Crafting Readers

Items

• The Literary Road Trip / "Badlands"
  This project responds to the ending of Badlands, which describes the narrator's road trip to the Alberta Badlands. Trying to discover her father’s time as a paleontologist in Alberta, the narrator, Anna, encounters her father’s past, retracing his journey and meeting Anna Yellowbird, an Indigenous woman with whom William, her father, had sexual relations. Anna believes that her trip will shed light on William’s identity, but instead she comes to terms with his “sad” life spent looking for success. She then throws his field notes—the sole reminder of his existence—in a lake and looks towards the stars for guidance. My work shows my own road trip; it imitates Anna’s journey and ends with me throwing my novel in a river. Using three crafts, this eclectic project illuminates my novel’s parodic genre that satirizes the hero’s journey. It also elucidates Anna’s shifting selfhood, showing how she rejects her father to embrace sublime inspiration. JORDAN PRICE ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: In Robert Kroetsch’s Badlands (1975), road trips provoke moments of personal growth. The novel’s narrator, Anna, seeks to understand her now deceased father, William, and his time excavating dinosaur bones in the Alberta Badlands, but she has access only to his “cryptic” and “barely decipherable” field notes that detail his journey (2). At the end of the novel, Anna follows her father’s Alberta expedition, and she drives to the places he described in his notes, including “Drumheller,” “Bullpound Creek,” and “Crawling Valley” (259–60). Anna understands her father’s “sad” life spent looking “for that little ceremony of success,” and she throws his journal in a lake: “I threw it into a lake where it too might drown” (256–70). This project responds to this (anti)climactic ending, detailing my own literary road trip. My work taught me to consider my novel’s parodic genre and Anna’s identity. Kroetsch’s fifth novel, Badlands was first published in 1975 and reissued in subsequent editions in 1976, 1982, 1983, 1988, and 1991. Initial reviews of the novel highlighted both its comedic and mythic qualities. In 1975, Margaret Laurence celebrated the book for its “‘wild humour’” and ability to take “‘characters and render them into our own [Canadian] mythology.’” Critics in the 1980s and 1990s positioned Badlands as a deconstructionist text. In 1991, for instance, Dorothy Seaton argued that Badlands “deconstructs the New World myths of identity,” including tales of “heroic” masculinity (78). More recent scholars show how the novel depicts Indigenous peoples and histories; Stephanie McKenzie asserts that the text “laments” that “Aboriginal cultures have been offended and threatened” by settler imposition (145). My project uses three artistic approaches: letterpress, décollage, and photography. Letterpress is a 15th-century invention that was primarily used to publish news or books (Wilson and Grey 1–11). Especially in the 20th century, some presses used print art for activism (Johnston 68). For example, Zephyrus, a San Francisco press from the 1970s, used letterpress to promote the gay liberation movement and criticize the Nixon presidency (Johnston 68–70). Décollage emerged in France in 1961, and the craft usually communicated political messages such as anticolonialism or social anxieties post-World War Two (McDonough 75–78). In my photography prints, I used the editing function selective colouring, which involves turning an original image black and white but then revealing specific colours in the image. Selective colouring gained popularity in the early 2000s, and it was used to contrast temporal spaces, with black and white symbolizing the past and colour representing the present (Hirsch and Erf 181–214). While my chosen novel does not explicitly invoke letterpress, décollage, or selective colour photography, these approaches complement my novel. My text and literary interpretations create three temporal spaces. Badlands shifts between first-person and third-person narration; the former describes Anna’s diaries that are set in 1972, and the latter illustrates William’s time as a paleontologist in 1916. As someone who studies the novel, I create a third space: my present-day reality. Each possessing unique historical contexts, letterpress, décollage, and selective colour photography parallel my novel’s time frames as well as my embodied reality. As the oldest craft, letterpress calls to mind William’s journey in 1916. Developed in the 1960s, décollage symbolizes Anna’s diaries. Selective colour photography, which dates from the 2000s, is emblematic of my literary critical work. My project made me consider how Badlands satirizes the hero’s journey, a trope that describes a protagonist's successful struggle against a colossal obstacle and celebratory return home. Badlands retains aspects of this mythology. Anna states that William’s field notes contain stories about “male courage” (2). Anna also calls William’s expedition a “long journey, a . . . calculated casting into the unknown” that culminates in his arrival at “the greatest bonebeds in the history of paleontology” (127–28). However, William does not actualize his heroic aspirations, and his ambitions are stymied by the natural elements. In Chapter Six, for example, William and his crew travel down a river, but their boat absurdly crashes into rocks, causing their equipment to fall overboard: “They hit more rocks; the sacks of plaster of paris tumbled overboard: half of them, more, were gone” (28). While excavating dinosaur bones, William invariably falls. In Chapter Thirty, he sees a “grasshopper,” which he thinks is a “rattler,” and he falls “twenty feet down the side of a coulee” (152). Instead of relishing a victorious return from his journey, William dies en route, and his body is “never found” (269). While working on my project, I appreciated these parodic elements. Like William, I failed to achieve my intended goals. To follow William’s and Anna’s journeys, I wanted to drive to the Alberta Badlands, but my plans suddenly changed. During the only weekend I had available, this November’s “bomb cyclone” cancelled ferries to the mainland, which made me improvise and travel up Vancouver Island instead. I wanted my project to reflect the chaos of William’s expedition and my own trip. I cut the map of the Badlands, which was the background of my décollage, into four pieces and organized them randomly on my board. I haphazardly cut my photo prints in two. I took my novel and tore away pages, sticking excerpts wherever I wanted. While I was initially disappointed with the change in my plans, I realized that this discomfort led me to a deeper appreciation of my novel’s genre. When I had to change my itinerary, I became like William, who fails to achieve his desired heroic status, and my art reflected his farcical character. During my road trip, I started to appreciate how Anna constructs her selfhood once she abandons her interpretive impulse and turns to the environment as recourse. Anna draws on her father’s field notes as a source of paternal affection. She considers