Handmade paper is an essential element of my work. It stands alone or is incorporated into other work including artist’s books. In our day to day lives we take paper for granted, but handmade paper transcends this humble status. Handmade paper can be painted or sprayed to create two-dimensional landscapes, formed into sculptural objects or simply formed into beautifully textured sheets.
My recent installation, Mapscape, is part map, part landscape. Each of the 500 sheets of handmade paper in this installation is a world unto itself. The assembled grid forms another pattern, another map, another landscape, another world. The grid also suggests an aerial view of the land where landscape and map merge.
Each square is a strata of handmade papers of different hues combined with maps, text, watercolors, photos. The paper is then ripped, revealing its layers and creating a unique mapscape. Sometimes the sandwiched layer bleeds through the top layer adding another element. This installation focuses on pattern, movement and connection; each square to the whole, each individual to the world.
A series of drawings entitled, Solitude, are a response to a month-long residency, living and working alone in a cabin without electricity, surrounded by trees, mountains, and the colors of Southern California’s high desert
The trees were craggy with dark holes and crevices, tendrils snaking up and around trunks and limbs. The mountains rolled on and on to the horizon. At dawn they were like waves; at dusk, draped fabric. The colors were muted shades of rust, sage and sienna. And then there were all the creatures, seen and unseen. Lizards, mice, frogs, wasps, birds, snakes.
Thus inspired, I drew with ink pastel and acrylic on vellum.
The solitude offered quiet and a time for reflection, and this introspection is reflected in the drawings as well. Being alone with one’s self is as challenging as living with no electricity— maybe more so.
Ancient or historic processes form a core of my recent work. The use of the 19th century photo processes of Van Dyke Brown and Cyanotype printing gives images a sense of history and the passage of time. Hand papermaking, also an ancient process, is combined with alternative photo processes, creating textures and layers.
The series titled, Layers of Time, explores memory, illusive and transitory, the footprint of something just past, just out of reach. Images such as old family photos and x-rays are collected and layered with handmade paper or sheer fabric. Photo-etching and alternative photo processes allow for multiple printings so that traces of earlier layers can be seen under the surface image reflecting the passage of time. The artist uses the flexibility inherent in the processes to layer image upon image, fragment upon fragment, thereby achieving a synthesis of pattern, texture and abstraction.
The series, “gut reaction”, combines handmade paper and alternative photo processes to create sculptural casts of the female figure. Handmade paper is fragile yet deceptively strong, providing a metaphor for women’s lives. The recurring imagery of wings and cages point to the duality or tension in our experience. The wings represent the yearning to fly or freedom to choose. The cages refer to limitations, either self-imposed or external restraints. The cages are often of our own making and offer a sort of protection, but at what cost?
Artist’s books offer the opportunity to explore the intersection of two and three-dimensional space. The challenge in creating books is to integrate image, text and structure in order to move the viewer through time.
Many of my handmade books feature cyanotype and Van Dyke brown, alternative photo processes that are actually very old techniques from the 1840’s. An early photographic use of cyanotype was to create images of ferns and other natural objects. In keeping with this early use of cyanotype, I use photograms of flowers, sticks and stones to create imaginary gardens, some in which the natural objects allude to intimate conversations or otherworldly orbs. In this way, ordinary objects become elegant. I have used Van Dyke brown with old photos to evoke a sense of history. Family photos capture reminiscences of family members and juxtapose the experience of different generations.
Cyanotype and Van Dyke Brown printing are nineteenth century non-silver alternative photo processes in which an emulsion is painted on a paper or fabric surface, exposed to light and then developed in water. The Cyanotype turns blue while the Van Dyke turns one of many shades of brown from sepia to gray-brown. The Cyanotype and Van Dyke prints have been printed on fabric (cotton twill or silk) or paper.
Solvent transfer is simply a photocopy that has been transferred to another surface using a solvent and pressure. The solvent transfers are on paper or sheer fabric which is then layered over the cyanotype or Van Dyke.