You have to
begin somewhere!
Yes, you do. After several weeks of “seeding” my
unconscious (meaning that I send out a
giant HELP to the universe and then wait), I move this “project”—for want of a
better word—to the forefront of my work list.
Sometimes I wake up with an internal sense of readiness. Other times it is a looming deadline that
moves me from inertia. For the Connection
series, as I have begun to call this body of work, it was the
opportunity of having to sit at the outpatient clinic for several hours while
my husband had a minor medical procedure.
Starting with
What I Want to Know…. We,
artists, make art for many different reasons. Some of us make art to have a say about our
world…to lend a voice in making change happen.
Others want us to literally stop in our tracks and smell the flowers of
beautifully painted canvases. Some
artist explore concepts and ideas.
Others explore materials and processes and in so doing make their own
statement about life. I think I fall
into this latter category. For me it is
the thrill of exploring, pushing the materials, and discovery…and because I am
fundamentally extroverted, I know what I need to say only after I have said it
aloud in my work. So, I always start a
new body of work on the heels of the previous one. In this instance it is another paragraph in
my ongoing exploration of paper and wax.
In our show last October
in Sydney, Australia, my portion of the gallery space was seven linear feet. Furthermore, the work—along with two
sculptures and teaching materials for a week of teaching—(plus some underwear,
of course) had to travel in ONE SUITCASE.
I ended up working on paper in a way that allowed me to roll up the work
and travel it in a yoga bag. I came back
to the states excited to explore more deeply the contrast of waxed elements on
pristine areas of handmade paper. I also
wanted to continue my exploration with sculpture.
Going to images…I have always collected images from magazines, art announcement cards
and any other images that somehow speak to me.
I began by cataloging the images in files and then later moved to gluing them in large scrapbooks.
A few years ago, I discovered Pinterest!
What a revelation and support to my process! Millions of images from artists by artists, at my fingertips and neatly organized onto “boards” with a click
of the mouse. Beginning this series, I
began with my Pinterest boards that held my images of paper sculptures. I look at these as a researcher might…not as
individual images but as a body of images.
These are the artworks, color combinations, sculptures that catch my fancy or that intrigue me. What I noticed on this trip to Pinterest is
that I had collected a lot of images where artists manipulated paper in
multiples by folding, wrapping, layering, sewing… I also found myself intrigued by the cut
paper images that allowed for peeking through to another surface.
I found myself excited (always a good indicator that I am moving
in the right direction) about the possibility of working with paper in a
new way and by making a lot of
something. So now I have something about
the “how” I will approach the work. Getting
to what I want to say is often a lot harder for me. This time it came in a most surprising
way. To see how, stay tuned!
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