top of page
Search

What Does This All Mean, Anyway?

  • Writer: Beatrice
    Beatrice
  • Dec 14, 2021
  • 2 min read

Today, when I sat down to write my first blog post of December, I have to admit that I was feeling rather uninspired. Nothing immediately sprung to mind, and I struggled to write even a single sentence.


Fortunately, my friends are geniuses who know me too well; one of my friends, Claire, suggested that I try heading down to the Maker’s Space and just messing around see what happens.

The Maker’s Space is one of my favorite rooms on campus. It’s chock full of just about every single crafting supply you could possibly need, including a towering pile of of books ready to be used for whatever your heart desires.


After scouring through the books, I found one that looked promising: Pompeian Frescos by Trewin Copplestone (fantastic name, eh?). But the moment I opened it, I found myself at a loss. Staring at these beautiful, ancient frescos, I couldn’t bring myself to cut them, mark them, or even really touch them. Changing them at all felt strangely sacrilegious.


While flipping through the book, I stumbled across a photocopied version of a fresco stuck between some pages by some previous user. I decided to just start by using that, and go from there.


But the photocopied version was not to my liking; it didn’t do everything I wanted to, and I often found that details were lost by the photocopier that I thought were essential.


So I took a deep breath, promised myself that there were definitely other copies of this book floating around elsewhere in the world, and took to the actual photos of the frescos.


I ended up using a lot of different material and mediums, including a few cut-out definitions from the biggest dictionary I’ve ever seen.



It was messy, but it was also super fun.



I am by no means a visual artist, and my collaging skills are at best mediocre. But through this process, I reminded myself just how multi-faceted Classics can be; you can interpret so many different texts in so many different ways that often the best way to find out what they ‘really’ mean is to go back to the very source and start from the beginning, even if you’re afraid you’re butchering it. And I say ‘really’ mean because everyone’s understanding of the texts is going to be unique, and that’s the beauty of literature.




There’s lots of stuff going on this collage. It contains stupid inside jokes, fun mistakes and accidents, at least two obscure art references, and much more. I’m not going to walk you through all of it; it’s up to you to find your own meaning, if any, in my work.





 
 
 

Recent Posts

See All
Farewell!

Hi everyone! This will probably be my last blog post. The school year is drawing to an end and my Signature Project is wrapping up; we...

 
 
 

Comments


Post: Blog2_Post

Subscribe Form

Thanks for submitting!

©2021 by Beatrice's Signature Project. :D

bottom of page