An Annotated Hearing Trumpet is an ongoing, multi-part response to surrealist painter Leonora Carrington's novel The Hearing Trumpet (written 1950, published 1970).
An Annotated Hearing Trumpet, Preface and Figures was the first public exhibition of the work in this project, at Martina }{ Johnston Gallery in Berkeley, CA. The images in the show can loosely be conceived of as illustrations for the book, or as an "evocation of a relationship," a methodically subjective yet unaccountable collection of images found during my research into the book, and during time spent with with Carrington herself. Perhaps the work chronicles my process of imagining what it will be like to become a (fictional) old lady; Anne becoming Leonora, Leonora becoming Marian Leatherby.
Marian Leatherby is the 92-year-old, toothless, vegetarian, and stone deaf narrator and protagonist who sports a "short grey beard which conventional people would find repulsive," but which she "personally" finds "rather gallant." She has a "death grip on [her] haggard frame as if it were the limpid body of Venus herself."
The exhibition is the first part of an ongoing project that includes a manuscript for The Annotated Hearing Trumpet, an illustrated book which will sit somewhere between the genres of memoir, artist's book, and biography and will include historical and critical scholarly writing on themes from Carrington's work.
Much of the existing work, such as Casts of My Movie, consists of images and documentation that have been created during the planning and development of a feature-length film version of the book.
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