San Francisco. Aligned on a long table not far from where Caydance and Griff sat -- in an Indian restaurant where Griff had never before been -- was a row of manificant choices. On their plates were samosas, pakoras, lamb biryani, Tandoori chicken, chana marsala, basmati rice, papadums, and naan. They were drinking Kingfisher Lager. That afternoon, at Huygens in the football classroom, Griff had reviewed the film of the Sunnyvale game, breaking down each play with a raucous crowd of student players, while in Caydance's artists books class, students presented proposals for their final projects.
"Sometimes a work is so potent that it is difficult to find the words to respond, she said to Griff. "For instance, a black student is making a book that resembles a medieval book of hours. 'Each illuminated panel -- as if they were saints -- will celebrate a black artist who died of AIDS,' he told us. 'The whole will be bound in leather, like a medieval book of hours.' This student works with printing processes, so he might create multiple copies. From what I have seen of his work, what he makes will be extraordinary.
"To my class, another student brought computer printouts made using early CAD software when her Mother was a M.Arch. student. 'My mother,' she told the class, 'is an architect, but my dream is to be an interior designer. I want to create a handmade book in which the interiors for a house that my Mother designed when she was a student will be followed one by one by my hand drawings of the interior of each room -- with the premise that the house was actually built, and in it live four art students. I'm envisioning it as a graphic narrative in which their story unfolds in each drawing.'"
Occupied in trying every item on the buffet table, Griff listened while Caydance talked. "Sometimes art students bounce off of each other's ideas; themes arise and play back and forth in final projects", she said. "Another student found an accordion in the attic of her home. 'The story is', she told us, 'that my Grandmother played it in a dance band, and now I am learning to play the accordion. I want to make an accordion-fold artists book in which photographs from dances in old movies appear as you unfold it. And at the same time, a collage of music for each film dance is played on the accordion. I will compose, play, and record this soundtrack. The difficulty will be precisely how to put the sound and the images seamlessly together.'"
