Tyree Callahan | The Chromatic Typewriter

“The idea for The Chromatic Typewriter came about one day in the studio as I was struggling along with a watercolour. I had an old Olivetti typewriter laying around and I thought to add some text to the watercolour. I rolled the watercolour into the carriage and started typing and that's when the inspiration struck. I knew that an older typewriter would be more ideal for the final version of the project, largely because of the design-sense the old manufacturers had. They built those machines to last. This machine must weigh thirty pounds! I have an entirely new appreciation for typewriters now. You can Google a handful of online typewriter museums to get a sense of their beauty. In fact, looking on the virtual typewriter museums made me realize that the satiny/eggshell finish on my machine wasn't really supposed to be there. A lot of the museum pieces have a beautiful gloss. That's when I learned all about about nicotine tar.

The piece was intended to be purely conceptual, but I do have a confession: as I was applying paint to the keys I could not resist trying it out. This led to a discovery, albeit one impeded and limited by the machine itself. Were there a more practical way to re-apply paint to the keys, it would make some very interesting and fantastic art. The way typewriters are designed, of course, leaves a bit of white space between the characters, to keep the alphabet of one's thoughts from stacking up. In this case, however, the typing of colors left a bit of white space between each color, and the effect would be quite amazing. Sort of like a blocky pointillism.”

- Tyree Callahan