I’m jumping ahead a bit in sharing new work for the Circles and Animals series. I actually completed The Mouse after two other pieces in the series I have yet to share. This was commissioned by a client who was looking for new artwork to hand in their new Gastown offices.

I shared a few options for paper cutting work with the client and he decided to go with a circle cut layered piece featuring a mouse. He’s pretty darn cute, and I’m surprised I didn’t think of this animal sooner for the series.

One thing of note about this piece is, I went back and re-did the tail after the pieces were already assembled and glued. It was a bit of tricky business to cut away the original tail from the mouse and reattach the new one, all without wrecking the piece in the process.

As of last week, The Mouse hangs in its new home in The Jibe offices in Gastown. Check out more work from the Circles and Animals series I’ve shared previously -> (Fox, Snail, Owl, Crow, Koi)

A few times a year I arrange to trade work with other artists. It goes something like this: they like my artwork, and I like their artwork and so we work out a deal and make an exchange of work.

My most recent trade is with origami artist, Joseph Wu. Over the last few years he’s very generously given me a few pieces, including the two lovebirds he made in memorial to Yuuki, and the lunar new year water dragon pictured below.

It was only after I commissioned Joseph to create an origami portrait of my friend’s dog for his fortieth birthday that we agreed to do an exchange for one of my paper cut pieces.

I took a short video on Instagram as I was working on the paper cut piece:

The finished size is 10″ x 10″, and is made up of two separate sections cut from a single piece of paper. The tricky part was mounting these into the cradle frame without destroying the work because there wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver.

It’s a lovely continuation of my Wind and Water paper cut series. Now I just need to get it into Joseph’s hands.

I’m thrilled to be able to publicly share the corporate art commission I created for Vancity Credit Union over the summer. It is on permanent display in the Community Stage room in their South Burnaby branch at 5064 Kingsway.

The piece is called, Interconnection: Altering the Landscape, and is created from repurposed topographic maps of Burnaby and surrounding areas.

Photo credit: Brady Dahmer http://bradydahmerdesign.com/

My work is one of four pieces of art commissioned by Vancity for this newly renovated bank branch. It hangs together with work by Robi Smith (left), and Christina Norberg (center).

The fourth commissioned piece (and largest) is located in the reception area of the branch, and catches the eye as soon as you walk in. It is a beautiful installation of upcycled plates by Jasna Sokolovic and Noel O’Connell of Dear Human.

If you’re interested in checking out the work in person, the artists are planning a reception for January 12th, 2013. Stay tuned for more details.

As mentioned in my blog post about the halloween costumes, I recently had a commercial paper engineering project on the go. I’d been contacted in early October by Giant Ant, a creative studio that tells stories through moving pictures and sound. They were working on a concept for a music video shoot for Victoria indie band Current Swell, and they were looking for someone to create life-size instruments from paper.

I’ve never done a project this large, nor did I have any previous experience creating paper props, but I said yes to the project. I felt strongly that it was something I could do, and knew I would learn a tonne of new skills in the process. The list of deliverables included: one drum set with drumsticks and cymbals, three acoustic guitars, two bass guitars, and one harmonica. The deadline was to get it all completed and ready for the shoot within a week and a half.

I worked my behind off and delivered the props with time to spare.

It was a pleasant surprise to tap into abilities I didn’t previously realize I possess. I am able to design three dimensional objects in my head with very little planning and then create them. It feels a bit like a new super power.

For the guitars I was given both an acoustic and a bass guitar to use as reference, but for the drums and harmonica I used photos to guide me. It’s incredibly helpful to have a real object to work with in creating three-dimensional props because then there is no guessing about size.

The video shoot happened last Thursday in Vancouver, and the finished version should be available in a few weeks time. The Current Swell shared a behind-the-scenes video of the set, and I was glad to hear they loved the paper instruments.

Sadly, all but two of the guitars were destroyed, as this was part of the concept of the video.