Rich Sigberman Art & Illustration

The illuminated manuscript is an art form that saw it’s peak around 1650 ( a very good year, incidentally), so why am I working on a piece of art that is, in essence, an example of this art form, and one I’m so happy to be working on? The basic answer is this: I think the combination of words and images is so viable, as to be timeless.

In this case, the words, which have been writeen by a fine calligrapher named Jane Brenner, are those of a wonderful poem by Jerry Patchen, a lawyer who lives in the Houston area. His words for “The Finish Line” were easy to find images for, and so the art is done with a light watercolor of a long distance runner in the center, over which the calligraphy was done, and surrounded by a border that is both decorative and narrative, sequential in the gradual day-to-night colors, the illustrations of Sisyphus, and Hercules and the Hydra, as is the repeated motif of a silhouetted runner.

A more effective presentation of Jerry’s poem , I couldn’t imagine, and so he shall enter this as both a poem and an art piece at an exhibit in Houston. While some may see this as an outmoded art form, I see it as a great way to frame a poem, paragraph, or wedding contract, and greatly enjoy the narrative/decorative border art that showcases the words.