Famous First Words

For some time, I've wanted to use conventional letter forms. I have been searching for a good set of text to use and have begun amassing a file of 'famous first words'  - communications that are the first recorded attempts to bridge enormous distances, cultural, and even interspecies divides...there is something interesting to me about about building these on sharp contrasts of positive and negative, as if one had to figure out which was carrying the message...

After Bell, gouache on paper

At the moment, these are just sketches...I'm not sure they will go any farther. It is hard to find the texts for these, though I am considering using various creation stories as sources...and there are plenty of letters describing encounters between European explorers and Native Americans...). We'll see...

After Washoe, gouache on paper

Washoe was a chimpanzee who was taught sign language in the lab of researcher Dan Fouts. At ten months, Washoe began stringing together terms to make elementary sentences and eventually acquired a significant vocabulary of signs that she used to communicate with human researchers and other chimpanzees...

After Armstrong, gouache on paper

After Morse, gouache on pepr

One thing that makes it likely that I'll make more of these is that I am interested in the simple constructed letter forms. It took me a ridiculous amount of effort to figure out how to construct some letters from simple geometry, and I'm curious what would happen if I gave it a little more time and thought...