Category: Paper

Work In Progress: Circling Back to Circles

Other than small things for the recent workshop and Creative Mornings, I haven’t made anything new in a couple of weeks. I decided to take a break while I wrapped up a few things for Purely Paper and the exhibition I’m having in Halifax next month. Now that everything is either in a show already or on its way to a gallery, I feel like I can start something new.

Whenever I take a break from making I feel this tension building up inside to get working on something. If I leave the feeling untended to for too long it makes me feel a bit crazy. I think only other artists and makers will understand that.

Work in progress paper cut

Work in progress paper cut

These are detail photos of the piece I started two days ago. I just want to cut paper and I don’t care right now about what I’m making or what will happen with it when I’m done. I’m tired of working towards shows, and am happy to just do some work, explore ideas, and play.

Purely Paper Exhibition Photos

The opening reception for Purely Paper last Thursday evening was a packed affair. I was pleasantly surprised the show drew a large enthusiastic crowd to the North Shore to see the work.

Here are a few photos of the exhibition (mostly so my mom can see it), to give you an idea of what it looks like. It’s a good mix of work by the five participating artists – Joseph Wu, Connie Sabo, Mehran Modarres-Sadeghi, Anyuta Gusakova, and me. It’s a beautiful show and I could not be more pleased to be a part of it.

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

Purely Paper

There are a few more photos in an album on Flickr. The exhibition continues until April 11th, 2015.

Purely Paper at Cityscape Gallery

Purely Paper is coming soon…

purely-paper-poster

A paper art exhibition featuring large scale installations, sculptures, drawings, origami and 2D & 3D paper cuts.

Participating artists: Joseph Wu, Rachael Ashe, Mehran Modarres-Sadeghi, Connie Sabo, and Anyuta Gusakova.

March 6 – April 11, 2015
Opening Reception: Thursday, March 5, 7:00-9:00pm
Cityscape Community Art Space
335 Lonsdale Avenue
North Vancouver
Visit the NV Arts Council website for more details.

Meditating in Paper

I shared the backlit rear view of this piece at the end of last week, and now here is the front. I’ve been making variations of this style of work a few times over the last few years, but this is the most perfect and largest version to date.

Meditation

The first photo above was taken while the work was still in-progress, and the last photo in this post is the completed version. You can see refinement in the completed shape because I was working towards a circle, which is about 13 inches in diameter.

Meditation-3

Meditation-5

Meditation-4

I think of creating these pieces as an act of meditation, but there is something about looking at one that is meditative for the viewer. Even though I’ve made pieces like this several times I think there is more to explore, so I know I’ll be making more in the future.

When the Back is More Interesting Than The Front

Yesterday I was about to start framing up a finished 3D paper cut piece, but needed to document it beforehand. I took this photo of the back of the piece with my desk lamp shining through the middle. It has a dramatic effect on the appearance of this piece, and makes the pattern even more mesmerizing.

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One of the things I keep thinking about and would love to explore this year is creating paper cut light boxes. I know just the person to collaborate on this with (but have yet to reach out…)

I’ll share the front of this finished piece next week. It’s sitting in my dining room looking pretty wonderful at the moment.

Wave Paper Cut Commission

This is a small commission I completed for a client a couple of weeks ago and was waiting to share it until after it was given (and received) as a gift.

The requirements were for the paper to be cerulean blue, for the work be to made into a card that could be framed later, and for the design to be ocean-themed. It also needed to be turned around on short notice so I used an existing design I’d created for a previous commission.

Wave commission

Wave commission

Wave commission

I like this wave design enough to now consider creating it as a paper cut “print” for my Etsy shop. What do you think?

Completed Cut Paper Scroll

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I finished the epically long tyvek paper cut piece a few weeks back and forgot to share it here on the blog. Considering how long this thing is (7 feet by 18 inches) it didn’t take me much time at all to complete. When I started I thought cutting it would consume the entire month of January, but I was done in about two weeks.

Finished tyvek installation

Finished Tyvek Installation

I need to take a proper photo of this work but it’s tricky to fit it all in the frame. My next step is figuring out how this will hang because I want space between it and the wall so it casts beautiful shadows.

Ten Cut Paper Cubes

Remember those cut paper cubes I made for Voice From Another Room at Hot Art Wet City last year? I’ve always been meaning to return to them and make more. I had six at the time, but one sold, so I decided to make five more for an installation of an even ten.

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Here are three of them freshly cut and waiting to be scored, folded, and glued together.

Ten cut paper cubes

Ten cut paper cubes

I love the ten of them together, and the wonderful shadows they cast. Now I need to figure out exactly how I want to arrange and have them displayed for my upcoming show in Halifax. More details to follow on this. I’m just waiting final confirmation on the show title.

Work In Progress Cut Paper Scroll

This is one of those ideas I’ve had on my mind for a few years and only now have I found the opportunity to work on. I want to make large paper cut work but I’ve held back because of the logistics of how to do it when the project is larger than both my work surface and my studio. The paper I work on when I cut is in constant motion and rotation, and when the paper is large I’m not sure how to do this without damage.

With this project I decided to use the roll of tyvek left over from an installation I made a few years ago. I’d started cutting a design into the roll early last year and never went back to it because I didn’t have a good plan. But this time I decided to cut the width of the tyvek in half but keep the length, and also roughly plan out the design.

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I’ve divided the tyvek into five sections and sketched out rough guidelines on each one. I’m using triangles rather than my favourite crescent shape because it lends itself better to working large. This is the progress I made on the project so far, which is about three of the seven feet.

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I had Boris take a photo of me holding up the roll to demonstrate the size of this work. I’m enjoying working on this thing because I like the challenge. Progress is going much faster than I’d thought it would, which is terrific because I have many other things to work on once this is complete.

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