Creator
Cari Ferraro
Title
The First Writing
Coverage
San Jose, CA
Publisher
Prose and Letters
Date
2004, no. 38 of an edition of 50, signed by the artist
Subject
Accordion book based on a unique painted book by the artist.
Description
Calligrapher Cari Ferraro writes: “I was inspired to create this book by the work of archeologist Marija Gimbutas, whose theory was that the first writing actually predated Sumerian businessmen by a few thousand years, and instead grew out of symbolic marks on ritual objects made to venerate the Great Mother in Old Europe. … I invented an alphabet style based on Marija’s catalog of marks, and in the background of the paste paper used symbols found in the 5000-year-old passage grave Newgrange in Ireland …” From the artist’s website, December 2023.