his notes to be the “only poem he ever wrote,” and particularly a “love poem” addressed to his “only daughter” (269–70). Anna tries to claim ownership of the journals, imposing her own meanings on William’s words. In Chapter Seven, for example, Anna illustrates her father writing terse and nebulous phrases in his notes, such as “I despite words” and “He is safe and sound” (34–37). Anna imagines his affective response to his writing, stating that his notes “freed him” and that he “stared at the sentence, enjoying it” (34). Yet at the end of the novel, Anna’s gaze shifts from her father’s field notes to the sky above. Once she throws her father’s notes in the lake, she walks “through the night,” looking at the “billions” of “stars” that provide her “light” to guide her “way” (270). While working on my project, I understood this aspect of the novel more clearly. At Goldstream Park, the first stop of my trip, I wanted to compare excerpts from Badlands with the land. While taking my photos, I wanted the text to be the key focal point. I tried using a shallow focus shot, which made the background landscape blurry and the text clear. As I did so, I had trouble reading the words on the thin page because the focusing effect only exposed the sun that shone through the paper; the backside of the page became faintly visible, which blurred the words. In response, I pulled the text closer to my camera lens, but doing so only covered the landscape and defeated the purpose. The sun, I learned, was overcoming my text. I realized that I was becoming like Anna who also imposes her subjectivity on a text but recognizes a more sublime source. While making my final project, I felt free. As I cut out and glued excerpts from my text, I felt that I had complete control of the art, putting Kroetsch’s diction wherever I saw fit. When I finished the project, I closed my eyes and touched the many different papers on my project. I noticed the glossy photo prints, the coffee-stained map, and the old edition of Badlands that I had torn apart. As I finished my work, I realized that I was oddly returning to the beginning of my novel. In Chapter One, Anna describes the tactility of her father’s journal, noting that she can feel “squashed mosquitoes, the spiders’ legs, the stains of thick black coffee, [and] even the blood that smeared the already barely decipherable words” (2). My project, I learned, was akin to William’s notes, becoming a tangible source of inspiration from which I, like Anna, try to derive literary meaning. Perhaps most importantly, my road trip taught me that scholarship can go beyond the confines of the campus classroom. As I drove alone with my copy of Badlands perched on my dashboard, I embarked on a journey with my novel, establishing a closeness between my personal life and literary knowledge. In doing so, I understood my text’s complexities more clearly. I also realized that academia and embodied space can productively coexist.
• Layered Voices / "Women Talking"
  This framed print combines two craft techniques to represent the layered and assembled dialogues that structure Miriam Toews’s Women Talking (2018). The linocut print of a horse looking backwards is an illustration that the illiterate women draw when they gather for their first meeting, symbolizing their option to “leave” the colony (Toews 6). The typeset excerpt is the final two lines of a hymn that the women sing to remain unified in their shared trauma (29). Together, these elements merge different communicative forms to visualize the gathered voices in the text and how the voices come together in harmonious ways to create unity in times of uncertainty. The print is encased in a black frame, which signifies the limited nature of the women’s voices as they are mediated by August. While making this object, I considered the form of the novel and how perspectives are relayed to readers through August. EMMA SJERVEN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Women Talking by Miriam Toews (2018) explores the value of voice and connection in a Mennonite colony riddled with gender conflicts and violence. Female voices often go unheard in Toews’s fictional colony of Molotschna; Ona Friesen, a spinster impregnated by one of her rapists, acknowledges this fact as the women consider how to respond to the men’s assaults against them, saying, “We are women without a voice” (56). Yet the women’s meetings in the hayloft over two days reflect how the assemblage of dialogue and perspectives creates power and unity among the colony’s minority. Published as Toews’s seventh novel, Women Talking was praised for its commentary on feminist themes and religious traumas, establishing Toews as a profound former-Mennonite author. While some Mennonite scholars have praised Toews’s work as “reflective of Mennonite culture,” others note that her attribution of “modern attitudes and sensibilities to a group of women who are decidedly separatist” is concerning, considering that Toews is now an “outsider to the community” (Völz 101, Glista 97, Fernandez-Moralez 102). In this way, Toews’s work is somewhat polarizing because it may not accurately reflect the fierce religiosity usually found within women in Mennonite communities. In 2022, the novel was adapted into an Oscar-winning film directed by Sarah Polley, who deliberately excluded any mention of the word “Mennonite” in her film, as she believed the patriarchy is an issue that does not solely affect Mennonites (Glista 98). Polley also noted that both her and Toews’s characters would not “identify as feminist” because it is “outside their realm of experience and knowledge” (Fernandez-Moralez 103). Despite these contradictions from scholars and the film director, the pervasive theme of female power and unity against patriarchal standards remains central to Toews’s work (Oyler para. 7). When considering what to create for my final project, I reflected on my crafted objects created during our workshops and how these pieces may work in conjunction with each other. I considered my linocut print of a horse with its back turned, looking back at where it came from, and my typeset hymn that the women sing together (Toews 6, 29). I realized that these elements of the texts I once innocently created share a commonality: they are communicative forms for the women. Combining these objects helped me consider the novel’s form, and, as a result, my final framed print merges different communicative frameworks that appear throughout the novel to conceptualize the layering of voices that structure the text. While neither linocut nor letterpress printing explicitly appears in my novel, the history of women’s roles in these media is important to consider and contributed to the embodiment of my work. Linocuts have long been used as artistic media, often appearing in women’s works (Cassidy 18). Linoleum was a medium that was available to women and was used to create detailed coloured prints (18). Contrarily, women were historically less active in letterpress printing. As Claire Battershill notes, “women could run the feeding of a steam press, but not actually operate it” (9). As I created my typeset excerpt on the