Artists Talking 2

Fabrizia unpacking her Lost Library book
(image copyright F Bazzo 2012)

Fabrizia Bazzo received a copy of Plays Acting and Music by Arthur Symonds.

Fabrizia wrote: “I just wanted to let you know that I received my book. Thank you very much, although the difficult and hard work is about to begin for me!”

As I try to explain in my “Letter to Arthur Symons”, I found this a very difficult book to read and I gained very little inspiration from the content of the book. I did, however, find what was written in the Preface somewhat ironical and I took my inspiration from this.

I literally cut out the majority of the words to create a cavity in which I fitted a glass box containing glass “confetti” (small fragments of very thin glass). I copied some of the pages of the book onto transfers that were cut to the shapes of the glass confetti and then fired these to fuse the words into the glass.

I wanted to try to create a little bit of real theatre with the book, so I also fitted a device for playing back recordings that starts playing a recording of Sarah Bernhardt reciting from Edmond Rostand’s play “L’Aiglon” in 1910 (see note below).I chose “The Divine Sarah” to represent all the real essence of the theatre of that period, and because, being one of the pioneers of the silent movie, she crossed the bridge between theatre and film production. I first heard this recording when visiting her house on La Belle Île in France a couple of years ago and I am glad to have used it in this project.

Finally, I made a sleeve for the book in glass with some details in glass that represent the untrimmed edges of the paper pages that I found so interesting.

Note: The recording of Sarah Bernhardt reciting an excerpt from “L’Aiglon” by Edmond Rostan is taken from an original recording made on an Edison Amberol 4 minute cylinder (No.: 35007).
The recording should start when the book is opened (there is a light sensor inside) and lasts about 40 seconds. You can stop it sooner by closing the book and opening it again. Closing the book and re-opening it will start it again (for as long as the batteries last!).”

Letter to Arthur Symonds