Sunday, September 18, 2005

This struck me as visually interesting, like for a t-shirt pattern. It was a waterstained wall with old Khmer script, overwritten by newer, different Khmer script that was waxed over in red. Before it was realized that the practice was a bad idea, tourists and locals alike used to take paper and cover the carvings and inscriptions and make charcoal rubbings of the patterns to take home. Sometimes these would be done with crayon to fill the engravings, so the paper would have the charcoal rubbing of the exterior of the carving on one side and the transfer of the crayon in the engraving on the other. Someone woke up to this becoming a damaging practice over time and it has since stopped, for the most part. But the overlay of texts and colors blended with the passage of time on the wall were compelling to me for some reason. Posted by Picasa

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