Post-Modern Prairie Schoolhouse
The Prairie Schoolhouse by John Martin Campbell (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1996)
Post-Modernism: The New Classicism in Art and Architecture by Charles Jencks (New York: Rizzoli, 1987)
"Jack Campbell set out to photograph abandoned schools, but he has given us a haunting portrait of our past. It was poor, if one measures poverty in material terms, but it was happy. And now it is gone." (xiv)
"So we see the factory is a classroom, the cathedral is a boiler house, the boiler house is a chapel, and the President’s temple is the School of Architecture."
Bibliolage is an art of filling, so what I look for is an emptiness, a capable space. When I saw The Prairie Schoolhouse, I knew where to go—that vastness.
It was an answer to my prayer—ies.
Fill 'er up, fella.
Next question, always: With what? A year passed, and no answer.
Then, one day, my wife, who is somewhat more reserved in ownership than I am (compare pond and ocean), came to the decision that a pile of books that had sat atop one of our bookcases, could be . . . released. Donated, dumped, repurposed?
Included among these books, an "art book" about post-modernism. It came in handy to show her students some images of p-mod architecture and painting.
That was before the Internet came along to offer her a vast supply of pictures at the click of a mouse.
So this became my opportunity to venture into biblio-architecturalage—schoolhouses adapted to the post-M and prairie populated with art models.
Incidentally, I did complete another bibliolage this summer--Indians of the Heidi. Have a look.