Artwork of the Week: July 22, 2024
Veda Epling’s print created with Harrell Fletcher presents the pages of a heavily marked Bible that is quite different from most personalized scriptures with its intentionally complicated and colorful notation system. This print is one of fifteen digital scans produced with Harrell Fletcher of Veda Epling’s highlighted Bibles. Fletcher, a socially engaged writer and artist, first encountered Epling in the entryway of a church in San Antonio, Texas, where she had taken up temporary residence. She told Fletcher that she had color-coded about ten Bibles according to her own enigmatic system. Fletcher was struck by the visual qualities of the marked bibles and invited Epling to work with him to create digital scans of selected spreads, which he then printed and framed.
Fletcher exhibited the prints at a gallery in San Antonio with the intention of including Epling in the process, but before that could happen Epling had become unreachable. Fletcher used the proceeds of the sale of the prints to the BYU Museum of Art to search for and locate Epling at a shelter in another part of Texas, and then passed along the remaining proceeds to her. Epling decided to donate 10% of her new funds to the church where she had lived in San Antonio so that they could buy sleeping bags for people experiencing homelessness in the community. She gave the remaining sum to her daughter so she could buy a car. Epling kept none of the money for herself.
The colorful highlights pictured here are a manifestation of Epling’s devotion. Fletcher’s deliberate choice to focus on a passage from Job in this print is significant because Job’s intense tribulations echo the plight of Epling herself. Epling’s carefully marked verses also connote a prayerful reverence reminiscent of Job’s worship and gratitude to God even during dark times.
