Glass | Works

Works
by Jesse Glass

Heraclitus

I’m doing a series of Heraclitus translations carved on fossils–mainly fossil fish because they’re plentiful and cheap so there won’t be any loss to science if I add my translations. But the point lies in the intersecting text, the process of cutting it into the stone, and of course the fossils themselves. The product also reminds me of a time when I was a kid–I was walking along the edge of a field near my boyhood home. It was an early autumn sunset and my own long shadow moved to the front and left of me, and to the right was a woods. On the very edge of the woods–in the boundary area between the trees and the field was a pile of field stones–mainly schists. I was surprised, though, to see letters and dates crudely carved into the rocks and highlighted clearly by the shadows angled in the figures. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes and squatted to check the carvings out. Many initials–L.L., A.L., etc. and dated 23, 27, 40. I found out later that a pioneer family once owned that land and they’d buried their own up on top of the ridge, next to the trees. The Green family–farmers all– tossed those stones in a pile by the woods when they took over from the last of them and went on with their plantings and harvestings from the 1880’s and all the way to that part of the twentieth century in which I knew old man Green (in his 80’s) and his Scottish sheepdog buddy, who would spryly cut through that part of his bailiwick checking out the progress of the world.

To move – “To move, dressed in scabs…” Poetic object. Papyrus, plaster of paris, glue, ink, gouache. Jesse Glass, 3/2020.

Untitled 3. (Gaha Noas Zorge Asemic Collaboration with John Dee and Edward Kelley–featuring Kelley’s sketch of the spirit Madimi in her guise as ‘The Daughter of Fortitude’.). Pen and ink. Watercolor pencils with holograph manuscript c. 1588.) Jesse Glass, 2018.

Untitled 2. (Gaha Noas Zorge Asemic Collaboration with John Dee and Edward Kelley). Pen and ink. Watercolor pencils with holograph manuscript c. 1588.) Jesse Glass, 2018.

Untitled (Gaha Noas Zorge Asemic Collaboration with John Dee and Edward Kelley). Pen and ink. Watercolor pencils with holograph manuscript c. 1588.) Jesse Glass, 2018.