Saturday, June 18, 2011

totem animals

Over at Village Dog ( scroll view | mosaic view ) I've been keeping a list of "totem animals" - kind of a journal in animal images, or animal avatars perhaps. The idea came from the late great Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, who would start off a seminar by asking students to take turns naming their "totem animals," and going around the room reciting each other's totems. I had the privilege of taking my very first graduate course with Eve in the olden days. My totem that day was completely uninspired - I think I just said my Chinese zodiac sign. So this is my attempt to do better. Another day (or two, or three), another ice-breaker.

Here are a few recent entries (strange that sleeping and sound technology seem to be on my mind lately):
#68: Lucian Freud, Eli


#67: Todd Baxter, Fox on Reel to Reels (toile pattern based on photograph)
#65: Charles Dury, young grizzly cub born in Cincinati Zoo, 1870s
#62: Toadfish, from the Reanimation Library visual archive
All 68, altogether.

No comments: