#(15)ABECEDARIUM BROADSIDE

Edition of 250 of which 18 copies are signed.

1972 Two colors 17-1/2" x 23"

Client: Saint Hieronymus Press All signed copies to The Poster, San Francisco

(Communication Arts, January/February 1977)

This poster was re-designed and reprinted in 1979 as "A CONSTRUCTED ROMAN ALPHABET," poster #85.

Andrea Mantegna alleged that he had discovered certain remnants of compass points and scribed lines on ancient monuments, and these supported his contention that the Romans had appealed to Divine Geometry for the construction of their supernaturally beautiful inscriptional letters. He was mistaken, for the Romans did no such thing, painting their letters with broad brushes and eschewing any assistance from geometry. This makes no difference. You get a bee in your bonnet and you can't let go. Half our work is folly, and much of it useless in any great sense; we dig ditches only to fill them up again at day's end. Even the good stuff is often only of its time, and so many things are destroyed by random insults: war, fire, flood, moth and rust. You do your work as best you can, mostly because you need the money. If you are fortunate, you enjoy the work that you have to do anyway, and luxuriate in a feeling of accomplishment, occasionally peppered with failure and rejection. Each job is done as well as you can do it, because you never know what might survive, and stand witness to your whole life.