Picked up Rosamund Purcell’s Owls Head on a whim, since she did the lovely photographs for Ricky Jay’s Dice: Deception, Fate, and Rotten Luck.
It turns out that Purcell is a wonderful writer, too, and this book, about her years excavating the extraordinary accumulation of objects collected by William Buckminster, is tailor-made to delight me. How things lose definition as they decay, how they transform. What kind of person amasses this kind of collection. What is useful, what is beautiful. What’s trash. What’s valuable. Who decides.
I did some searching, and discovered that crowleycrow is also a Purcell admirer, and is writing (or maybe he’s finished it by now?) an essay about her work. Not sure where it will appear, but I’ll be tracking it down too.
bondgwendabond
January 7, 2007 at 6:11 amRosamond Purcell is SO wonderful. Definitely look up her other books. Well worth it.
justine
October 2, 2007 at 11:02 amdoes anyone know if Purcell is still living and working? and if so where?
sara
October 4, 2007 at 10:38 amPurcell did a talk a few weeks back at Virginia Commonwealth University. On the school’s event calendar, Ms. Mary C Eisendrath, mceisendrath@vcu.edu, was listed as the contact for Purcell’s event, so I bet she could also find you the contact information for Purcell herself. :)