Verloren an ongoing photo series by Rebecca Loyche @ 2018
Verloren, a photo series that captures the disappearing tradition and intimacy of inscribing books and giving them as gifts. For a couple of years now, I have been collecting and finding books with inscriptions in them at estate
sales, used book stores, tag sales and free little libraries. These earnest writings leave traces of relationships that happened and have now passed. The found inscription opens up your imagination about both the dedicator and the
receiver, like finding a secret note. By analyzing handwriting you can also tell a lot about the wordsmith, from the tiny decorative cursive slanting to the right,
which reveals the shyness of a young woman in love or the written precision of sage words of a poetic inscriber on a solemn book.
There is also a tension between the book title and what is inscribed. One
book found in a used book tent has a page length confession of a young man’s bountiful love, his lettering exuberant and loopy and the ink on the page
slightly jagged coming from a cheap ballpoint pen. His jovial proclamation to a
woman named Jenny comes inside the book CATTLE An Informal Social History. Each book is shot in color digitally and splayed open clearly showing the
inscription, the backgrounds are found fabrics, clothing, and wallpaper. For my great, great aunt’s Heart Throbs book, the background is her favorite summer
dress. Printed larger than life, the details of handwriting, discolored paper, pen choices is highlighted in each photograph. The title of each image is the book title, Beau Ideal, The Gates of the Forest, Intra Muras etc. The images show the
wear and tear of time and act like a silent memorial to a moment in two people’s lives that has past. These books meant something to people at one time, to gift them, to write a personal message or advice, to perhaps cherish and now have been discarded.
Heart Throbs
The Gates of the Forest
The Boston Cooking School Cook Book
Intra Muros
Cattle- An Informal Social History
Sleeping Beauty
Sander's Union Fourth Reader
The Seraglio
Chips from Thackeray
The Love Nest and other stories
Beau Ideal
The Nature Of Reality
The Secret of the Ages
Mother Goose
Darkness
www.rebeccaloyche.com Rebecca Loyche © 2018