Kura Prophetic Messenger (Part 3)
February - March 2020
In February, I took the interns to Richard’s studio for tea time out at The Saint John’s University Pottery Studio to get more insight into his Concept of the Prophetic Messenger, which is at the core of the Sculpture and project’s meaning.
To summarize my interpretation of Richard’s vision, the drawing is of a horse galloping towards an archway that has elements of Eastern, Western and Pagan symbols of the Cosmos. The idea is that the horse is a symbol of God’s divine knowledge and peace saving us from war and destruction. The horse never makes it through the arch, meaning we never receive his message because of our human imperfection. Richard has been using the Prophetic Messenger motif in his work throughout the entirety of his career. There are layers of symbolism to each component of the drawing.
Being asked to be a part of a project with this amount of thought and intention has been an honor and a highlight of my career. Richard shared with us the blueprints for the Kura Messenger Sculpture that the scroll and heirloom seeds are intended to be hermetically sealed in.
With Richards drawing from the pottery I was able to recreate my image using the Procreate app on my iPad. Drawing with the iPad is how I created all my illustrations for the project and it has been an absolute game changer. I
In March, the 30 10 x 19 inch polymer plates arrived from Boxcar Press in New York and we were ready to start printing on the Thai Mulberry paper.
As the text was printed, we started measuring the blank image spaces for each image page. We were then able to cut linoleum blocks and research images for the 18 spaces Judy created within the text.
In late March, my interns Ben, Scott, Madeline and I headed to the MIA just as quarantine began and everything was about to shut down. We got to do some research and see some more examples of scrolls, how they’re displayed and different woodblock prints from the Arts and Crafts period to traditional Japanese woodblock prints.
Throughout quarantine, I had all my interns continue to print and work remotely to research and create thumbnails for the 18 images.
Some examples of the image ideas we solidified for moving forward:
Different images of the nuns, working praying, gardening and creating
Common grounds garden photos-- a collaborative community garden with the monastery in Saint Joseph
Images of art created by St. Joseph artists and designers
General flora and fauna imagery pulling from the history and community in St. Joseph
Richard’s image of the Prophetic Messenger
Imagery of the Johanna kiln
An imagery of the printing of the scroll