Drafting the Declaration

Last year a copy of the Declaration of Independence was hung in the Oval Office. This prompted me to read the Declaration again, which led to looking at Thomas Jefferson's original drafts of the Declaration of Indepencence in the Library of Congress and available through the Monticello website. You can see images of the original documents here: 

 https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/

While I was looking at the images of the original and earlier drafts online, I made screen captures and circled phrases that stood out to me. Some of these are very familiar, and some I didn't remember. I used copies of these phrases to learn how to transfer laser images onto a gel plate. In the process, I was playing with the interactions of text and color, stacking transfers on top of each other, and thinking about our country's 250th year. None of these were meant to be finished works of art to display. 

Some months later, I was talking with librarian Candis Joyce at the Bangor Public Library about an early copy of the Declaration of Independence coming to the library. I mentioned I had made a series of prints based on the Declaration, and she asked if they could see them. It was decided to include them in the June and July exhibit on the Declaration of Independence at the library. 

Benjamin Franklin and John Adams made edits to Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence. They are fascinating. You can see some of the edits attributed to them in the margins in of the early draft. 

Then the draft went to Congress for more changes. This process shows the Declaration is a document created by people of different perspectives. They had to come to an agreement about the kind of country they wanted to begin and build. Their discussions hammered out ideas in the Declaration which are important for us today in our 250th year. 

These gel prints were created as a learning process. I hope they encourage people to read the Declaration of Independence more closely and think about what it means for us all going forward after our 250th year. I am proud to be part of remembering where our country began, and to be part of bringing these ideas forward. 

There will be an open house at 6 p.m. on June 3rd at the Bangor Public Library.