ar
A collaboration between Cyrilla Mozenter & Philip Perkis
ZOOM BOOK LAUNCH for ar on November 5th at 12pm - REGISTER HERE.
Somehow, in this marvelous collaboration, the words and the images rhyme. Here and there the words probe the edges of terror, while the forms put forth the argument of innocence. Actually, so do the words, while the felt forms carry a disquiet of their own. Also, some words and some letters enter the forms and become forms themselves. Does the word “innocence” apply? I believe it does, but only with the un-derstanding that innocence can’t be understood, and that innocence is not small. “Tenderness” applies. “Beauty” applies. “Humor” applies. There is a story in this book too, the story of a marriage. The story involves cats. At the very end, unaccountably, a dog’s voice chimes in.
— Joel Agee, author
Mozenter’s cut letters and shapes are an eye chart; they test our vision. Perkis’ words are stitched together with precision and awe, like Mozenter’s felt. “If I could only do it over I would do it right.” But “wrong” holds magic. Intuition is beauty. Love is the strongest bond.
— Gail Buckland, curator, author, educator
In ar, Philip and Cyrilla draw us into a world we’re unaware of until we find ourselves there. In the way the spareness and elegance of Cyrilla’s felts harmonize with Philip’s gracile utterances, we come to understand how fragments make a whole. What is missing is what is there. And because we have to fill — with our imaginations — the absences, it is finally we who are there. ar is a moving and profound experience. It is a beautiful book.
— Paul Kane, poet