Thousand words

KP: Hey, KP2, do you remember when you were a young girl and you used to ask your mother what you should dream about before going to sleep?

KP2: Yes.

..............

Everybody is working on the works for the show. The last week of the first set of classes came faster than I thought it would. Some say they had enough time, some say that the process for students and their work has only now began. The working rooms are buzzing and I do not dare to enter. We all know what it is like.

It is really beautiful to see that the hands of students listening to the today's lunch talk of Leya Mira Brander are dirty. The ink is underneath their finger nails. As the students and the rooms that they work in changed so did the lunch talks as well. There is less and less talk about the questions of who is who in the art world and I must admit that I like this more. This way not only do you learn more about the lecturing artist and their method of working you are also left with a sensation of what are  the main issues that the artist focuses on.

For me, the lunch talk today was like entering into a carpenters shop and looking at all the things from a magical and dreamlike land. The combinations of the copper plates that the artist uses for her create a sound. It is this game that she is interested in, in the little shifts that not only change the rhythm of the work but also the perception of the work even for her. She likes to be surprised even though the process of printmaking is not really one that you interact with and just relay on chances all the time. The process and working in the printmaking media truly takes you into this world not only of magic but science, mixing of different elements and for sure dirty nails that you are proud to walk around with.

The works today showed us a very personal approach to her art production. Leya Mira Brander is still using copper plates from the beginning of her carrier and she mixes them with the new one she makes. Similar to the project she calls "Thousand words (Mil palavras)" she confesses that she must have around thousand copper plates as well. She uses them in different ways, printing them all together or taking for the next print just the words from the previous image and mixes with new or old plates. The act of cutting into the plate and cutting into the paper to create these three dimensional works is to the artist action similar to the surgeon cutting. The final product, popup book is to me a theater stage. The depth of the space is created by different layering of prints. Even the shape, the box,  is emphasizing this idea of the stage and of storytelling.

The first night I came to Salzburg I felt that all around me is a stage and that I am only one of so many puppets on the string that move around and tell a story if somebody is there to listen to. The city, beautiful and almost frozen in another time of hoarse carriage, monumental sculptures, fortresses and fountains is like a popup book. I am just one word in it.