Vandercook press, I understood the irony with which I, as a female maker, was undertaking an activity that women, like those in Toews’s novel, could not. The embodiment of these crafts contributed to my understanding of my positioning as a female crafter connected to a text about women who are unable to read but can communicate in other ways. As I created my linocut during our workshop, I considered the way that my physical position as a maker—dominating, controlling, and configuring the lino—mimicked the physical actions of the men in the colony. At times, the aggression I used to remove the excess lino contradicted the symbol of hope and bravery that my carved object represented. As I etched a symbol drawn by the women, I understood that my embodied experience added another "layer” to my project and my interpretation of the text. Furthermore, the illustration of the horse carries a double meaning: it symbolizes power in that the women use it to represent their brave decision to “leave” the colony, but it also represents how the men view the women of Molotschna (Toews 6, 21). In various instances throughout the text, the women acknowledge how they have been treated similarly to the animals in the colony. One of the colony matriarchs, Greta Loewen, notices this comparison, commenting that they “have been preyed upon like animals; perhaps we should respond in kind” (Toews 21). By literally drawing a symbol to represent one of their options, the illiterate women repurpose the meaning of the horse, an animal, to associate its being with their personal voices and future choices. The excerpt of the hymn I chose to include appears in the final two lines of the first stanza of a hymn called “Work, for the Night is Coming.” Traditionally, this hymn is sung in religious contexts and signifies the work that man does for God before night falls (hymnstudiesblog). In the novel, the women sing the first stanza before they briefly adjourn during their first meeting: “The women join hands and sing…” (Toews 29). I chose to print the final two lines of the hymn because I interpreted them as hauntingly relevant to the women’s situation. The men’s “work” (raping the women) has been done, and they have left the women damaged. In their singing, and in the specific hymn they choose to sing, the women communicate a message of unity to one another that, despite the brutality they endure, sisterhood prevails. This interpretation of the hymn, like its inclusion in my final print, adds yet another layer to the text. While the women congregate in the hayloft under the agreement that the attacks they have endured merit vengeance, they deliberate their choices thoroughly, often disagreeing with each other about what their decisions mean and how their ultimate choice will be perceived by those around them. Salome Friesen, a woman who nearly killed her rapist in self-defence, vigorously defends the choice to “stay and fight,” asking her fellow women, “Is this how we want to teach our daughters to defend themselves—by fleeing?” (Toews 40). Her question is then contradicted by a clarification from Mejal Loewen, who points out that the women are “not fleeing, but leaving” (Toews 40). Such contrasting dialogues and perspectives structure the text and informed my final print. The text assembles the varying perspectives of the women about the same issue, layering them, which demonstrates how differing viewpoints can come together to tell one cohesive story. Similarly, my final object works to conglomerate these communicative forms into one print, symbolizing the cohesion of voices that emerge about a shared issue. The structure of the text itself “echoes oral features of Plautdietsch,” the traditional Mennonite language the women speak, operating as both “repetitive and additive” (Völz 101). I reflected on this aspect of the form of my text as I created my final object. My print is the product of three attempts at the placement of the linocut stamp and typeset print. To ensure that my print was of good quality, I repeatedly stamped my linocut; I could not achieve a print to my liking, so I had to try again, adding more ink one time, shifting my stamp a bit to the right the next time, and so on. I learned that, like the process of assembling my final project, the text itself is both turbulent and monotonous. The seeming unreliability of August as the narrator of the text (he often admits to missing parts of the conversation: “I am not able to hear or keep up with every detail” [Toews 22]) contributes to its instability, while the construction of the book (its entirety made of dialogue and a singular perspective) contributes to its repetitive nature. These contradictory elements work to form the text—and ultimately contribute to the formation of my print. While the horse and hymn represent different forms of communication, when combined, they represent communication throughout the novel as it is connected to the larger theme of unity among women. I used a black matte frame as a symbolic object to represent the framing device and voice that are used throughout the text. While the novel explores themes of feminism and centres the women’s perspectives and reactions to the attacks, August serves as the vessel for the women’s voices, keeping the novel’s perspective “deliberately limited” (Glista 97). The thick black frame both encases and looms over my print, serving as a reminder that though the novel prioritizes the voices of the women, patriarchal perspectives remain pervasive and dominate the colony. The completion of my crafted object allowed me to consider not only the structured form of the text (how it is told through a singular perspective and created mostly of dialogue) but also how illustrations and hymns are communicative forms that, once combined, create a cohesive work representing a central theme within the novel. Furthermore, completing this final object helped me understand that crafts themselves have voice—though not in the way that we traditionally think of voice. Illustrations via linocuts communicate the author’s thoughts about a particular subject, while hymns via letterpress printing resemble the unity that is found in song and words. Though the women initially believe they do not have a voice, my project demonstrates that the other media they engage with generate a sense of power among them (Toews 56).
• [Macalister’s Fish] / "To the Lighthouse"
  This lino printed fish with pieces cut out is overlaid on a printed quote from To The Lighthouse and attached with embroidery thread and tape. Woolf, in her novel, mentions a fish whose body was “mutilated” and “thrown back into the sea,” and this mention of the fish highlights the relationship between social relations and embodiment (Woolf 243). The cuts in the fish allow for viewers to peer through at the underlying quote, seeing a potential answer to the proposed question, “What is the meaning of life?” – a question that guides the characters in the novel. This project does not allow viewers to perceive Woolf’s tentative answer; rather, it prompts viewers to consider the question themselves and participate in the discourse Woolf posits in her novel.
