Liminality
The Ramp, as it is colloquially known to CFA students, is one of the most peculiar and fascinating spots on campus. I think what makes it so interesting to me is that BU hasn’t figured out how to make money off it yet, so it just sits there. Once they realize some revenue potential, they’ll turn it into a slip-n-slide or something. For now, it just collects detritus from staff and students. It’s a fascinating collection of artifacts on the ramp ranging from abandoned fine art projects to boxes of ceiling tiles and air filters. It seems like this is the place people go to leave things they don’t need now but may want later.
I have spent hours and hours wandering the ramp now, and even though I’m usually the only person there, I do occasionally cross paths with other pilgrims: a COM student playing guitar, an a cappella group rehearsing, an undergrad assembling a sculpture, a custodian exiting her closet. Even when I see no one (which is more common than not) there is still evidence of activity. A new graffiti tag here, a smashed television there. I try to go every day so I can see what has changed overnight. I find myself imagining who might have left the bottle of Fiji water on the fifth floor or who repositioned the little oil painting on the third floor. It’s interesting how much I want there to be a narrative behind every weird little detail. I want the graffiti to have meaning, but I’m sure a lot of it doesn’t.
I spent the whole month of October 2020 drawing creatures from Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. I became intimately familiar with that painting, eventually drawing over 60 of the odd little animals and people. I watched a BBC documentary about Bosch that fall and I was really amused by the narrator attempting to ascribe meaning and gravitas to images that are patently and deliberately absurd.
“We may never know what Bosch meant by depicting this sort of bird creature with a cauldron on its head.” He said in his posh accent. “Or this human posterior excreting coins into a pit of fire.”
I thought Bosch would have probably laughed at this documentary. There was no humor or whimsy in its tone at all, at least not intentionally. I was really attracted to the idea of treating the ramp in the same way. I wanted to act as if this was a sacred and deliberate space teeming with meaning, not just a collection of absurd little creatures. At this point I’ve drawn, scanned, image traced, laser cut, etched, assembled, and glued these graffiti. What may have taken the vandal three minutes to paint, I’ve spent hours with. By now I know this material better than the people who invented it.
Art history fans may notice some other references in the altarpiece in addition to Bosch. The first panel in particular contains references to Rafael and Masaccio. My stance is modeled on Plato in the School of Athens. I am pointing to the graffiti above me, indicating its status as the true authority over the earthly signage in the lower portion. The composition of the work draws from Masaccio. My head is the vanishing point of the panel’s perspective, where all lines converge. I thought this composition was most appropriate given what I was attempting to emulate.
Some elements of the first panel were inspired by Van Der Weyden’s Deposition wherein the skull underfoot represents Christ triumphing over death. In the same way, the signage pictured under my foot represents a disregard for institutional authority in favor of the “divine” authority of the common people.
This semester I am in a Baroque art history course. Eight of the ten students are Masters or PHD candidates in art history. The other two are me and Shuning Ren (both graphic design MFA students). Most of the time I feel utterly outclassed by the knowledge of my classmates, but I do think there is something to be said for being a maker. As someone who creates art, I have a slightly different perspective and I wonder if art history academics are over-analyzing certain things. Not every work of art is perfectly deliberate. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Sometimes a human posterior excreting coins into a pit of fire is just that. Maybe staring at it and talking about it at depth is part of the joke and if you’re analyzing rather than experiencing, maybe you’re the posterior of the joke.
I wrote a little documentary script inspired by the ramp in the formal, academic style of the BBC. I think it does a good job of explaining what makes the ramp such an uncannily liminal space. It also introduces the idea of the ramp as a church, an idea which is central to my final project; the Altarpiece.
Documentary Script:
Since 1927, the Thomas Fuller Building has stood on the corner of Commonwealth Avenue and Essex Street. Once part of Boston’s Automobile Row, the building now belongs to Boston University and serves as the home to its College of Fine Arts.
The first floor, which was once a Cadillac showroom is now a gallery. What were once offices are now classrooms. But some areas of the building did not lend themselves to academics so easily, and are still trapped in the past. Tucked between the lecture halls and studios are abandoned elevator shafts and empty corridors. But the strangest, most purgatorial space of them all is here behind these doors; the auto-ramp.
As it stands, the ramp serves no real purpose, having been long alienated from its original context. It is trapped in the peculiar liminal realm between its intended function and its modern aimlessness.
