Arts & Culture
When Hermits Collide
“A lot of this show, the work is about sitting down and taking time,” says Jon Beacham, co-owner of Hermitage, a poetry bookstore in Beacon, New York. Besides collecting books, Beacham is an artist. He has collaborated with Kensie Duffy on “Kulan,” a show of works on paper appearing at the store’s gallery. “Kulan” means “intensity”
in Chinese. Also it’s the word for an Asiatic wild ass.
The show began as a gift. Duffy typed four spontaneous pieces for Beacham, who had the urge to reply
by adding collage to them.
Yes, you read that correctly. Duffy typed, on a Royal typewriter—in fact, a wide-carriage machine which
can accommodate a sheet of paper up to 20 inches wide. “Kulan” represents the rediscovery of typing by
For one thing, a typewriter is closer to sculpture. Duffy often types without a ribbon, making tiny indentations
in the paper—like words chiseled into marble. Or he will, on some lines, rub the typewriter ribbon over the
words, almost like Dégas drawing with charcoal.
Duffy typed the entire text of The Sound And The Fury by William Faulkner, without a ribbon. It appears in
four glass boxes in the show. In fact, The Sound and the Fury is the only Faulkner book missing a manuscript,
so Duffy is fi lling a void in American literature.
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