laurieopal

Nisi Shawl commissioned me to make the coin from her book "Everfair" and her forthcoming book from Tor, "Kinning". The link is to my review of "Everfair". I thought it was a remarkable book. And it improves on rereading.

As folks who read laurieopal know, it took me a long time and some very particular research to make the coin. The white winged tern and the Shongo African weapon are part of the story.

Here FINALLY are the photos. Given the size (about 1") and the level of detail I put into the carvings, the photos were hard. The light reflections off the texture made them particularly difficult. These are only OK. The coin is more beautiful but they give a good idea of it.

Vonda MacIntyre left Nisi a Krugerand that I alloyed into gold "electrum" for the coin. Turning a coin with the history and symbolism of the Krugerrand into a coin for a free Black African Nation (liberated from the evil Belgian Congo) was a brilliant idea. And of course, it was Nisi's. Artistically it was a lot to live up to and I loved making it.

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The date 1922 is in the left top corner of the Shongo side.


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And "Everfair My Home" is written on the white winged tern side.

Nisi wrote: "Laurie, this coin is beautiful beyond my wildest dreams!  Thank you for your tremendous work!  It is so gorgeous!  I must share it soon! "

I’m writing today to try to chill after yesterday’ s infamy. (I am delighted about Georgia, and had made lots of phone calls for the Senate race.)

I recently had a good talk with Nisi Shawl about the coin pendant I’m making for her from her book Everfair. The book is _remarkably_ good. Quote below is from Amal El-Mohar’s review on NPR.

“The scope and ambition of this book is immense. Shawl has marshalled a wealth of research in imagining, not only an alternate history for the Congo, but a cascading sequence of consequences for global politics in its wake. The cast of characters is beautifully diverse in terms of faith, ability, ethnicity, sexual orientation and nationalities, making the web of relationships intricate and fraught.”

She is currently writing a sequel to Everfair - “ Kinning”

The coin will have a Shongo, an African weapon, on one side and a grey hooded gull on the other. The gull is one that might be found on the Congo’s large lakes.
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The coin will be dated 1923 and will have written on it “Everfair my home”.

I’ve been working on the design for a while but after our conversation, I can concentrate on another level.

(cross posted on Dreamwidth as laurieopal)

I suggested this panel because my new work involves these elements, and I'm delighted to have remarkable women on the panel with whom I've had conversations about this. Panelist are editor Debbie Notkin, and writers Nisi Shawl and Pat Murphy.

Time, Memory and Contingency are part of everyone's work. I'm working with them in visual art, writers work with language and this is what I'm hoping we'll have an exciting conversation about. We'll be discussing, among other things, how these elements come up in their work and thoughts?


My new project is Memory Landscapes: A Visual Memoir. I want to travel through time, the person I am now visiting the persons I used to be. But memory isn't linear, so the trip is layered and interwoven, because inside the head everything happens at once. I want to make an autobiographical visual memoir of my personal life and the larger history I've lived in.

Most people have photographs and memory objects that evoke their interwoven memories. In my images many objects are fragments of my past that I've carried with me into the present. The compositions of the images make a piece of my layered memories.

Life as lived is incoherent, we impose narratives on the telling of our lives. This should make for interesting discussion.

I had already been thinking about iPad art, separately from any project. With an iPad, for the first time one can make work where viewers everywhere see the original art, not reproductions or recreations. iPad art is also illuminated from within, presenting the opportunity to express the layering of memory. In a sense, I am creating memory landscapes that are iPad still lifes. They are created completely for the camera, except for cropping there is no photoshop.

I'll be showing the work I've done so far.

I'm excited about being part of this and am expecting to learn a lot from Debbie, Nisi, Pat and the audience.