Travel through the Fort Pitt Tunnel and across the Fort Pitt Bridge, and then back and forth a few times across the Monongahela River with this ink illustration created with a portable 1957 Smith-Corona Skyriter typewriter. The destination: Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art.
Pittsburgh-based British conceptual artist Lenka Clayton has created more than 200 typewriter drawings on letter-size sheets of paper. CMoA commissioned this piece, titled Cross a Bridge, for the 57th Carnegie International in 2018.
Create your own typewriter drawing. Where do you want to travel to? In 2020, she described her process:
“My role, just like the role of the secretary since typewriters were invented, was to listen, and transcribe these moments using the typewriter, though in my case as drawings using the letter and punctuation keys instead of typed pages of text.”
Clayton’s typewriter drawings have become more detailed in recent years. Follow her on Instagram for more work:
Previously from Clayton: The Distance I Can Be From My Son and People In Order (2006).
Plus, more bridges and typewriters on TKSST:
• G-AAAH, a typewritten tribute to aviator Amy Johnson
• The Typewriter, performed with an orchestra
• How to make Leonardo da Vinci’s self-supporting bridge
• A Chorus of Keys – Beats with old keyboards & typewriters
• Spaghetti bridges, a DIY engineering activity for kids (and adults)
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