In the summer of 2023, a dear friend and poet gave me a copy of Volume 16 of The University of Knowledge Wonder Books, Great Leaders, Men and Women Who Influenced Their Times, Glenn Frank, Editor-in-Chief, University of Knowledge, Incorporated, Chicago, 1937, 1938. Of the seventy-nine Great Leaders in the original text, nearly all are white, and nearly all are either American or Western European. Only six are women.

I am currently creating a book length erasure with the working title of The Great Resurfacing: Women, Their Times and Knowledge. On the erased title page, I identify myself as the Resurfacer-in-Chief.

In the erasure, Marie Curie resurfaces as Marie Curious. Queen Elizabeth resurfaces as Beth. Jane Addams resurfaces as Jane Adds.

Alexander the Great resurfaces as Alexa the Great. Leonardo da Vinci resurfaces as Leona. Galileo Galilei resurfaces as Lil.

I think of the act of resurfacing as both a restoration and a reinvention. The text itself tells me “women should be remembered” and the “world is different because they lived.”

After experimenting with a variety of pens and markers, I am now working on the original pages with water-based markers and washi tape. Here are images of some of the work in progress: