Workshop in Half Moon Bay!

Last weekend I went across the water and "over the hill" to teach Pulp Painting at Judy Shintani's Kitsune Community Studio in Half Moon Bay. Outside her studio, her neighbor had lovely garden, much which was watered that day with our leftover water. Part of the garden was the amazing hanging cabbage garden above.

As we were setting up, one of the two studio cats, Winky, decided to get comfortable on Reed's station.

However we were soon off to a very productive day.

Reed did some interesting experiments with veil pulp and thread - laying thread down before the veil layer, then pulling it away to create a negative mark.

I even got to play! I left the thread in this piece and a few like it; it made me think of rhumb lines. I did trim the ends after the paper dried.

It was a warm, sunny day, and as we wound down, I think Lisa's piece below summed up what we were all thinking.

Before heading back to the East Bay, several of us stopped to see Judy's show at Harbor Books and Gallery. This picture really doesn't do the pieces justice - they are powerful and sublime.

Both Judy and Reed took some great photos - you can see them here and here respectively. It was one of those workshops that left me exhausted and exhilarated; so much so that Robert commented on it when I got home. For me, it was fulfilling to work with a small group of very interested (and interesting!) people. And of course, to talk papermaking all day.

Walnut-in progress

Currently carving a big board that I've had for a while, saved for something special. It's four feet long, this is just a detail....stay tuned.

Adhesive

Came across this list with the recommendation that all teachers should have it handy. However, this list doesn't include wheat paste, unless that's considered "craft glue"? But then it's not something recommended for paper? How could that be?

Between the dense and the distilled...

As I've been working on these recent collages, it's come to me that as an artist, my studio practice has frequently swung between highly detailed, dense works, and very minimal, materially sensitive, distilled pieces. With these collages, with their layers of printed imagery and cut paper, things feel like I'm currently in a dense stage.

Click on images for larger view.

It's interesting, because after spending months and months making pieces like this one, or this, or this, which are basically just paper, these collages come together in a matter of hours at most. (Although, if I counted all the time that led to the waste prints and paper that went into assembling the collage, it would be much, much longer). Of course, the paper portfolios are also editions, while the collages are unique works.

I think most artists who have made minimal work that is similar to my linked examples will agree that the precision required to work on something that is so exacting and simple is often as equally challenging to produce as something complex and highly detailed. There's just no wiggle room.

However, I find myself wondering what these divergent methods mean to my overall practice. I keep coming back to the concept of distilling when I think of the paper portfolios - I had clarified my vision and ideas down to a material essence and process. Simultaneously, it's a challenge to myself - how good are my skills? (how much can I show off?) Completing such work honors the medium and its potential.

These collages are more ambiguous - multiple nonlinear narratives colliding, a burgeoning lexicon of imagery.

Right now, after all those months of meticulousness, getting to use all that lovely paper that Jerarde gave me last year, to layer, to delight in my love of pattern, it's a release to embrace complexity. It feels like an indulgence.

Screenprinting On Glass With Glass

Earlier this fall, Bullseye Glass contacted SF State with an offer for Stacy Lynn Smith (examples of her work above) to come visit and demonstrate her technique of glass powder screen printing. The offer was too good to resist and I eagerly took them up on it.

Stacy has a background in printmaking and book art, and discovered along the peripatetic artist's path we all take how to incorporate those techniques with kiln-fired glass. Using an exposed screen with a mesh no tighter than 170, she pours out a small amount of glass powder above her image, much as a screen printer would lay out ink. This powder is than squeezed through the mesh, not with a printer's squeegee, but with a simple piece of cardboard. However, instead of one downward pass, she makes about ten rhythmic passes up and down over her image.

The glass is printed while resting on cups so as to enable easy lifting and moving - the glass goes into a kiln to fuse the powder into glass. If the glass was printed on the table surface, she would have to tilt it to lift it, and would lose her image. The screen is printed off-contact as well. Here, the first layer:

According to Stacy, two to three layers can be printed before she recommends firing the glass. However, more layers can be printed over those that a fired, and fired again. Here, two layers of powder printing:

The process also involves understanding temperature in regards to kiln firing and glass chemistry. As I understand it, lower temperatures produce glass that is rougher in texture and more opaque. Higher temperatures make glass smoother, glossier, and more transparent.

Some of Stacy's color samples:

More samples of Stacy's experiments:

Stacy also teaches a number of workshops at various Bullseye locations where an interested person can learn her technique and screen print their own images onto glass. I'd highly recommend her, and her technique sets the mind a whirl with possibilities!

Fibershed Papermaking Workshop

This month has been a whirlwind, and I've barely been able to keep up with this blog, as exemplified by the tardiness of this post. Two weeks ago I taught an intensive papermaking workshop for the Fibershed. Specifically, it involved a group of teachers from the Marin County school system who are incorporating sustainable and bio-regional art making activities into their curriculum.

The class covered how to paper from vegetables, invasive plants, and clothing. Here, some students harvest Andean Pampas Grass seed hair.

The class also covered various preparation methods, from hand beating, to blenders, to the beater itself. Many of the teachers really liked the idea of a classroom full of kids expending their energy by hand beating fiber, but to me it sounds like a cacophonous nightmare.

After learning about prep, we moved on to actual sheet forming. I also discussed techniques on preventing water from getting everywhere in a classroom situation. Over the course of the day, I kept making jokes about kids and how they react to various art classroom situations, and how I tend to handle them, which kept the teachers amused. One even commented that it would be very entertaining to watch me handle a group of kids making paper.

