Orf Spheres


In the late '90s I made the Orf series: spheres formed of chicken wire and paper mache painted and shellaced, with text either inside or on the surfaces of them. Those with textual interiors had holes through which to read with the largest spheres being about four feet in diameter, which wearing rubber gloves and a miner's lamp readers put their heads inside to read. I made about 10 of them, but most did not survive the various moves of early 00's. I have one, the above, about the size of a honeydew melon with holes at its crown, through which light may pass, and on its side through which to read. The interior strip is an appropriation of some panels from the Tintin cartoon series, to which I spliced my own text.

The Orf series is after a contraction of Orpheus, the primordial Greek poet.


Inside an Orf sphere