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the smallest units – a reductive exercise sort
of like rebus, to test the limits of what can be
comprehensible. They risk being silly. I want
my books to be playful but not silly. There is
the sense in which the clown can be neutral
and poignant while sometimes silly – but that
takes a special theatrical sensibility. “My id is
up – so it is no go if he is in it. Hi is to Pi is Ho
is to Go – So hi de ho. If it is up, I’m to be on
go to do it.” Making books is a way of testing
the language for meanings. A two letter word
sentence is one of the best tests I know of.
Ruth Laxson, Retell the Tale, 1997
Ruth Laxson, II By II, 1991
Sentences composed of two letter words
appear repeatedly on Laxson’s pages. And in
the case of II By II the entire book is created
from pages containing a two letter word that are
bound by a corner grommet so that you can fan
the pages and choose among the words to create
your own sentences. The whimsical nature of
Laxson’s constructions often disguises the deeper
meanings of the work.
An idea of the kind of wordplay and levels
of alternate meaning in the work, is apparent in
the seemingly obscure title of her book [Ho+Go]
= It. The words “Ho” (to stop) and “Go” (to move
forward) are opposites. “Go” becomes its opposite
(Ho) when replaced by the next letter of the alphabet.1
If we consider the words “Go” and “Ho” to
represent the beginning and end of the story of
life, they translate to birth and death and the word
“It” becomes the answer. In Laxson’s work,“ It“,
in fact, often becomes the representation of the
universe itself. The sign of the divine. The word
“Ho” also represents laughter, so the title can also
mean “Laugh and Go Equals Life.”
The Universe
The themes of science and universality reflect
my attitudes about religion. I grew up being
saturated in fundamentalist thinking and religion,
so that, forever, is something I have to
deal with. Books are a good place to put that. I
think that we are all bound together, but various
things have separated us like religion. I
have this idea that church pews should face
each other, instead of facing east. We could
look into each others eyes.
Research is Laxson’s form of search – deep
as the soul or the surface of the page – splicing
words and splitting atoms in her lab. Her markings
resemble a constellation of thoughts spun out
from the big bang. Macrocosm vs. Microcosm. Her
work incorporates universal ideas in a number of
ways; there is the repeating theme of universal
or natural law; the questioning of scientific and
spiritual meaning; but the impressive aspect of
universality in her work is the ability to reach and
touch so many readers. Beyond the personal code
of words and images, the content is universally
identifiable, accessible.
In a Laxson book, science is invoked as a creative
act, a part of everyday life, less solution to
cosmic mystery than the visual expression of the
big unanswerable questions themselves.
I don’t know why physics affects me so much,
except that new physics has a aspect of faith
that I think is similar to my own approach to
books. I recently read something that was
interesting. A physicist said that he thought
that physicists come up with the theories and
the ideas – the process, and that artists come
1
contd., on page 14