Some Stairs: Part II (Leading Stairs)

[This is the second in a series of posts by Joy Drury Cox. You can read Part I here.]

A lot of my work deals with standard forms. I collect paper ephemera like guest checks and job applications. These documents usually display lines and boxes waiting to be filled. I’m interested in how people approach these forms and how a form’s aesthetics dictate our responses to it. I measure and redraw these forms as a way to exorcise their control and understand their logic. Often these drawings look like incomplete architectural plans that display single rooms with too many divisions and columns in unlikely places.

Like bureaucratic forms, most architectural spaces also dictate a prescribed response, which often starts with a staircase. Most libraries, churches, schools, government buildings, and monuments are entered by way of a set of stairs. Often another set of stairs is waiting for us on the inside. These transitional spaces are usually overlooked in the rush of business or other matters. Yet each step determines not only the building’s shape to a certain degree, but also our response to it. With each rise, tread, and going we are turned, lifted and led.

– Joy Drury Cox

 

Joy Drury Cox is an artist who is living and working. Her work has been shown in New York City and examples of it can be seen here. In June of 2012, her first book, Old Man and Sea, was published by Conveyor.