Of all the works we’ve read this semester, Lynda Barry’s One-Hundred Demons seems the most
concerned with reaching out to its audience. The introduction with its labeled
drawing of Berry’s studio, the collage-style title pages to each chapter, the
final section explaining how readers might go about painting their own demons,
all of these things made this feel like a bit of a textbook or how-to manual,
which is strange considering that most of this book is an intensely personal
account of one woman’s experiences. Nonetheless, I often felt that Barry was
trying to speak to each of us personally, suggesting that art is a mechanism
that can help people, and positioning the book as a kind of method for social
change.
Style plays a huge part in this. Barry insists on texture
throughout the book, emphasizing collage, glitter, folded paper, etc. Even
though the pages of this book are flat, the texture of the artwork is so vivid
that it’s impossible not to be aware of it. Even the sweeping lines of her ink
stone method have a sense of tactility to them. The embellishments of the title
pages feel almost like gifts, like handmade cards given to the reader, and this
imbues the chapters themselves with a sense of intimacy, as if they were part
of a personal letter.
The result of this approach was that, for me, I felt a
strange sense of gratitude while reading this book. Also, as when receiving a
letter from a friend, I did feel a sense of obligation: I felt like I should
write back. If we take the final section at face value, this is exactly what
Barry wants: for her readers to pick up their own brushes and to write back.
I’m left, though, with a few questions: 1). Does the focus on audience cloak
Barry’s own life story? In other words, does it operate as a kind of
misdirection? 2). I think we are meant to infer that Barry has benefited from
this project, but in what ways? If we all go out and pick up our own brushes,
do we have a clear sense of how the world will change, at least from Barry’s
perspective? 3). To what degree is this approach gendered, and does that
influence the ways that we interpret its message?
Overall, the place audience occupies in this work, and the
ways in which the emphasis on texture brings process to the forefront suggest
some interesting things regarding the potential for graphic narratives to
impact wider social change.
I was surprised about the last call to action to draw your own demon. It wasn't until the last few "demons" that writing became a subject. It did tie together with the prologue of her finding a book of drawing demons and then deciding to draw her own. The book also drew (ha!) attention to itself as a created object responding to a prompt. I didn't know at first what the over-arching narrative was, except for the demon conceit. Now that I've thought about it, it seems like it was an empowerment narrative. On some level, this was about becoming an artist, becoming a writer, learning to love oneself despite the flaws, and the authorial empowerment of exercising "demons." It makes sense that the best ending to an empowerment narrative is empowering the reader. It was just the last level of empowerment left.
ReplyDeleteJuli,
ReplyDeleteI have actually been doing a significant amount of research on collage as an artistic style in preparation for my seminar paper. What I have found most interesting about collage is the political nature of its history. Collage started out as a hobby predominantly enjoyed by housewives and children, but it eventually became weaponized by artists who utilized the techniques of collage to critique established traditions such as value of common objects and the primacy of realistic art styles. Using paper, paste, and other objects typically considered as waste materials allowed many artists argue through their works that art is not the privilege of the talented elite.
Thinking about this history of the collage technique in relation to One Hundred Demons, I think that the combination of Barry's simplistic, childlike drawing style with the collage elements engages in the same artistic movement to attempt to democratize art as a form of expression accessible to all. While I'm hesitant to read this move as gendered, many of the articles I read while I was preparing for my presentation on One Hundred Demons proposed that exact reading of Barry's style, arguing that it serves as a feminist critique of the male-dominated comics industry. Still, I think that the use of collage helps produce that invitational feeling you described in your post. I think Barry wanted readers to feel like art belongs to them as much as it does to artists, and that the benefit of the project for Barry is that it allows her to show value for all of her experiences, even the ugly ones.
Thinking of the history of collage is so interesting with this book, and I agree with you, Brittaney--it seems both to be politicizing the content at the base of the medium and at the same time using that medium to invite in, to welcome. The gestures seem almost in opposition to me. Even now, collage is one of the first media young people learn in school--cutting up magazines, getting your hands all sticky with glue, glitter usually close by as well. Something that's also interesting to me about these collage chapter-headings is how much they look like pages in a scrapbook. Not just re-purposing scraps from the world, but re-purposing photographs, personal memorabilia. As much as the demon pages invite the readers in, they also show a personal life to which we can never access, often leaving us guessing at certain photographs, ages, etc. Barry takes the very thing that made collage political and turns it back in on itself, taking collage back to its origins--to archive, to "craft," and to play.
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