Dear John - "The Disinherited"

Dear John \ - jän\ n (ca. 1945) : a letter (as to a soldier) in which a wife asks for a divorce or a girlfriend breaks off an engagement or a friendship.

Dear John is comprised of a total of 152 pages from a book called Stories by Elizabeth Bowen, published in 1959. Each page is covered in watercolor and mineral pigment except for the selected words and sentences. Covering the words meant uncovering my deepest feelings at that time, making unspoken feelings visible. 

I started covering words on these book pages shortly after I received a letter from my ex-husband asking to end our marriage. Strangely, he did not use the word, "divorce" in his letter. 

I was at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire when I received this letter right after Christmas. I had two studios there; a printmaking studio and a large studio to work on installation. At night, I retrieved myself to a large studio up on the hill. I opened this book, and started covering pages. I did that every night at MacDowell, and continued on at Centrum in Port Townsend in Washington where I went for a month after MacDowell Colony.

I remember the time especially in Port Townsend as profoundly lonely period in a lonely place. 

I was the only artist at at the residency for the first two weeks. The property was located in the Fort Worden State Park in the Victorian seaport of Port Townsend, which is perched at the northeast tip of Washington's Olympic Peninsula. You literally feel like you are at the edge of the earth. It was January. It's mostly grey and rainy in Washington in January. I walked a lot. I walked to the town along the beach during the low tide. I walked around the fort, and walked back and forth between the studio and my little cabin. 

This was my first chapter. It has 22 pages. I'll just extract words from the first five pages and show you those pages. 

                                                                                    A lover

might contemplate the idea of death.

                        green.

                                                                                   brick-red

                                                                              shallow river

   a  better green

                        Sometimes a swan,

away from wherever she might be living,

                he was up there constantly,

                        Her existence was temporary;

mortification and dullness ravaged her. But, at twenty-

nine, she had no more money of any kind; she had run

through her capital; love-affairs and her other expensive

habits had ruined her.

                                                                          of impatience,

she had had really, at one time, every control,

                                    dead,

                                                been loved,

this dull, pink wife

                       

                                                            touch

                                                              all

                                                               her

                                                            less

                                                                       

smile, could be enchanting,

                                                She

            to lovers whom her appearance beguiled.

                                                                                    pale and

                                                                                   blue-pink

the stigmata of intellectual

                                                , but the room had no pulse

to ill health.

                                                                                         happiest

     work in connection

                          dined in hall                                         Once or

            the Art Club. Life here was full of interest,

                                                            After twelve years of mar-

riage his wife still charmed him with her serenity, mild

good spirits, and love of home.

                                    He had been with Mrs.

                           good old Robinson died.

                                                                        make love to the

maids, or expect beer.

                  he was tucking her into the car,

                    he drove,

                                his face was always shadowless,

The only look he gave you was level and unmoving.

Though she got all she paid for, she could not feel he was

hers.

he was,

of death. . . .

simply

                                                Her own nights were

                                                Of dyspepsia,      long bed-

.