Hunt art exhibit asks viewers to ‘Read Between the Lines’

FALLS VILLAGE — “Read Between the Lines,” the art exhibit at the David M. Hunt Library, is among other things a record of how artist Jon Kopita dealt with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The show consists of some 70 pieces, including a group done between March 14, 2020, and Aug. 10, 2020, when much of ordinary life was curtailed due to pandemic lockdowns.

The medium is pencil on the dotted midline paper used to teach handwriting. Words are repeated over and over, just like handwriting exercises.

Some examples: Day 1’s entry is “I will wash my hands thoroughly.”

Day 41: “I will remember it’s allergies, not COVID.”

Day 85: “To mask or not to mask?”

At a talk at the library Thursday, Feb. 27, Kopita said the idea stemmed from a visit to the Vitra Design Museum in Switzerland in 2007.

“I hated it,” he said. “Mass-produced furniture is not meant to be worshipped.”

In response he found some of the dotted midline paper and wrote “I hate Vitra” 100 times. That got it out of his system, and he had forgotten about the episode when the pandemic hit.

Kopita offered a list of terms to describe the work.

Under “obsessive,” he said “things stick with me, in a really good way.”

He also described the pieces as resonant, meditative, and cathartic.

As the process unfolded, he found graphic patterns “that randomly appeared” in the repeating lines on the paper.

He said he dideach piece three or four times before settling on a final version.

An educator by trade, Kopita said “I wanted it to look like it came from a schoolhouse.”

“Read Between the Lines” is on display through March 21.