July 29, 2002
Mark Van Stone Update

Mark Van Stone writes from Southwestern College in Imperial Beach, California, where he is teaching:

" Lately, I have been working with the architects of the new Library here at SWC, and the facade now is adorned with a single glyph --NAH-hi-ITZAMNAAJ-ji--derived ultimately from the glyph on Quirigua Stela D (in the "Three Stone Thrones" creation passage), but rendered in a calligraphic style that owes most of its inspiration to Palenque's Panel of 96 Glyphs..."

"Sandblasted (not deeply, but tinted for legibility in the shade) fourteen times, each twelve feet square, filling the entire middle floor of the front facade. My drawings have never been rendered on so public a scale before. The job will be concluded by a "smoke-entered" building-dedication text in the same style (dated 12.19.10.0.0 /14 Feb 2003, with all 25 glyphs fitting into a space the size of an elevator door -- 4 x 8 ft... Just above the entry elevator on the outside by the front door) once I finish rendering it in Illustrator, so the template can be CAD/CAM-cut for the sandblasting. That's how I have been spending my summer "vacation"... . I'll send a photo of the facade when I get them developed. A different artist's rendition of "Itzamna" (taken from that Interpreting Maya Glyphs book by that Italian educator) will be cut next month twenty feet high on the exterior elevator shaft, at the same time as my dedication text. By the time this is done, it will be the most glyph-covered building in California, I think, or maybe the USA. Do you know of others? Besides the Nowlin House in Austin, I cannot think of an example to rival it. But that is no doubt more due to my limited awareness of these latter-day things than anything... ."

Posted by Dave at July 29, 2002 07:45 PM