A last minute call for artists came my way at the end of last week, requesting work on a theme of The Circle for an upcoming show. I didn’t have any existing work available that would be a good fit, but I started having all sorts of ideas about creating circular paper cut work. I’m always looking for opportunities to continue building on existing work, and what I came up with fits nicely into the paper cut designs of late, but with a different presentation.

I began by cutting a piece of white paper into a circle, using a mixing bowl as my guide. My choice of bowl size was based upon how well its circumference would fit into the cradle panel I would be using to mount the finished piece. I marked a quarter inch border on the backside of the paper to remind myself not to cut too close to the edges of the circle, and then freehand cut a repeating simple crescent shape.

The experimental part of this piece was to turn the flat paper cut design into a three-dimensional shape. I added strips of paper to the back that follow the curve of the circle and it give it the appearance of a drum. The whole thing hovers inside the square and is attached to the back of the cradle frame by two smaller pieces of paper glued to the sides of the circle.

The frame is painted a blue-grey and the background is the same white paper as the artwork rather than paint because I wanted the whites to match. I love how the circle floats within the square of the frame.

I’ve chosen “Ripple Effect” as the title of the piece. It’s available for sale and will be on display during the Eastside Culture Crawl in November.