The ramp takes up significant real-estate, stretching across nearly a quarter of the building and winding from the basement up to the fifth floor. Though the ramp is strictly off-limits, it will surprise no one that the authority signage is no deterrent to the prying eyes of art students, especially with the miles of blank walls offering a tempting tabula rasa for the eager hands of budding artists.
One’s first impressions of the ramp are that it resembles a sort of cathedral. Its big hollow causeways provide exquisite acoustics, and its tall windows allow for dramatic light shows on the floors and walls. And of course, Much like a medieval cathedral, the whole space is covered floor to ceiling with anonymous and eerie artwork.
As it were, the uncanny sacred spirit of the place is not lost on the students who rumor has it have founded a sort of clandestine cult dedicated to the mystifying graffiti that covers these walls. Like any cult, their goings-on are opaque to us outsiders. They are said to meet on the fifth floor at the top of the ramp to carry out their own set of sacraments. What that entails is a secret held closely by initiates.
From the outside all we can do is to observe the graffiti and, like the illiterate congregation of a medieval church, invent our own sacred narratives. What was meant by this crying pot-bellied cat? Or this silly specter? Or these grinning toadstools? We may never know.
What can be surmised, however, is the intention behind the cult. University life in the age of COVID-19 is more constrained by authority than it has been in ages. The world outside the ramp is plastered with signage; instructions on where to walk and stand, and what to wear. Here, there is freedom from that authority. The signs here are ethical maxims and commandments written by the students for the students. On the ramp, you are only told “Believe Women”, “it’s ok 2 b gay”, “know yourself, be yourself, love your neighbor”. If these are the official doctrines of the church of the ramp, we can rest assured it is a loving and peaceable religion indeed.
THE ALTARPIECE
Once the Liminality project was introduced, I knew I wanted to do something with the ramp. I was worried Professor Grady would discourage me from the idea because the ramp is technically off-limits, so I gathered all the source material I might need before bringing the idea to him. I was unsure what to do with the ramp but I was immediately attracted to the notions of authority and anti-authority language. On the ramp there are two types of writing: things like “STOP AT RED LIGHT” “NO PARKING” “DANGEROUS TO WALK ON RAMP” and graffiti saying things like “wish you were gay!” and “teehee butts”. I was really interested in that contrast and I thought there was some room to work with typographic forms contrasting that content.
I spent a good deal of time just meandering on the ramp ideating, but the idea came to me when I was standing outside the doors on the fourth floor. The ramp’s double-doors, I thought, resemble the outside of a triptych. Behind the doors was an odd, liminal world inhabited by eerie creatures. It was like Bosch’s painting that I love so much. So I decided to make a triptych as a continuation of my series dedicated to 808 Comm. Ave.
When I was first applying to BU, I had a phone call with Julian Parikh. I asked them “what’s the one thing you wish you had known before starting the MFA program?”
“I wish I had known about EPIC.” Julian said. “I would have utilized it so much more.
This project felt like the right time to experiment there. I found the laser cutters to be extremely intuitive and easy to use. Frankly I find it easier than printing on our godforsaken printers here in the design studio.
Once I was comfortable with the machines, I decided to get experimental. I figured I could cut the same shapes out of several colors and then piece it all together like a puzzle. As it were, my idea worked extremely well, and the assembly process turned into a collaborative game with Hannah, Jesse, Tiana, and Sophia all eager to lend their hands. After wood burning, etching, laser cutting, and gluing, I worked with Gus Wheeler to assemble the whole thing in the woodshop.
This project represents a full integration of illustration and graphic design (plus a dash of carpentry). I’m so thrilled with this project and I’m excited to continue working with these new media. I have grand plans to assemble a stained glass window out of acrylic now that I have the requisite skillset. Unfortunately, it will have to wait for the fall, but I have something to look forward to.
Yesterday, I asked Professor Zell (of my Baroque art history class) if I could bring the Altarpiece to our last class since I figured the art history students would get a kick out of it. “PLEASE do. Fantastic!” said his email reply. In person, Zell (an expert in Dutch art) reflected on its resemblance to the Garden of Earthly Delights in ways I hadn’t actually realized. “The first panel” he said “is creation. It is man alone with the divine will.” “Ohhhh” I said. “Riiiight.” To be honest, the first panel was the only one that wasn’t inspired by Bosch, but I am accepting his interpretation as canon.