Lorna Brown

Delete

0–2014

Delete
Embroidery on Cotton
In traditional copy editing, a dele is an abbreviated form of deleatur (Latin: let it be deleted). A dele can be undone with a STET. Delete scales up the ultimate authority of the copy editor, as indicated by the hand-written mark, using hand embroidery to commemorate this near-obsolete practice. Like the painting series Carets, strike-outs, underlines, circles and dots, Delete elevates the provisional status of copy edit marks as an invisible part of the publication process, and speaks to the history of printers’ ornaments and margin notes of the scribe and the rubricator.
Private Collection.