Curriculum

I thought some of you might be interested to see this first rough-cut of a complete book sequence, based on the "university windows" images. To organise the sequence a bit, I have revived an old idea from my first series (which tracked a stream that runs through our campus) i.e. the three parts of the mediaeval university curriculum, the so-called "trivium" of Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric.



This is still very much a first draft -- anything could change, and probably will. However, I'm acutely aware that there are two great and opposing vices in this sort of project. The first is the boredom induced by familarity. That is, it's very easy to chuck out good but over-familar old stuff in favour of the excitement of novelty. The second is misplaced loyalty to things that are not working any more. It's tempting to continually rework the entire book around images (and combinations of images) that can seem set in stone.

The main thing I'm working on is the rhythm of the sequence. I want the viewer's eye to be carried along, intrigued and refreshed by a network of patterns of shape, size, colour and subject, and I also want this patterning to relate to the three part "music" of the overall theme. Ambitious, but... "Fail again, fail better", as we like to say.