• The Wars Within / "The Bell Jar"
  My crafted object, titled "The Wars Within," captures the essence of Sylvia Plath’s novel The Bell Jar. Inspired by Plath’s sketch bearing the novel’s title, the lino print of shoes, a traditional and often critiqued symbol of femininity, pairs with a carefully typeset quote from Chapter 15. This pairing amplifies the novel’s exploration of identity and autonomy, underscoring the protagonist’s battle against societal constraints and the conflict between external expectations and internal desires. A dynamic collage surrounds the linocut and the quotation, adding further depth and dimension to the piece. This layered design evokes “the wars within,” symbolizing women’s dual struggle: resisting patriarchal values imposed by society while looking inward to confront and reject these forcibly ingrained beliefs. The composition of the crafted object bridges the novel’s critical investigation of psychological and societal conflict, inviting viewers to reflect on the enduring relevance of these struggles in the pursuit of self-determination. KALEV ADLER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Sylvia Plath’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, the American writer and poet’s only work of fictional prose, offers an evocative exploration of madness and the oppressive effects of social expectations on women. Deeply rooted in Plath’s own experiences, the novel reflects her struggles with major depression, suicidal ideation, and time spent in psychiatric institutions. Driven by a desire to articulate these experiences relating to mental illness, Plath published The Bell Jar in January 1963, just one month before her tragic suicide at the age of 30. At the heart of the novel lies the metaphor of the bell jar, a suffocating, transparent enclosure symbolizing Plath’s and her protagonist Esther Greenwood’s sense of isolation in mid-20th-century America. For the past three months, I have immersed myself in creating a crafted object inspired by Plath’s text. The project and process culminated in The Wars Within, a mixed-media piece combining linocut, typesetting, printing, and collage, deepening my comprehension of Plath’s work and its enduring themes. By creating The Wars Within, I realized the true extent of Plath’s investigation into the suffocating aspects of life for women in 1950s America, a period synonymous with conformity. Through my crafting, I gained a newfound perspective on the psychological toll of cemented cultural conventions directed at women and the struggle for autonomy in a world designed to confine. As author Janet Badia discusses in the first chapter of Sylvia Plath and the Mythology of Women Readers, titled “‘Dissatisfied, Family-Hating Shrews’: Women Readers and the Politics of Plath’s Literary Reception,” Plath “devoted much of her writing time in early 1961 to her novel The Bell Jar. Having contracted for publication in October 1961, Heinemann released the novel in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas on January 14, 1963” (30). Plath chose to partner with the London-based publisher Heinemann after facing rejection from American publishers, likely influenced by the underwhelming reception of her earlier poetry collection, The Colossus, published by Alfred A. Knopf. Upon its initial release in England, literary critics met The Bell Jar with “a reception nearly as unremarkable as the one The Colossus had received” (Badia 30). It was only after her death that the novel started gaining traction, and, in 1971, eight years after Plath’s suicide, The Bell Jar finally made its way to the United States. In “A Note on The Bell Jar (1963),” Susan J. Behrens explains how “Plath’s mother, Aurelia Plath, and Plath’s husband, Ted Hughes, campaigned against publication of the US edition, … claiming that the identities of persons living and dead would be too obvious (and hurtful) all around” (239). Despite this publication delay, readers who had slowly become accustomed to her poetry in the years following her death flocked to pick up a copy. The delayed American publication coincided with the women’s movement of the 1960s and 1970s and marked a turning point for Plath’s reception. Readers began to embrace the novel as a foundational feminist text that critiqued patriarchal social politics. Since its 40th anniversary in the US, The Bell Jar has sold “more than three million copies” and been taught in classrooms worldwide (Gould). My creation, The Wars Within, allowed me to profoundly engage with Plath’s The Bell Jar, reshaping my understanding of its themes and the lived experiences it portrays. At the heart of my mixed-media craft object is a linocut of shoes, an object traditionally linked to femininity, highlighting the societal values and ideals imposed on women in 1950s America and beyond. This linocut not only symbolizes these oppressive expectations but also Esther Greenwood’s struggle to break free from them, as shoes can represent movement and the march toward a liberated future. To further connect my work to the novel, I incorporated the poignant quotation “because wherever I sat—on the deck of a ship or at a street café in Paris or Bangkok—I would be sitting under the same glass bell jar,” capturing Esther’s inescapable sense of entrapment (Plath 236). The Wars Within, especially the collage elements, vastly enriches my dialogue with The Bell Jar by visually layering Plath’s protagonist’s multifaceted constraints. The fragmented domestic images, such as a set dinner table and a mother holding her child, underscore the overwhelming pressure of social models that historically and ridiculously defined a woman’s worth. These elements, deliberately fractured and overlapped, mirror Esther’s fractured psyche, symbolizing her mental disarray and rebellion against the relentless demand to conform. Through the combination of these images, alongside the quotation from the novel and the lino print design, the crafted object encapsulates Esther’s desire to reject social expectations and her inability to escape their pervasive influence. This interplay echoes Plath’s metaphor of the bell jar, with its transparent yet impenetrable walls, as the collage creates a visual representation of a world that defines and traps. Craft or multi-media object? Linocut, typesetting, or print? Choosing the correct term to describe The Wars Within is no simple task. While I previously referred to the collage elements within the object, The Oxford English Dictionary’s (OED) 1919 definition defines collage as “An abstract form of art in which photographs, pieces of paper, newspaper cuttings, string, etc., are placed in juxtaposition and glued to the pictorial surface; such a work of art” (“Collage, N”). Therefore, to provide details of the history of my chosen craft practice, the term “Collage” accurately summarizes the process, the amalgamation of the linocut, typesetting, and printing of text onto one pictorial surface. Freya Gowrley, in the introduction to Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, highlights that collage “is an art form that has been produced across regions and cultures since the invention of paper” (9). Yet, despite its diverse and widespread practice throughout history, collage has often been narrowly defined, focusing predominantly on works from the West and their association with the rise of modernism. Gowrley recounts the example of Jane and Mary Parminter, who used collage as a decorative technique in their 1790s home, A la Ronde. Nevertheless, she notes that “thanks to the low status occupied by women’s craft practices in the art-historical canon, collage produced before the birth of modernism has consistently been overlooked in histories of the genre” (9). Instead, the invention of collage was often attributed to figures such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque (9-10). This exclusionary framing mirrors Plath’s The Bell Jar, where deeply entrenched hierarchies subdue women just as the hierarchies embedded within art history diminish the influence and existence of early collage artists (10). Through its design and symbolism, The Wars Within challenges these hierarchies, pushing back against the limitations imposed on women and craft practices. As Hinda Mandell describes in Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats, “Craft can be accessible and complex, unique and diverse, intensely personal and powerfully linked to the greater world—just like the people who choose it to harness their own activist power” (xiii). Therefore, collage, and crafting as a category, is “a tool that transcends geography and time. It is a tool of change—and for change” (xiii). Creating The Wars Within has significantly intensified my appreciation of collage as a medium for artistic and social critique. Through its ability to contrast, fragment, and reconstruct, collage captures the essence of dissent, offering a powerful way for artists and makers to challenge established norms. Throughout the semester, I have developed a profound appreciation for the parallels between the act of crafting and Plath’s narrative of confinement and rebellion. The process of assembling disparate elements into a cohesive whole allowed me to reflect on Esther Greenwood’s internal struggle to construct an identity beyond the rigid confines of societal expectations. By immersing myself in the physical act of carving the linocut, arranging the collage, and typesetting the quotation, I engaged directly with Plath’s themes, experiencing firsthand the tension between self-expression and a lack of control over the outcome. As a medium and a metaphor, collage powerfully underscores the novel’s critique of the restrictive roles imposed on women while simultaneously offering a space for redefinition and reclamation. The Wars Within serves as both a tribute to Plath’s work and an exploration of the enduring struggle for autonomy and self-definition, demonstrating how the concept of making fosters understanding and provokes meaningful dialogue. Through this project, I not only came to understand the timeless relevance of Plath’s far-reaching critique but also recognized the transformative potential of crafting as an act of resistance.
