In preparation for Hammer Cut Stitch Repeat in September I’ve been photographing work for the show. I have a deadline at the end of this week where photos are due, and it’s been a good excuse to get a few things documented.
I love this detail photo of me behind a close-up of one of my cut tyvek scroll installation pieces, taken by my friend Ryan Mah. I needed help photographing these large pieces, and he really came through. Now I can add both to my portfolio, which is long overdue as a to do.
Last week felt productive in the studio when I finally finished two of the three wearable art pieces. I cut the remaining blue flower bits and figured out how to bring it all together into a necklace using wire, beads, and a pre-made metal neck-sized ring that I found at DeSerres. I could have done a victory lap around the block because it felt so good to reach the end of some of this work.
The end, except for the nagging thought I just can’t seem to shake, that this needs a few more strands to REALLY make it awesome. I’m holding off on that for now until after I finish the third wearable.
The triangle piece is also finished, and I’m having similar thoughts about it – that it could use a few more strands of hand cut pieces (which probably means an additional forty).
This week I’ve switched projects again and I’m back working on paper wearable number two, or is it three?! There are definitely three of these on the go, but I think I originally started this second, and the red one first. I still need to go back to that first paper wearable and get it sorted out because it’s been sitting there unfinished for a couple of weeks.
These blue pieces are similar to the red ones as they are flower shapes cut from circles, but on a slightly smaller scale that is driving me a little nuts. It has to be this way in order for the wearable idea to work. I have about eight more of the above pieces to cut and then I can arrange and assemble them. I can hardly wait.
This pile of triangle pieces are the offcuts from the flowers, and they are incredibly tiny, around an eighth of an inch or so. They are adorable in person.
Up until recently I got a little sidetracked by working on my website rather than in the studio. But last week I made some major progress on the triangle wearable. The photo above is of the first version from a few weeks ago, and the second photo (positioned in a spiral) was after I added more material. I kept looking at this second version and felt it needed even more.
I cut an additional eighty triangles (twenty of each colour), and added them to the piece. There are six strands measuring roughly sixteenish inches long. I improvised a makeshift clasp so I could try it on and get a sense for how it should hang on a body. It’s working very well, but I still feel it needs a bit more material added to it because I want it to be denser.
My next steps are figuring out how to make a proper clasp and attachment from wire. I’m hoping to get this and two other pieces finished in time for the beginning of July because photos are due then of the work.
I currently have three wearable paper art pieces on the go. As I got stalled on the first one, I start working on a second, and then a third. Eventually they’ll all come together as completed work. Pictured here are the bits and pieces of the third work in progress wearable for the neck.
I had to laugh when I started working on this, because clearly I can never just make one of anything. It always has to be multiples. Why make one triangle when I can make a whole pile of them?! Same goes for flowers, and anything else that comes to mind of recent work. The middle photo are the off-cut pieces of the triangles, and they will not be part of the finished piece.
I had a terrific studio visit on Friday with the two artists organizing the show these will be part of in September. It was fun to share these with others, and they gave me a few ideas on how to proceed.
These lovely red things are what I started working on after I set aside the cut paper strips. I love these so much, but it may be the colour, because red is my favourite. I started by cutting about twelve or so, and then cut another bunch to bring the number up to thirty. It’s hard to tell in the first two photos but some of the paper is in two different shades of orange and not red. They range in size from an inch in diameter to two and a half (I think).
These will all come together into a wearable piece, when I finally figure out what shape and size of base I want to attach them to. I’ve been prototyping these but haven’t yet settled on one I’m satisfied with.
This will end up as a ridiculously elaborate paper wearable, but I wanted to make something spectacular for the show in September.
With the tyvek installation completed, last week I launched into prototyping ideas for some of the other work I need to create for the same show. I’ve agreed to make wearable pieces from paper for Hammer Cut Stitch Repeat in September. The show is organized by jewellery designers, Patsy Kay Kolesar and Simone Richmond, around the common theme of pattern and repetitive work.
The photos pictured here are from last week when I was exploring an idea around making an elaborate collar piece from strips of cut paper. It didn’t work out so well, so I played around with curling the paper and seeing what happens. I did not come up with an idea I am happy with so I’ve set this one aside for now.
I do like the organic forms I can create this way, and of course the shadows. I set this idea aside this week to forge ahead on something else that is actually going well so far. More on that in another blog post.
My attention has been shifting between working on prototypes for wearable paper pieces for a fall show, and a small series of repetitive drawings. Those started as a diversion (read that as procrastination) from the tyvek piece, and then became a series of its own. Last week I worked on the fourth in the series (the rest of which you can see here and here) and finished it as well.
I went with triangles this time, and worked it into a circle as I did with the others. The finished piece is metallic gel pen on 12″ x 12″ archival black paper.
I lined up the four pieces on my easel and took the above photo. I love all the texture and pattern in a row. A friend commented on Instagram that it reminded her of the phases of the moon. It was exactly what I was thinking.
Last week I returned to work on the tyvek installation, and managed to get through the last few inches to bring it to completion. As I reached the end I felt like putting on Eye of the Tiger and doing a few laps around the studio as I waved my hands triumphantly the air. Woo hoo!
It didn’t occur to me until I was almost at the end to count the number of circle designs that made up this piece. At that point it was thirty-three, and by the end it was thirty-eight. I went back and added two more to bring the number up to forty.
No wonder this piece made me so crazy. It’s a piece of work made up of forty individual designs, and each one was a whole lot of work. I’m glad I did this, and I am happy with the result, but I will never take this approach to something on this scale again.
This piece will be part of an upcoming exhibit in September at Circle Craft Gallery, titled Hammer, Cut, Stitch, Repeat.
In taking a break from working on the cut tyvek installation I went on a bender of repetitive drawing and suddenly I had started a new series.
I feel these are a continuation of the tiny drawings I was doing around the same time last year on circle cut pieces of black card stock. While those were around 3 to 4 inches in diameter, these latest ones are 10.5 inches in diameter on 12″ x 12″ square acid-free paper, and drawn with metallic gel pen.
Repetition of tiny circles
Repetition of a leaf shape
Repetition of double half circles
This work makes me feel crazy, and frustrated, but I love where it gets to in the end. I can probably say this about all of the work I do…