Scrapbook Motherwell

The first time we assigned the New School publicity scrapbooks (digitized, of course) to students to peruse, one of my students - a communications design major - praised them for their composition. It's hard not to see them as constructed with an intention beyond including as many clipping as possible (since pay was per clipping) in as few pages as possible, and to read them like a story is unfolding - perhaps a detective story, where clues and connections are revealed in apparently accidental ways to the truly attentive. Odd juxtapositions, crumbling originals and the shadows of clippings long lost make the mystery that much more exciting to follow. And sometimes, as for this part of a page from the Dramatic Workshop scrapbooks (I.59), they just look like art!