• "A terrible newspaper headline" / "The Bell Jar"
  This artificial newspaper reconstructs the clippings that recount Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel. For the collages, I took the newspaper images described alongside the headlines in the text and portrayed them in a conceptual manner that incorporated the novel’s central themes. I typeset the headlines by hand, printed them on UVic Libraries’ Vandercook printing press, and then scanned everything to arrange it digitally into the form of a 1950s newspaper’s front page. Crafting this newspaper urged me to meditate on the symbolism of print media in The Bell Jar, as Esther struggles with her ambitions for the future, her mental health treatment options, and the social demands on young women to be modest and domestic as well as sexually enticing. This newspaper represents Esther’s metaphorical bell jar and the media’s reality-distorting role in producing and maintaining that bell jar. BECKY TURNER ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: Using methods of collage, typesetting, and digital arrangement, I crafted this 1950’s newspaper that recreates the clippings recounting Esther Greenwood’s suicide attempt in Plath’s novel (The Bell Jar 198–99). The crafting process reminded me of the subjectivity of media; every decision I made—about type font, which magazines to use, and which images looked best together—influenced the overall presentation and its perception by viewers. Typesetting was very enjoyable, but it brought to mind the invisible decisions that go into the production of a text. To Esther, her portrayal in the magazines told her she was nothing more than a “scholarship girl” in fancy clothing (198). Much of Esther’s sense of self is tied to the magazines, newspapers, and tabloids she reads, which contributes to her distorted perspective of reality. In collaging the images, I had the opportunity to think about the pressure on women to be attractive, healthy, happy, and maternal—or, in other words, to be the perfect housewife. By synthesizing these demands into the collages, I created a newspaper that represents the reality-distorting, metaphorical bell jar over Esther’s head. Through my crafting journey, I explored the history of printing, the origins of collage, and the connections of these crafts to The Bell Jar and Sylvia Plath’s own life. Historically, printing was a field dominated by men. Women were told that their “professional incompetence,” both physically and intellectually, barred them from being able to compose lines of type or operate a letterpress (Betts 21). This rationale was completely false, as the records we have of women in printing prove that they had no such problems (21); however, because women were rarely allowed to be in official unions or have their printing recognized, there is a historical lack of these records documenting women’s work (Battershill 13). When women were allowed into the occupation, it was often because their husband or father had died, and someone was needed to replace them (12–13). Moreover, women were rarely paid fair wages (Betts 23). As printing became more automated, it developed a reputation as an artisanal craft (141) for the women “who were denied access to [it] for centuries” (13). The modern letterpress community relies heavily on group support and sharing to preserve the knowledge needed to restore and operate machines. Today, we can learn how to engage with this historically masculinized craft in a feminist, amateur way (Battershill 10). Through engaging in the generative printer-press relationship that is inherent in the use of a letterpress (Betts), we can honour our own participation in the process and the legacy of women forgotten by history. A collage is “a work made by assembling various forms to create a new whole” (Adibi 1). It was invented alongside paper itself, but since then has utilized many crafting forms beyond paper, including painting, wood work, architecture, and music (2–5). Nowadays, most collage work is conducted by hobbyists. Collaging requires its creator to trust the process and take risks as they paste images together. It is a messy, imaginative, and inspiring process that opens up pathways to think about images and themes in texts and the ways in which they can be portrayed. This form of invention boosts self-confidence and creativity (7), and allows for the creator to develop a more critical view of spaces (13). It also led to the art of décollage, in which layers are torn away to reveal something underneath. In décollage, the artist must trust themselves to rip and tear the paper to reveal a better final image. The idea of stripping away parts of oneself can be either toxic or empowering, in the same way that pasting layer upon layer can create either a beautiful culmination of art or a mess of secrets. In this way, collage becomes a metaphor for growth, development, and the formation of identity. Sylvia Plath was a talented American poet who struggled with her mental health, and one month after releasing her first novel, The Bell Jar, she killed herself (Poetry Fndn 4). The novel was originally published in 1963 in England under the pseudonym “Victoria Lucas.” Plath’s mother fought the publication of The Bell Jar in the United States until 1971, fearing that it would upset those who had inspired characters, and some accounts say that even Plath did not think of the novel as serious work (Smith 92). Once it did become available in the US, the novel quickly rose on the New York Times best-seller list and has remained popular since then, although the initial reception in England was only modest (93–94). Plath discusses gender roles and social expectations for a young woman’s career, relationships, and sexuality through a realist lens that accounts for the sociopolitical world of the 1950s. As feminist reviews of these concepts became more popular, Plath’s own life was conflated with that of her protagonist (95). Her suicide greatly influenced this reception of her book (Poetry Fndn 6). Feminist interpretations of the novel as a biography, as well as psychoanalytical readings, were not without merit, as Plath’s writing illustrates her struggle with depression. At the age of 20, she attempted to kill herself by swallowing sleeping pills (4). She survived and was treated with electroshock therapy, just like Esther in the novel. Mental health aspects aside, the novel expertly describes the pressures of “the mutually exclusive options of career and marriage/motherhood” in the 1950s and ‘60s (Smith 99). Plath likely experienced many of the same internal and social conflicts as Esther. There are four collages included in my mock newspaper. The first, under the headline “SCHOLARSHIP GIRL MISSING. MOTHER WORRIED,” is described as a “tarty” photo of Esther in her scholarship-money clothes, looking false and extravagant (The Bell Jar 198). The deconstructed face represents the lack of clarity and connection Esther feels with herself. Each of her idealized features is the epitome of beauty on its own, but together they form a monstrosity. The subtitles allude to her dissatisfaction