Completed as the exhibit component of my MFA Thesis work at Moore College of Art & Design in 2019, “This Page Intentionally Left Blank” is an interactive installation involving The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America, a constitutional governing document for the Reformed and Evangelical denomination in which I was raised. As I completed my studies in Philadelphia, surround by numerous historical documents and at a time of intense political discourse and debate in the country, I became both convicted and curious about reading through foundational documents that inform the communities and cultural context that helped shaped me, particularly in a faith context.

For this project, I started by doing several readings through the constitution section of B.C.O., making notes along the way and conducting additional research on aspects I was not familiar with, or did not fully understand. I then used a laser cutter to cut out each letter of text in the document to create a substrate that left the original text un-altered. Once completed, I then went back over the text and in the margins, conducted a critical and inquisitive discourse of my own in invisible ink. That discourse included additional questions I had regarding certain theological points, statements of either agreement or disagreement with certain content, information from my own studies, highlights of portions that I found helpful but unfamiliar from my upbringing as well as some points I found outright problematic. The title of the work came from the recurring legal text format of pages with the text “This page intentionally left blank,” in which I conducted my most intense dialogue and reflection.

All 180 pages of text were installed as printed and viewers were provided with small, hand-held uv lights and invited to read through both the text as written and my own dialogue. This created a somewhat playful way for the audience to engage a potentially heady, dense and intense text. It was also very important to me that the text of the original document remained un-altered as I had not contributed to its creation. It also came to my attention that much of the laity within the PCA were on average unfamiliar with or had not heard of the Book of Church Order, which informs much of the functions and policy of the PCA General Assembly (the annual governing body of clergy over the denomination) that trickle down into church life. From there, it also became an opportunity to educate and invite others to engage the text.

The work was first installed at Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and later at Covenant College, the college of the PCA, in Lookout Mountain, Georgia.