A note from the semi-nearby town of Livermore, which has a brand-new ceramic mural celebrating literary, cultural, and historic figures at the entrance to its brand-new library. Just one thing: many of the names of the past luminaries — 11 out of 175 — are misspelled. The one example I’ve seen repeatedly is “Eistein.” Now the library, which shelled out $40,000 for the work in the first place, is paying the artist another six grand plus expenses to come back out here from her home in Florida to fix the spellings. The artist says the locals are disrespecting her piece and missing the whole point: “The importance of this work is that it is supposed to unite people.” Yes, even bad spellers have a place in the human family. She continued: “They are denigrating my work and the purpose of this work.” Nevertheless, she’s going to take the money and fix the thing.
One Reply to “When Art and Orthography Collide”
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This thing really makes me wince and gives me the urge to crawl under a desk, lie in fetal postion and suck my thumb. Ah, artists are such a odd crowd. Why! Why! And the names that are mis-spelled are the “biggies”. She put this stuff “in stone” without checking the spelling. The part I like most is how she blames others for not pointing out the mistakes. Hey, get an editor-proofreader. And the other thing about how the art transcends the niggling details reminds me of this Graucho Marx quote I saw yesterday. “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”