It was a great class, and great to share papermaking with a group of enthusiastic people who asked so many good questions, danced around my studio, and kept me on my toes the entire day.

"The Art of Handmade Paper" at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art

Some of the Population Dynamics series is currently part of the exhibition, The Art of Handmade Paper, at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, in Sonoma, CA. The exhibition is up till the end of December, and last Friday I went up for the opening reception.

The show is predominately focused on the history of handmade paper, featuring a few contemporary artists like myself, as well as one of my teachers, Lynn Sures:

Also featuring a tiny little hand-crank beater. This made me think of all the discussions I've had with fellow papermakers about a bicycle-powered beater (which was finally developed by Lee Scott Mcdonald), although several people found pedaling while grinding rag pretty onerous (and could you imagine trying to make something like high-shrinkage? Hours and hours of pedaling!) Anyway, made me wonder if this would be better or worse.

Two other intriguing historic objects included were these fusan bakudan, or Japanese fire balloons. For those unfamiliar with the history, during World War II, these were washi balloons that were used to carry bombs across the Pacific towards the United States, floating along Jet Stream air currents. I gather that most did not make it, but some did. It brings to mind a conversation I had with Mary years ago in which she said something to the affect of," I don't know whether to be horrified or like, YAY PAPER!"

The show is up to December 30, and there is talk with the curator on October 28 at the museum.

On a related note, I was recently interviewed by Discover Paper. Check it out here.

Watermarks in Corn Husk

Work continues on my Corporate Corn series since my last post on the topic. Above, a mould with the McDonald's logo. Below, its result, along with the Monsanto logo.

A detail of the Monsanto watermark while still wet:

A General Mills watermark, freshly pulled:

Some results fresh out the drying box:

I'm planning on a series of ten in all, all of corporations that drive our corn-based food system. I'm hoping that when seen as a group, with the knowledge that the fiber itself is corn (husk), the overwhelming basis for GMO corn in processed food systems will be apparent.

Michelle in Comix!

Click on the comic for a larger image.

The Artist As Storyteller came down last week, but the catalog for the exhibition lives on! Curator Alison Frost did a comic about each artist, in my case, incorporating text from this very blog.

Each artist was given several pages to create something unique for the catalog. You can see the series of drawings I did here.

The Compound Gallery still has catalogs for sale - visit here to get your copy.

Late Night Papermaking

As a promotion for my upcoming Watermark Workshop, I thought I'd post some of experiments for a new suite of watermarked handmade papers that I'm working on.

I'm tentatively calling the series Corn and Corporations, and the suite, of which this is the first, will be a series of logos of corporations that are part of our corn-based food systems. Though I guess technically, the USDA isn't a corporation, but it's part of the overall system.

Above is one of the laser-cut vinyl watermarks that John Sullivan of Logos Graphics made for me on a mould. Below are some tests.

The watermark, made of corn husk fiber, has been couched onto a sheet of denim. Together, these two fibers with this watermark embody the mythology and reality of our food systems and the American heartland.

I'm curious how the paper will look dried, if the denim will be too dark and the corn husk too light for clarity.

There is still time to register for my Watermark Workshop! And check out the photos from our past workshops - Papermaking with Plants and Pulp Painting.

Chills

I've seen various versions of this quote throughout the years - the San Francisco Center for the Book has a particularly gorgeous version printed at Berkeley in the 1970ies. As a printmaker, this quote by Beatrice Warde never fails to give me chills.
(source)

Fibershed Camp Papermaking Workshop

This week I was so happy and excited to teach a workshop for the Fibershed Camp! My workshop was the last day of their camp - before I came, they had been dying, felting, weaving, and generally learning the basics of how to grow and/or raise their own fiber, as well as the understanding of issues of locality and sustainability in relationship to the clothing industry.

And on the last day, they got to learn how, after their clothes wear out, they can be re-purposed into paper!

I wanted to give the kids the idea of how something like jeans become paper, so we began with the kids having a chance to cut up some jeans. I was a little nervous that the kids would instantly become bored with such a beginning, however this group was blessed with good attitudes. Other than the issue of lacking any left-handed scissors for one child, they all seemed excited to chop up some jeans.

However, I ddin't want to lose time beating (and moving my beater is a whole other issue), so, as Rhiannon likes to say, we did it cooking show style. As they were cutting, I explained how this fiber would need to be soaked and beaten, and then voila! brought out the pulp I had prepared in advance.

Once I pulled out the pulp, the kids couldn't get their hands out of the bucket. We almost had to physically pull them away so they could learn to actually make the paper.

But once we got started....

...things just took off! Some of the tables were a little tall for the kids, so some took to standing on chairs to reach the pulp.

Below, Rebecca and a camper pull sheets.

Finally, the paper was pressed and transferred to paper towels for the kids to take home.

My workshop was in the morning; my afternoon was just spend hanging out at the farm and getting to know the kids a little bit.

The garden has certainly grown since my last visit!

The coreopsis was blooming while I was there.

After lunch, I went with Julie, the kids, the dogs, and the goats on a short little hike to see the waterfall on her property.

Spending time on Julie's farm makes me dream of moving to rural Marin, planting flax and starting a full-on papermill. Heck, Lagunitas Creek was once known as Papermill Creek, so there's evidence of a precedent. If only....