Solution du jour

Somewhere between Yankee ingenuity strikes again and necessity is the mother of invention, self-preservation kicked in and I put cork on my work surface. No more worries about my cards being haz-mat. My fingers are happy and healing.

Suffering for My Art

So far today I've stuck the needle through the ends of two fingers in the process of sewing the buttons onto my hand-made papers and cards. I have to stop and apply bandages so I don't bleed on the cards. But the response to these is so positive I have to keep trying more. The good news is I'm getting better aim.

Simple Designs Are Not Easy Tasks

My heart notes have been selling very well, and I wanted to make a variation on the theme. I liked the idea of layering hearts and attaching them to the card with a button. The idea seemed simple enough. But I needed contrast, so I had to make a background paper in a different color. Sewing a button onto card stock is a lot trickier than it sounds, and that nylon thread wants to disappear. But here are my first four attempts. Can’t wait to see where I go from here.

Japanese Paper

Paper-making is my passion, and I have been making hand-made paper for many years. But I've always made my papers in the Western tradition. This month I had the opportunity to go to an all-day workshop on Japanese paper-making.

The instructor brought buckets of gampi, kozo and mitsumata fibers that we beat with sticks on wooden boards. The rest of the day we made paper with sukettas (the Japanese mould and deckle). At the end of the day we used cotton linter for cast paper and a nod to Western papermaking. I took home 34 pieces of various sized papers and 7 castings. Exhausted beyond words, but not too tired to smile. What a wonderful experience. Thanks, JoAnne!

Summer Flowers & New Heart-notes

This very rainy spring and beginning of summer has brought a garden full of flowers. I'm enjoying the picking and the pressing.

I made a new heart-note template that I like better than the old one. Since I embed my flowers in recycled pulp instead of gluing them to the surface of the paper, I sometimes lose the visual effect of the stems. I now hand-paint the stems to restore the visual balance of the designs.

Lent

I pressed nails into clay to make a mould for this cast paper cross medallion. After it dried, I painted it with water colors. I hope this symbol of sacrifice inspires thoughts of faith and hope.

Winter Walk

This is a pulp painting of what I saw on a walk in my neighborhood one sunny winter day:
When I looked up I saw a cardinal on a branch in a tree.
When I looked down I saw the red berries on a holly bush in my neighbors' yard.

Labyrinths

2009 began with thoughts on labyrinths, so it seems fitting to end the year with my creations. I wanted to make a sculptural piece to hold in the palm of the hand and trace with the finger. I had to go to the ancient labyrinth form and work with 3 layers to fit the size I wanted. I made a clay mould to cast my recycled pulp on and made a color sheet to cover the cork backing. Everything is painted with a clear acrylic varnish.

I hope people who get these find serenity as their fingers follow the path from the beginning to the center and back again. The labyrinth reminds us to be aware of the journey and not focus only on the destination. A good thought as we face a new year.

'Tis the Season

Original Card Art to Frame

Saturday morning I set up the second of my four holiday shows this winter. A friend recently asked if I would make a card that could be given as a gift- to drop a piece of original art into a standard frame. So I chose this bamboo design. By trimming the card, I was able to drop it into a 4x6 frame from a discount store. I could also have drop mounted the card onto mat board in a 5x7 frame or mat opening. So here it is – an original art card suitable for framing.

The design of this piece is based on a drawing I made of a bamboo fountain my daughter gave me for Mother’s Day one year. In order to make a clay mould, I had to change the design to bamboo in a bowl, but I like the simplicity. I painted this cast paper with watercolors and acrylics and drop mounted it on a piece of wall paper.

Thoughts on Fall

I can hardly believe we need the furnace to take the chill off the early fall weather. My Black-eyed Susans are nearly spent – time to pull them out of the garden. And I’ll pick the last of the rhubarb to make a few more batches of cobbler and jam (then home-made bread to spread it on). A few leaves on the local maple trees are already turning color.

Time for the holiday arts and crafts fairs to begin.

Since so many people are feeling the pinch of the tight economy, I’m making a special line of matted and framed pieces for this year’s shows. They are small, personal pieces of handmade paper with flowers and leaves I gathered from the garden and pressed for this line. The prices are very low. When life gets difficult and stress levels rise, I think we need beauty to calm our spirits. I made these intimate pieces to speak to souls in troubled times and whisper a quiet word that all is well. Just right to place on a dresser or give to a special friend. I hope people enjoy them.

Making a Concept Piece for Grace Church

Here is the concept piece I worked on in August for Grace Church.

Worshipers took home half sheets of blue and yellow papers with scripture verses and questions for reflection and meditation. The following week they brought their papers to the baptismal font, tore them up and dropped them in the water.

The next few weeks I picked leaves from the day lilies and lilies of the valley in my garden, cooked them in my fiber pot with chemicals, and incorporated them into the torn paper to make a pulp. I even pressed a few petals from the lilies and added a few wild flowers.

Here’s the thing about concept pieces: you read about an idea and it’s so interesting you just have to try it out. I read about thread-embedded paper to make a patchwork quilt effect and just had to try it. This means I poured the pulp into my deckle box for a sheet of paper, took it out, placed nylon threads a half inch from the edges on all four sides, made another sheet and couched it directly on top of the first, sandwiching in the threads to make them part of the paper. Day after day, over forty times. You’ll notice only half of them are in the frame in this picture. We’ll call the papers on the frame not shown our “practice piece” that showed us what didn’t work. Did you know nylon thread is practically invisible? Especially when you’re trying to tie it in removable bows on a frame.

But in the end we had recycled green paper that resulted from blue and yellow offered meditations mixed with lilies (“behold the lilies of the field….”) arranged in the shape of a cross. Other papers, some red (signifying shed blood), some green mixed with red, were placed around the cross in the frame. And we could see something new created from the old. This visual art was displayed for our communion service.