Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Vonnegut's prints and origin


Link

Excerpt: By 1965, Kurt Vonnegut had published four novels in paperback, but Slaughterhouse Five was several years in the future.
Hardly famous and far from rich, Vonnegut accepted an invitation to teach in the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Among his students was Loree Rackstraw. They became close and lasting friends. Although she aspired to writing herself, after taking her degree Rackstraw returned to Cedar Falls and became a member of the University of Northern Iowa English faculty.

In 1984, Vonnegut used brightly colored magic markers to make a suite of eight untitled drawings on 14×17 inch sheets of art paper. Shortly after he created them, Vonnegut sent the drawings to Rackstraw, and they hung, framed, in her living room until Vonnegut and artist Joe Petro asked to borrow and photograph them as the base of a set of silk screen prints titled Enchanted I.O.U.s. The prints restore a depth of color somewhat faded in the original drawings.

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