The Weekend Paper

The title of this post is a nod to Helen Hiebert's Sunday Paper posts, which are of course a nod to printed newspaper traditions. With the closing of my school year and two solo shows and some fall projects coming up (stay tuned!), I've been metaphorically juggling and spinning plates and walking a tightrope all at once, so, as usual, this post is a bit belated.

The first weekend of June was the opening at E.M. Wolfman for Sub Set, a collective of papermakers Rebecca Redman, Hope Amico, Alyssa Casey, and Elizabeth Boyne.

Sub Set has been working collaboratively, getting together as a group and trading materials and unfinished projects, exchanging them between as a collective "what if?" On the night of the opening, I recall asking one of the artists who made one of the pieces, and the answer was that someone made the paper and then another person drew on it and then another person....etc. To be more clear, authorship of the show was a collaborative whole.

Which gave the show an incredible energy. The artists are exploring the concept of workmanship of risk, the only limitations are the materials they had in front of them at the time. As someone who collaborates frequently myself, I can see how these experiments are opening these artists up and building a momentum for future possibilities.

The artists will be running a fundraising campaign later this year to raise money to purchase a Hollander beater - stayed tuned to their website to find out how you can contribute.

The following day was one of the ProArts Open Studios weekends, and I swung by Julia Goodman's to see some of her new large cast paper works in person.

(That's the floor in the bottom right corner of the photo above; these pieces are about five feet tall).

These pieces are rugged and topographical; she allows snippets of the bed sheets and clothing she uses to appear as reminders of her origin material. All her colors are from the clothing she uses, no added pigment or dyes.

Some of them, particularly her smaller pieces like this one, are almost a cross between pulp painting and casting.

I couldn't help thinking how Julia references the origins of her materials. They feel intimately connected to the earth, via the plants that grew her fibers, the soil that nourished the plants. Recently I've been told that the Bay Area has an enormous amount of waste clothing choking our landfills, with the additions of nylon and other petroleum-based fibers into our wearables, they aren't breaking down like they will if they were solely natural materials. Julia's work interrupts this cycle, turning waste fiber into art.

Some of her beet papyrus pieces were also on display:

Reflecting on these two exhibitions, first and foremost, I'm excited by the directions my papermaking community is exploring. Further, I was also struck by how much of what my fellow papermakers do is informed by community and collaboration (Sub Set, Julia's work with Creative Explored), and how coming together with others is such a catalytic force in this medium. The same fibers that make up paper also bring papermakers, new ideas, and new energies together.

Dipped versus Wrapped

In papermaking, there is a type of paper sculpture that uses "overbeaten" abaca. This term, which some say should really mean that the fiber is beaten "just enough," refers to the fibers spending a long time in the beater, sometimes as long as 6-8 hours. This long beating allows the fibers to absorb a great deal of water, and when draped over an armature made of wire or reeds, the fibers shrink dramatically. I swoon over sculptures like this. Papermakers like Rhiannon, Megan, and Helen are amazing at using this technique their work.

Despite assisting Rhiannon when she has taught this technique, I haven't explored it that much in my own work. I've been more a cast paper person myself. Rhiannon usually has students start by making small armatures to use, before working up to something larger. During one of our workshops, she mentioned when she started exploring this technique that she made a whole series of little forms to see what high-shrinkage abaca could do. I decided to try this myself.

Two techniques for working with armatures and high shrinkage abaca are dipping and wrapping. When dipping, an armature is made, then dipped in the vat and fiber is allowed to collect over the structure. When formation aid is added to the vat, the paper sculptor can dip multiple times to build up more fiber.

Wraping requires a papermaker to pull sheets first, then press them. The pressing gives the handmade paper almost a "wet-noodle" quality, so it's easily handled while draping over an armature. Wire and reeds will give different affects, and there is a whole variety of gauges and reeds to select from that will also vary the end result.

I decided to make pairs of similar forms to try both dipping and wrapping, and see which I liked better. I wasn't too exacting, so there are some differences in the forms, but they were close enough for my purposes. The armatures are made from 24 gauge wire from Dick Blick. I chose that wire because I had it around, and after seeing the results, I think they might have been more interesting with something finer.