in striving towards the unattainable ideals of womanhood. In another magazine from her time in New York, Esther looks as glamorous as the other girls in the program as she wears an evening dress and drinks a fancy cocktail (207). However, the image is posed and false, for she comments earlier that it is the sort of photo that would make everyone think she “must be having a real whirl” (2). The other collages employ ransom note-esque qualities with their cut-up letters. This technique draws attention to the demands that society makes of young women, and their harsh, threatening quality, such as the emphasis on marriage as the ultimate goal in the second collage. Esther worries that “maybe it was true that when you were married and had children it was like being brainwashed, and afterwards you went about numb as a slave,” for this is the image of marriage that surrounds her (85). The third collage contributes to Esther’s glorified perception of her disappearance with its storybook image of a search party in the woods, and the last collage deals with her suicidal tendencies, using the motifs of inadequate healthcare and escapism. “Crazy,” with a giant question mark, embodies the question marks that are “all [Esther] could see” at the end of the novel (243). She is healed, but will she stay that way? Her body is represented by a mummy that is interlaced with features of the ambulance; in this way, Esther becomes her own saviour. “I am, I am, I am,” declares “the old brag of [her] heart,” illuminating Esther’s resolution to continue despite everything (243). In creating this newspaper, I was able to understand the influence of the media on how mental health, social ideals, and stereotypical demands are depicted to the public. I came to appreciate the invisible efforts required to produce print media and the rich legacy behind such media. The precise order and organization of typesetting juxtaposed with the chaos and ongoing process of collaging reveal the different ways that form can relate to content. As Caroline Levine suggests in “The Affordances of Form,” we can understand the unpredictable consequences and reader interpretations of different forms colliding (8). I hope that in my exploration of media and social themes in The Bell Jar, I have guided readers to an understanding of issues from the 1950s that are still present today. Returning to the question of The Bell Jar as an autobiography, we might now consider Levine’s idea of treating “fictional narratives as productive thought experiments that allow us to imagine the subtle unfolding activity of multiple social forms” (19) and imagine Plath’s novel as the experimental representation of social conventions that she observed in her own life.
• Souvenirs / "The Little Prince"
  This series of postcards, letters, and photos represents an imagined collection of correspondence between the Little Prince and the Rose. Scrapbook, collage, and letterpress techniques transform the abstract lessons the Little Prince learns on his journey into tangible memories. The Little Prince collects and carries with him various items that represent his shifting perspective on life and willingness to grow. Each lesson embodies how wonder, connection, love, and loss can be felt and remembered through sensory experiences, whether through the physical act of carrying a letter in one’s pocket or the creation of a new bond. The meticulous act of deconstructing previous material into a new item (collage) and carefully typesetting letters together (letterpress) reflect how important life lessons require endurance, patience, trust, and the bravery to challenge preconceived notions. This series emphasizes how tactile engagement deepens our understanding of life’s most essential truths and provides souvenirs to carry with us. MELANIE TURUNEN ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: What we feel shapes how we understand the world—but what about what we touch? In The Little Prince, author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s poignant messages about love, friendship, and loss remind us that we can only truly see the world with our hearts, not our eyes. My project explores whether we can also perceive the world through our sensory experiences. Using postcards, letters, and photos, I create an imagined correspondence between the Prince and the Rose, employing scrapbook, collage, and letterpress techniques to transform the abstract lessons of his journey into tangible memories. Ultimately, my project explores how physical representations of emotional experiences help us better understand and connect with intangible concepts like love and wonder, offering deeper insight into the meaning of Saint-Exupéry’s text. The Little Prince was first published in French and English (translated by Katherine Woods) in April 1943 by Reynal & Hitchcock. Initially, The Little Prince received a modest reception, spending just two weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, compared to the success of Saint-Exupéry’s earlier work, Wind, Sand, and Stars. Critics were divided on whether the novella was meant for children or adults. Despite puzzled reviews, Reynal & Hitchcock claimed that the novella “[changed] the world forever for [its] readers” (Castronovo), and British journalist Neil Clark called it one “of the most profound observations on the human condition ever written” (Clark). By 2024, The Little Prince had sold over 140 million copies, making it the second-most-translated book in history, with over 550 translations. Adapted for film, radio, ballet, and other media, it remains celebrated for its deep reflections on love and life. The novella’s themes of imagination, wonder, and emotion lend themselves to various art forms, including scrapbooking. Scrapbooking originated in the sixteenth century with the album amicorum or “friendship book,” used primarily by “male aristocratic university students” (Day 564) to document their travels and studies. The “commonplace book,” another precursor, served as a personal repository of knowledge, quotes, and letters. By the late nineteenth century, with the rise of photography and the manufacture of decorative elements like ribbon and lace, scrapbooking evolved from a “predominantly textual to a more visual practice” (Day 562) used to document significant life events such as births, marriages, and travels. Scrapbooking enables artists—both historical and contemporary—to preserve fleeting moments, explore personal narratives, and experiment with mixed media. Through scrapbooking, I transform the Prince’s intangible feelings into concrete forms. When the Prince realizes he does not know how to love his Rose properly, he journeys across the universe, discovering the true meaning of friendship, love, and loss. I reimagine these themes as physical mementos kept in a travel scrapbook. Like the “commonplace books” of the past, my scrapbook becomes a repository of memories and emotions, combining pieces of the Prince’s journey (collage and letterpress) with my interpretations of the novella, much like how our memories accumulate and shape our understanding of the world. Just as the Prince learns that “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly” (Saint-Exupéry 87), my scrapbook invites viewers to engage with my project not just visually but also through touch and emotion, bringing abstract lessons to life in a personal and tangible way. Moreover, letterpress printing allowed me to explore the physicality of communication. