Right On, 1976. Pencil, colored pencil, stamp, ink and thread on found continuous-feed computer paper, 55W x 45H inches.
These large-scale drawings are among the first of many drawings on continuous feed computer printout paper. During the era of punch cards and mainframe computers, Rapoport chanced upon this paper in the basement of the UC Berkeley mathematics building. Drawn to the futuristic aesthetic of sprocket holes, grid lines, and cryptic inscriptions, Rapoport drew into the existing patterns with graphite, colored pencil, and ink stamps, and stitched the construction together with colorful yarn.
The Yarn Drawings feature the Nu-Shu language of feminist stencils that Rapoport had been using since the late 1960s. In these drawings, overlapping chains of X chromosomes and vulva forms – tracings of a plastic uterus from an anatomy kit – frame the sinusoidal curves in the underlying dot matrix printed graphs.
At this point, Rapoport’s interest in the computer printouts was primarily aesthetic - she was excited by their appearance and materiality, and used the blocky printed data to structure her compositions. But this would soon lead to her becoming interested in the computer as a tool.