I also realized that I failed to photograph these with something for scale. The pieces below are all around the size of the palm of my hand, so not that big. For the four photos below, the wrapping is on the left, and the dipped is on the right. For the fifth, my tired brain confused this order, so the wrapped is on the right. Click on the images to see them larger.

A few I dipped and immediately didn't like the results, so just ended up wrapping them, like these:

While playing with the wire, I ended up coming up with this form, which after the experiments above I chose to wrap. I'm not sure what I think of it right now, or even if it's a finished piece or a study for something larger, not sure.

These forms were inspired in part by Nami Yamamoto and Allison Smith. The cut paper projects linked seem to me about how the act of isolating an object transforms it into a specimen, a representative, or a fetish object. Yet, it's out of context. So much of my work is always about site, location, hereness, considering the opposite direction is raising some interesting questions that I find myself thinking about.

Paper in Nature

This past weekend I was part of the Art In Nature festival in Redwood Regional Park. Redwood Regional Park, which is about fifteen minutes away from where I live, is one of the places I go walking. Judy had mentioned something about being part of last year's festival and how much she enjoyed it, and so I applied and was accepted to make a piece, as a chance to honor a place that fulfills me so much. The work I exhibited was developed in the cast paper street art I did recently.

(For larger images, click on the pictures.)

The park is notable for Redwood Creek; its native rainbow trout have been cross-bred with other struggling trout populations throughout the US. Redwood Creek's trout are a genetically pure population that is under critical study in order to reveal new understandings about trout populations. With California's extreme drought the creek appears to be dried up completely; I'm not sure what this means for the population. This idea was the basis for this work I'm calling Upstream.

It was an insanely hot day, and yet they clocked around 5000 visitors to the event. For me, the best part was to sit (or lay) near my piece, and listen to the musicians play, and let their songs become a soundtrack of sorts. I didn't get to photograph many of the other works and performances, but here's a few!

Blue on the street

Last Sunday, I was part of the Sunday Streets festival in the Excelsior, which for non-San Francisco people is one of the last working-class neighborhoods in San Fran. I was invited by the Youth Art Exchange to do a short-term installation and activity.

I've had cast paper on the brain, since I'm building an installation with it for the Art and Nature Festival in September. So I decided to experiment, and ended up with cast paper street art.

The work is up for the next few weeks near the intersection of Mission and Russia. Click on the images for larger pictures.

For a street-based art-making activity, I proposed to do Gyotaku prints. I wanted something that connected to the installation. Since the street was closed, I originally started out in the street itself. For those unfamiliar with the Excelsior, typically it's one of San Francisco's foggy and chilly neighborhoods. Not last week - the sun was out in full force. In the street, ink was drying before we could print, and my crayons literally began to melt. So ended up moving onto the sidewalk, sharing shade with the Youth Art Exchange and their partner on another project, Green Art Workshops.

A gentleman by the name of Melxin Whartnaby came by during the event. He was documenting it for the Friends of the Excelsior Public Library, and shared his photos with me.

Due to the heat, the day was fairly low-key, compared to say, some of my past projects in which there was a constant stream of people. However, it reminded me of how energizing it is to make art on the street, with the public. More importantly, it affirms how much there is a need for such projects.

Green Art Workshops was also doing a participatory project. Using some silver mat board donated from SCRAP and the laser cutter from the Youth Art Exchange, they made a series of water droplets. The public was invited to write ways to save water on the drops, which were then hammered into the wall loosely. When the wind blew, the entire installation swayed. This piece will also be up for a few weeks, and is right next to mine.

Some of the suggestions were pretty intricate, as this drawing of a de-salination system.

Some tried for humor.

I owe a debt of gratitude for this experience to the Youth Art Exchange, particularly Reed Davaz McGowen.

The sun and heat took a lot out of me that day, but the event gave me a renewed energy for the studio. Since completing The Last Color, I'd been a little postpartum. That day I realized how much I've missed doing street art and public interventions. Now, with this renewed energy, I'm returning to the studio to try some experiments. As John Cage would say, I welcome what happens next.