Holyland BibleBabble was made in late 1989, in Los Angeles. It exist in two forms; as a sketchbook of images, and as a series of individual 6″ x 4″ drawings. The 6″ x 4″ drawings were made to be given away as leaflets at Holyland events. The sketchbook is the permanent record of the leaflets, and are carbon copies of each drawing (actually made with carbon paper). Each drawing features a stylized cross, with text wrapped around it, and stamped with the Holyland rubber stamp. The text is generated from cut up bible pages, left over from another project. I would take two random pieces of bible pages and put them together to make nonsensical bible verse sounding text … aka bible babble. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was using the cut-up process that was used by Dadaists and William S. Burroughs. I was not aware of visual poetry at the time either, but these are certainly vispo as well. The text is especially nice when read aloud. I’m reading from it in this video.

Holyland BibleBabble Book

Holyland BibleBabble Leaflets