Occasional Verse

dictionary open
Black and Blue Dictionary (2014) Bethany Collins

Organized by Alexander Campos

Collins’ Featured Artist Project is centered around America: A Hymnal, an artist book made up of 100 versions of My Country ‘Tis of Thee from the 18th-20th c. Since its debut by the Rev. Samuel E. Smith on July 4, 1831, the lyrics of My Country ’Tis of Thee were re-titled and re-written at least one hundred times. Each re-writing in support of a passionately held cause—from temperance and suffrage to abolition and even the Confederacy—articulates a version of what it means to be American. In its many lyrical variations, America: A Hymnal is a chronological retelling of American history, politics and culture through one song. Additional works included in Collins’ Featured Artist Project are from her Contronym series, altered dictionaries and encyclopedias, each refusing in its own way a singularity of meaning.


Artist Statement

I am interested in the unnerving possibility of multiple meanings, dual perceptions, and limitlessness in the seemingly binary. Drawing repeatedly allows me to fully understand objects in space, while defining and redefining my own racial landscape.

For me, racial identity has neither been instantly formed nor conjured in isolation. Rather, identity entangles memory: actual and revisited, cultural and historical, individual and collective. Through the dissolution of dichotomies and exploration of language, this work recalls moments in the formation of my racial identity. And each re-worked mark is yet another attempt to navigate the binary paradigm of race in the American South.
Each new body of work borders on an obsessive preoccupation with language- it’s ability and inability to negotiate a way of being in the world.

But I have found in my practice a delight in these obsessive preoccupations. And in the solutions they slowly, ever so slowly, but inevitably offer.

Exhibited Artworks

America: A Hymnal, 2017
Book with 100 laser cut leaves
6 x 9 x 1 inches
Courtesy of the Artist

Awful, 1968, 2017
Graphite and toner on American Masters paper
Diptych: 22 x 30 inches each
Courtesy of the Artist

Black and Blue Dictionary, 2014
Found Webster’s New American Dictionary (1965) with “black” and “blue” terms erased
8 ¼ x 10 x 2 ¼ inches
Courtesy of the Artist

Colorblind Dictionary, 2013-2014
Found Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language with all color terms erased
9 ¼ x 6 ¼ x 2 ⅝ inches
Courtesy of the Artist

Colorless Dictionary, 2015
Found “Webster’s Illustrated Contemporary Dictionary” (1988)
10 ¼ x 6 ¾ x 2 ⅜ inches
Courtesy of the Artist

Comprise, 1982, 2017
Graphite and toner on American Masters paper
Diptych: 22 x 30 inches each
Courtesy of the Artist

The Encyclopedia Americana (U), 2017
Laser cut Encyclopedia Americana (in progress)
10 ½ x 15 inches
Courtesy of the Artist

Exhibition Views

red cloth covered book with gold title on spine
America: A Hymnal (2017) Bethany Collins
two paragraphs erased and framed
Compromise (1982) Bethany Collins
websters dictionary
Black and Blue Dictionary (2014) Bethany Collins
dictionary open
Black and Blue Dictionary (2014) Bethany Collins
close up of dictionary with words rubbed out
Black and Blue Dictionary (2014, detail) Bethany Collins
websters dictionary
Colorblind Dictionary (2013-14) Bethany Collins
close up of dictionary with words blurred out
Colorblind Dictionary (2013-14) Bethany Collins
two pages of text erased and placed side by side
Awful, 1968 (2017) Bethany Collins
white websters dictionary
Colorless Dictionary (1988) Bethany Collins
encyclopedia open to picture of mushroom cloud
Encyclopedia Americana (2017) Bethany Collins
black and white picture of a mushroom cloud on a page
Encyclopedia Americana (2017, detail) Bethany Collins
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