Allow me to introduce you to three pieces of art that I have worked on recently.
“Love Letter” is an assemblage made with hand-formed paper, milled card stock, copper wire, cotton thread, wood beads, cedar board, red iron oxide, watercolor, and ink.
I immediately recognised the initial form of the handmade paper as an envelope with a bloodied hole – a painful love letter. It took weeks for the rest of the parts to coalesce into its final form.
My studio table was strewn with parts as I tried to find a way to express the sentiment I wanted to evoke. I built a few different wire structures, placed and replaced the iron oxide heart, tinted other papers. It was frustratingly close, but not right.
And finally, yesterday, I had an insight and the assemblage it simply made itself.
This has happened to me many times before. The right thing arrives in my mind and locks into place. This ‘knowing” can come to me in any creative endeavor: writing, art, cooking, physical labor. And it certainly is well known though history; it’s the Eureka moment.
So “Love Letter” was set, except for the part where I had to find the text for the letter.
I wanted my own writing, not some famous person’s words. Sharing my actual love letter would be too personal. Fortunately, I keep a lot of old writing and I finally found the right text in my archive. The passage I chose is from a stream of consciousness performance piece I was considering in July 2017 – an alphabetical exploration of midlife. The words I inscribed on the sculpture are from the ‘A for Angst’ and ‘B for Being’ sections.
At the same time I was making “Love Letter”, I was playing with two other paper things which I also advanced towards completion yesterday:
On the left is the “Road to Utopia”, handmade paper tinted with kakishibu then dipped into indigo, collaged onto a sheet of paper with green tea in it. I had started out simply drawing onto the indigo sheet, but the central figure ended up a muddied mess. Yesterday I cut away the ugly drawing and did a collage. I need to find a center for it, but I had an insight as I looked at the photo just now. This one is going to turn out very well.
And on the right is “Perception,” a three dimensional sculpture with ink and watercolor detail. She is also not 100% complete; I would like to work a bit more on her coloring and shading. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I see a more beautiful version of her in my mind’s eye.
I like the waves of her hair. The happened when I struggled to get a flat sheet off of the deckle. The pulp was too thick and wet so as I lifted it, the edge crumpled dramatically. So I went with that and made additional folds, then let it dry.
Her nose was flat until after I completed the drawing. Soft handmade paper like this can be damped and manipulated gently, so I wet the nose area with a paintbrush and used a wooden bead and he end of my paintbrush to lift the nose up from the flat plane. This shaping makes her feel more centered and complete to me.
While I know that some artists are able to plan a composition, use an armature, know exactly how it will look before they start, that just isn’t how art happens with me. My artistic style requires weeks of uncertainty, fussing, and regrettable choices that have to be worked around somehow. When a blinding insight arrives, then I know I am done.
My studio is littered with half-completed art waiting for insight.
