Gordon N. Murray
Artist's Statement
My work in books is often political and/or socially motivated. In the display case I intend
to show pages from Crimes of Silence and Scarecrow. Crimes of Silence is the well
known Martin Niemoller homily that the Lutheran Minister wrote in response to Hitler's
gradual accumulation of power and its ultimate abuse as a weapon of mass terror and
mass murder. Niemoller was in fact imprisoned in a concentration camp but was able to
survive the war. Sadly however the homily's meaning seems as relevant regarding
today's affairs as it did when written. His homily has been cobbled together and revised
as suits those who choose to use it for their own purpose, just as I have done. Here is
the version that I have put in my book. The book is printed from re-composed iconic
images that have been hand-cut as woodcuts and stencils on Rieves Heavyweight paper.
The book is composed of hand cut text and title pages along with eight pages of text
and eight pages of images followed with a colophon page. When opened it is 60 feet
long although in a traditional book form it is 26"X32" when closed flat. and is an edition
of 20.
Scarecrow is poem by my father, George Murray, to which I made images in transfer
and traditional lithography in a edition of 20.
Gordon N. Murray
November 2003
Crimes of Silence
"They came first for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was
not a Communist." (McCarthy Hearings)
"Then they came for the Social Democrats but I was not a Social
Democrat so I did nothing." (Tom Mooney)
"Then they came for the Trade Unionists. Again I said nothing because
I wasn't a Trade Unionist." (Immigrant Italian textile workers)
"Then they came for the Jews." (Face of beaten Polish woman being
forced onto a cart against a background of a Jewish peasant house being burned)
"but I was Not a Jew, so I did little." (Arrest of children, Warsaw
Ghetto) Cut and rearranged
"Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a
Protestant." (Yugoslavian civil war / Bosnian prison camp)
"And when they came for the Protestants my silence denied that I was
one of them." (Selma Montgomery march) Cut and rearranged composite)
"Then when they came for me, there was no one left who could stand up
for me." (Aushwitz death walk)
Scarecrow will also be in the case and it is created using transfer and traditional methods of lithography.
The text is a poem of my father's and the book and edition were for his 70th birthday.
Scarecrow
"Pinned to a cornstalk sky
I watch the road go by
and flap at blackheart crows
that perch upon my nose
They peck at my button eyes
and scorn my strawbone lies
A man of sticks and wind I am,
a creature built of sham
Oh, wind that pushes me about,
before my straw runs out,
send me down a gust that sings
and sweeps me off on nascent wings."