know it is mostly the thoughts and snippets of conversation of Leopold Bloom. I think Bloom's son is dead. I think Bloom may have cheated on his wife, Molly. I think the end of the book is Molly's...eighty four pages with only four, unpunctuated sentences.
Part of the reason for doing this insane project, is that it will be my version of big. So much of what I see in museums and galleries is BIG. BIG paintings, BIG sculptures, BIG installations. When I draw, I draw small, and always have. But I think that to be recognized as an artist you have to do something's BIG. I can work on one glove at a time, on my small studio desk, or on the kitchen table, but when this is finished, there is no doubt that it will be BIG. Let's hope this BIG project makes some people take notice of my smaller work.

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