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the mid-fifteenth century, letterpress printing revolutionized communication by enabling mass text production. All writing had previously been done by hand—a time-consuming and expensive process—but Gutenberg’s printing method made books, pamphlets, and personal letters more accessible. By the eighteenth century, letterpress printing was integral to communication, with organized postal systems supporting broader social correspondence and creating “communities of interest […] which previously would not have been possible to exist” (Meaney 6; Anderson). The physical impressions left on paper allow viewers to feel the texture of text and image, fostering an intimate connection between creator and recipient. The Rose’s letter to the Prince makes the lessons of love, connection, and growth tangible. The Rose reminds the Prince that he must “endure the presence of two or three caterpillars if [he wishes] to become acquainted with the butterflies” (Saint-Exupéry 40), teaching patience through hardship and uncertainty. I did not originally intend to incorporate letterpress into my project. However, as I typeset and inked my quote, I realized how letterpress—like love—requires us to arrange and rearrange, embracing mistakes and clarity to create something meaningful. Throughout the Prince’s tumultuous journey, he overcomes most caterpillars, “except the two of three that [he saves] to become butterflies” (87), showing how carrying a physical reminder of his strength helps him persevere. While emotions are immaterial and ephemeral, written communication allows us to physically hold onto them. Printing this letter showed me how tactile communication and engagement help us reflect on how we connect and grow through our interactions. Furthermore, collage demonstrates the Prince’s journey as he assembles new perspectives from old ones. While collage techniques date back to 200 BC, when paper was invented in China, the art form emerged in the tenth century when Japanese calligraphers “[applied] papers glued together to write poems” (Adibi 1). Collage spread to Europe by the thirteenth century, gaining popularity in the nineteenth century for creating “memorabilia such as photo albums and books” (Adibi 2). Collage allows artists, past and present, to explore human experiences by using fragments and layers to create visual narratives that reflect how our experiences shape our identities. Collage is central to my project, reflecting the Prince’s journey of transforming narrow, materialistic views into deeper lessons while preserving his innocence and wonder. By the end of the novella, his perspective is a collage of lessons, love, and loss. The two collage postcards represent the lessons that the Prince learns on his journey. The postcard from Asteroid-330 reflects the Geographer’s lesson on exploration and self-reliance, with the surreal image of making a bed in space symbolizing how the Prince must face challenges with wonder and courage. Upon arriving on Earth, surrounded by a vast desert, he realizes that “what makes the desert beautiful […] is that somewhere it hides a well” (Saint-Exupéry 93), illustrating how hidden challenges can be enlightening. The postcard from Asteroid-325 shows how the King’s authoritarian nature teaches the Prince that true connection requires understanding, not power. The gathering of people symbolizes how growth depends on friendship, connection, and seeking help. My project evolved as I worked on it, with the final addition being the collage letter from the Prince to the Rose. Made from cut-out letters and words, the letter demonstrates how time spent with something deepens our understanding of both the world and our relationships, whether with a loved one or a story. The letter is both a collage of the Prince’s personal growth and my journey of getting to know the novella through crafting. The larger collage image of the Prince and the Pilot symbolizes how the Prince’s final lesson about friendship is intertwined with loss and longing. The Pilot “lived [his] life alone” (3) before crashing his plane into a desert and meeting the Prince. Over eight days, they explore how the desert—representing life—can be both “beautiful (70) and “a little lonely” (72). As the pilot repairs his plane and the Prince’s journey ends, they realize that relationships require growing together, sometimes in different directions. The black-and-white collage background symbolizes Earth’s isolating and disenchanting nature, while the hole in the centre (a result of their friendship) allows colour and life to emerge. Together, the Pilot and the Prince overcome loneliness, filling their lives with imagination, innocence, and love. Tearing the magazine to create this photo was intimidating at first, but it soon taught me how the loss of something can lead to the creation of something else—something beautiful, meaningful, and full of potential. Lastly, the collage Polaroid of the Prince and the Rose captures the Prince’s realization that the Rose “has tamed [him]” (80), highlighting the deep emotional connection with and responsibility he feels toward her. The Prince’s love for the Rose develops gradually as he reflects on their relationship and the lessons from his travels. While my project focuses on making the intangible tangible, the Polaroid echoes the idea that “what is essential is invisible to the eye” (87). Despite being photographable and composed of physical matter, the night sky remains vast and unknowable. The silhouettes of the Prince and the Rose are cut from a night sky, displaying how their love, though represented through sensory experiences and physical correspondence, cannot be fully understood through mere sensory perception. The Prince and the Rose’s bond exists beyond the visible world, where true connection transcends sight, touch, and articulation. While love can be explored through collage and letterpress, it ultimately resides in a space that only the heart can truly understand. The collaborative nature of my project reflects the Prince’s journey of piecing together lessons, mirroring my engagement with The Little Prince. By assembling fragments into a coherent whole, my scrapbook helped me explore how sensory engagement can deepen our understanding of complex ideas and uncover insights missed in previous experiences. Through my transforming the Prince’s emotions into physical objects, the abstract concepts of the novella became more concrete to me, from the nature of love to the value of hands-on, tactile learning. As we learn to love our own Roses, it is through caring for them and attempting to make the night sky a bit more tangible that we may come to grasp the depth and ineffability of love.
