BirdDog im{press}ions

Bill Reynolds was a poet. His tragic death brought on a new body of work from friend and sculptor Jud Bergeron. In a recent Summer 2009 issue of Sculptural Pursuit magazine {April – Vol 8, No 2} a story was told about a lost battle with addiction and a friend who used sculpture to mourn the death of a friend and bring his written word to life.

“Quietly I Will Wait,” the exhibition of this new series will open Thursday, October 22nd at Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art, in San Francisco. {The show exhibited in NYC last year} Bergeron, fueled by the many poems that Reynolds wrote, painstakingly cuts each individual letter out of wood and/or steel and crafts them into incredible configurations to create his sculpture.

A third friend, who happens to live in Boulder, Colorado came to me earlier this year with a copy of this magazine and an idea. We worked together using a combination of vintage wood type, photopolymer and handset metal type, echoing the purposeful placement of letters by both sculptor and poet, to create a letterpress manifestation of the original “I Will Wait Quietly” poem by Bill Reynolds. A plantable seed paper was chosen to carry the words of this dear friend.

If you live in San Francisco, I would encourage you to not wait quietly, but to go see this sculpture exhibit! Obviously the sculpture credit goes to Jud Bergeron. Eric, I would like to thank you for sharing this story and this personal project with me.