The way Jim Cogswell presents the story of his anthropomorphic alphabet it appears a casual act, a spontaneous reaction to a chance encounter. Yet, as you unravel the threads of his story, you recognize how he was prepared to seize that opportunity. The alphabet's existence is really a story of the convergence of his interests, his training, and his drive to create something new.

An assistant professor of art at the University of Michigan, Cogswell has studied Chinese characters, was an English literature major, and has spent recent years exploring what it means to be a visual artist in the "book culture" of a university.

In reconstructing how the alphabet emerged (or any of his work develops), Cogswell remarks, "I only understand what it's about afterwards." He points to a figure in a painting in the style for which he is known-large, intensely colorful paintings featuring classic human figures in Renaissance-like backgrounds. "In retrospect, I realize I chose this pose because of its glyph-like quality. This figure is bonded with the book to form a shape," he explains. His human figures through their shapes echo the Chinese ideograms he once studied.

Books appear frequently in Cogswell's paintings. He thinks all the books are "a reaction to being dropped into a book environment. When I got to the university, I was thinking about the relation of myself to the institution, being an artist - a manual laborer - I sensed the schisms."

A lover of books, Cogswell was "interested in the mythology and history of books, but never in putting text directly into my painting." Then in 1993, Cogswell was a fellow at the Institute for Humanities where he met noted science fiction writer Samuel Delany, who was a visitor there. At lunch, "He and I were talking about my work and about image and text and how to make my painting stronger," recalls Cogswell, when Delany, a statuesque African American man in his 60s, fixed his gaze on Cogswell and announced, "I want to model for you."

"I was taken aback. The man has a tremendous physique and an incredible imagination," says Cogswell. Yet he had no idea what he was going to do with Delany as a model. Then the idea of an anthropomorphic alphabet came to mind-letters formed by human figures. "Text and image. All of a sudden it seemed the short, clear way to make figures text."

He arranged a photo session with Delany and additional models from the art school. The photographs were intended as a basis for other work. Thinking about how to shoot the photos, Cogswell grouped the letters, associating those with similar shapes, for example E, F, L. "I became really interested in the letters as shapes. I knew I wanted figures standing in space, as if doing some thing real from the participant's view, not just forming letters by lying on the ground."

Alphabet Series: Letter Z, 1995
18"x17"
Used with permission of artist. Web image copyright 1996, University of Michigan.
Do not use for any media without permission.

"At the end I knew I had some good photographs. I didn't know what for-I was responding to an opportunity, a situation."

Another factor in the creation of the alphabet was "creative uses of boredom," as Cogswell calls it. "I was becoming very frustrated with my painting. The landscapes were too literal- the same sky, rocks, and trees." He was trying to break away from that and to put figures in different types of spatial environments.

Cogswell met with UM art historian Elizabeth Sears, who showed him books of illuminated letters from medieval manuscripts. "Illuminated initials are very flat. As letters, they are always abstract- less naturalistic in a Renaissance sense," says Cogswell. "I thought this might be a way to cut my imagination loose."

He took out the photos again and for a while experimented with all different sizes and materials. Then he put the photos away and concentrated on the letters. He didn't want them to be individual images, but part of a series. " I thought, `If I make this work right, one will lead into the next.'"

Certain "motifs" did arise. He hid the letter rather than accentuate it. He used big spiral motions and recurring geometric shapes. As he worked on the letters, he tried more consciously to tie one to another. "Now I was on to something really fun," he recalls.

"The letter structure builds narrative and metaphor out of the figures, without giving up figures, without being totally abstract," Cogswell explains.

Alphabet Series: Letter D, 1995
18"x17"
Used with permission of artist. Web image copyright 1996, University of Michigan.
Do not use for any media without permission.

For example, the figures comment on gender issues, recreating the dynamics of male/female relationships through the juxtapositions of the figures in the letter forms. The N, for example has Delany as one upright, a male model in the slash bar of the N, and a female figure as the other upright. It can be read as a "continuum" of sexual orientation says Cogswell influenced by the fact that Delany is openly gay. In some letters, Delany has a Buddha-like appearance that seemingly removes him from gender. In still others, his beard and physique evoke classical images of Zeus.

At an early stage in this work, Cogswell sent Delany some sketches. Delany was excited and suggested he write a text for Cogswell's alphabet. Someday the letter/figures and text may appear together in a book. (And the project may transform into an opera. UM music professor Steven Rush and dance professor Bill De Young have talked with Cogswell about putting the text to music and adapting the images to a set design.)

As Cogswell mused on his alphabet as part of a Delany text, he began to think about printed text and printed image. To him, the obvious medium for the alphabet was as an edition of prints. That led him to a Rackham Research Partnership with a graduate student in printmaking, Myeong Paik. Funds from the Office of the Vice President for Research helped defray the high cost paper, copperplate, tools, ink, and lab fees for the printing.

In May, 1994, Cogswell began making the first dry point image, using a very sharp needle to gouge lines into a sheet of copper. Over a "very intense" seven months, Cogswell made the 26 plates before Paik had to leave in December 1994 for a job in Brazil. They collaborated together right down to the wire. "She was printing my pieces the night before she left," he says.

Now Cogswell is thinking about a new direction for the letter forms-this time as paintings of life-size human figures. Each letter would be part of a continuous mural, wrapping around his studio, the forms perhaps further abstracted. The paintings would be "in dialogue with one another," his goal "a visual poem at human scale." He is experimenting with images that are "just color, to see how it flows."

"I like the figure/letter because it operates as a letter, as a figure, as a shape. If you concentrate on one, you can't see the other. I like that about it," he says.

"I very consciously make images that have multiple interpretations. The ones that work best are the ones that contain contradictions, that allow multiples images to exist simultaneously.

"The anthropomorphic letters are a natural contradiction: the figures and letters can't both exist simultaneously. It builds in more than one meaning. It doesn't get too neat.

"You have to train yourself to make images that go beyond the obvious. Those paintings that don't work are the ones where I've gotten rid of all the contradictions. I am trying to leave more space for it in my work instead of making them exist in one world at a time."

There is intellectual rigor involved in making art, says Cogswell. "Art is problem solving in an extremely complex way. You hold multiple possibilities in suspension as you move forward toward some sort of goal."

As Cogswell considers further abstracting the letters, his desire to break free from representation is wrestling with his desire to keep his work somewhat accessible by including the human figures. "It is very important to me for someone to see my work and react to it. I want my paintings to reach people. I want my work to have resonance."