• Three Cups of Tea / "Under the Whispering Door"
  I combined both letterpress and linocut techniques to create this piece. Both art forms use ink and paper to create impressions. My final piece relied on formatting the quotation’s text on the letterpress first. I chose 24-point Tiffany font for the quotation because it first appears in the novel handwritten on a chalkboard (Klune 44). Located above the quotation is an image of my hand-carved linocut of a teacup on a plate decorated with intricate leaves. On the teacup is an elk’s outline, which is a symbol used throughout Under the Whispering Door to represent death. Using an ink roller, I applied black ink to the surface of the linoleum block then carefully laid the paper down onto the inked surface and applied direct pressure. This piece is meant to reflect the careful attention to detail that Klune practiced when developing character relationships within his novel. KYRA HETHERINGTON ON WHAT THIS CRAFTED OBJECT TEACHES US: In T.J. Klune’s fifth standalone novel, Under the Whispering Door, the author explores concepts of death and grief while reflecting on what it means to be human. The protagonist, Wallace, is initially depicted as a coldhearted “monster” (9), and his ex-wife describes him at his funeral as a man who was “obstinate, foolhardy, and cared only for himself” (19). When Wallace arrives at a teashop that acts as a waypoint for “those who have left one life in preparation for another” (55), he notices a chalkboard that reads: The first time you share tea, you are a stranger. The second time you share tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you share tea, you are family. (44) This quotation outlines Wallace’s growth throughout the novel and defines the quality of the relationships he fosters because “when you take tea with someone, it’s intimate and quiet” (326). The quotation in my print is an anchor point for Wallace’s character growth. However, it is essential to note that the quote does not originate from this novel. Frequently, it is attributed to Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time (2006), which was partially the inspiration for the title of this print. In Under the Whispering Door, Hugo, the ferryman, informs Wallace that it is “a Balti quote” (Klune 326). It is difficult to find an origin source for this Pakistani proverb; it serves as a reminder of the importance of slowing down to prioritize relationships and others. It is not solely about drinking tea. Instead, offering tea is important for those with few resources because it is a small sacrifice made to show hospitality to strangers and honour to friends. I attributed the quote to T.J. Klune in the “Three Cups of Tea” print to focus on the quotation’s physical appearance in the novel. The quotation “written in spiky and slanted letters” (44) on the chalkboard in the teashop appears in a different font in the physical text of the novel. My chosen font emulates the description of the letters as they appear handwritten, with a slanting, scratchy quality. By selecting the Tiffany letterpress font, I hoped that my print of the quotation would embody a personal, handwritten quality. The teacup block print above the quotation incorporates the whimsical quality of the hand-drawn “little deer and squirrels and birds on the chalkboard in green and blue chalk” (43) surrounding the quotation. The linocut image also serves as a reference to the broader theme of death in the novel, featuring a stag in the center to represent “the manager,” a character who appears in the form of a large stag with “flowers hanging from the antlers, their roots embedded into the velvet, blossoms in shades of ochre and fuchsia, cerulean and scarlet, canary and magenta” (261). This character is a “grand thing that oversees life and death, delegating the responsibilities to others” (267) and serves as a tool for forward momentum in the novel. The initial success of Under the Whispering Door was partially due to the popularity of T.J. Klune’s previous works and his ability as a queer author to portray positive queer stories accurately. The novel was a New York Times and USA Today bestseller and featured on “Buzzfeed’s Best Books of 2022” due to its later release in September 2021. Regarding critical reception, this novel tends to fly under the radar. The novel appears to have a small but passionate fanbase admiring that it “is a tender story that nimbly touches on the many facets and stages of grief without feeling too saccharine” (Quinn 2023). However, it is considered one of Klune’s lesser-known works. As a contemporary fantasy novel, Under the Whispering Door is didactic, and the story’s moral is transparent. The characters’ interactions provide a humorous respite from otherwise complex subjects (grief and death), and, overall, the novel offers a straightforward message about the value of life and time. The final form of the linocut block and letterpress print reflects the novel’s characteristic simplicity while concurrently representing the time and energy required to produce art—in any format. “Letterpress is the oldest of the traditional printing techniques” (Britannica) and the foundation for the modern-day digital printing presses that produced the physical copies of Under the Whispering Door. To print the quotation on paper, I needed to assemble the text letter by letter, line by line, with small lead pieces to create an ink-bearing surface. In practice, this process is like writing a novel, where each word is thoughtfully written, carefully checked, and evaluated before going to print. Producing a contemporary quotation through a 15th-century art form highlights the consistent nature of human progress that still relies on previous technologies and understandings. Without the practice of the letterpress, there would be no modern novel as we know it. Making the linocut block portion of the print image was similar to process of letterpress printing. Artists began using linoleum as a medium to produce relief prints starting in the 1890s (Fowler). Before this time, artists used wood blocks or stone, but the mediums were unwieldy and difficult to carve. I used a smooth, flexible linoleum and the necessary carving tools, which I easily ordered from Amazon, to create the image. Carving the linoleum still takes time and effort, but the accessibility of the craft makes the process much smoother (and safer) than in earlier eras. The design of the final inked image is deceptively simple, but the process of creating it from start to finish took upwards of four hours. This time included drawing, carving, and quick touch-ups to avoid transferring unwanted ink portions onto the page. Through the creation of my “Three Cups of Tea” print, I reflected on how similar the processes of writing a novel, carving linoleum, and assembling letters can be. All three crafts require an intense dedication to detail and demand time, patience, and effort from the artist. All three art forms appear deceptively simple, and it can be easy to disregard the work required to produce them. The final print version of “Three Cups of Tea” took me 10 hours of active work to complete and could be read and understood in a handful of minutes. Similarly, novels take countless hours to create and finish (including editing and printing time). Creating this print helped me connect the character development in Klune’s novel to my understanding of contemporary forms. While the final product can make the process seem deceptively simple, there is typically a tremendous amount of physical and mental energy required to produce something that leaves a lasting impression.