
Font Book
- Publisher
- Bywater Bros. Editions
- Year
- 2016
- ISBN
- 9780920293997
- Specifications
- Softcover
144 pages
7 x 4.3 inches / 17.8 x 11 cm
Lynn Valley 11
Co-published with The Vanity Press and Presentation House Gallery
Edited by Roger Bywater and Reid Shier
Designed by Fiona Banner and FM Studio
A short time ago the artist designed a new font of her own, an amalgamation of typefaces employed in a variety of earlier text-based works, including full stop sculptures, typeset wall pieces, and an epic account of a war remembered from memory. Concurrent with this creation, a fascination grew with the idiosyncratic double meaning of the word itself: in addition to a typeface, the same word names a receptacle for holy water used, chiefly, in baptismal ceremonies, with religious associations derived from an etymological root roughly translated as 'a fountain, a spring, or a source.' Images of baptismal and holy water vessels from churches around the world were subsequently gathered, and are presented here in their entirety for the first time: something of a supply catalog for the devoted, presenting every configuration imaginable, along with accompanying church names and location specs. The word points as much to a conceptual social contract as it does to a physical object, taking us beyond the ordinary into realms more indeterminate.