Tracing Boards Treasury
Installation view. Photography Andre Witkam.
Project for Richard Niessen’s Palace of Typographic Masonry, Department of Symbol
Tracing Board
2019
H 1000 x W 700 mm
3 colour (white, metallic silver, black) screenprint on black 270 grams/m2 Rainbow paper
20 signed and numbered prints
HL at Kees Maas zeefdruk
“In the department of Symbols a space is dedicated to the symbolic language of Freemasonry: the ‘Tracing Board Treasury’. This space is added to the imaginary structure of the Palace by Richard Niessen who asked Harmen Liemburg and Nejc Prah to collaborate. This led to a game-like construction in which a drawing board can be composed of 18 different symbols of Freemasonry, an exploration in paper and ink of the graphic possibilities of these symbols and a tableaux representing the Masonic universe.”
Source: Famous freemasons George Washington (left) and Theodore Roosevelt (right) in full regalia. From: W. Kirk MacNulty: Freemasony, 2006.
Source: Freemason symbols. From: Richard Niessen, The Palace of Typographic Masonry – A guided Tour by Dirk van Weelden, 2018.
Process: Choosing tools and symbols used at the masonic temple.
Source: Paths and relationships between them used in American lodges using incredible titles that immediately triggered my imagination! From: W. Kirk MacNulty: Freemasony, 2006.
Source: ‘The freemason shaped by the materials used by his lodge’. From: W. Kirk MacNulty: Freemasony, 2006.
Process: Creating figures out of individual symbols.
Source: Historical Game of the Goose board.
Adressing freemasonry, Paul Renners‘s original ‘true geometric’ design for Futura (with text figures!) seemed a most appropriate choice. Additional info: fonts.com
Final print, detail.
Black and white A0 version.
