I’m continuing with my close-up look at some of the recent work I created for Voices From Another Room at Hot Art Wet City.
I wanted to explore different forms with the three dimensional paper cut vessels, and I had this idea of creating a sculpture of stacked cubes. Some of the previous vessels are pieced together from multiple pieces of paper, while others are created from a single sheet. In the case of these cubes, these were each cut from a single sheet of 8.5″ x 11″ black cardstock.
I found a template on creating square boxes and used this as my guide to the structure of the box, but hand drew each one in the end. The designs were created freeform and hand cut using an xacto knife. I made six of these in all with the idea they would cluster together on a plith. Each cube is 2.5″ x 2.5″ square.
While in Toronto I’ve been venturing out to galleries every day this week, despite whatever terrible thing the weather throws our way. On Tuesday I wandered the hallways of 401 Richmond while a storm raged away outside, and yesterday I visited The Power Plant and Harbourfront Center. All are favourite places from my previous life in Toronto, so it was pleasing to see how they’ve evolved over the last ten years.
The highlight of yesterday was coming across multiple paper sculptures in Studious, a show in the Harbourfront Gallery featuring a variety of craft-based work.
Black Cloud is a massive installation of black paper and rubber or wire tubing (I’m not sure which) created by Amanda McCavour. It is magnificent, huge, and extremely inspiring to my paper-loving self. The photos don’t really do it justice, but I had to share it.
Across the gallery are three paper works by Lizz Aston. They are hand cut work, and made from dyed kozo paper. It’s hard to tell from the photos but these pieces are large and float a couple inches away from the wall. Again I found this work the exact thing that stimulates ideas in my own brain. It’s the kind of scale I hope to finally achieve in my own work this year.
For the past two days Boris and I have working away on my installation at the Gladstone Hotel for the exhibition, If Walls Could Talk. We had three days for install but we managed to get it done in two. It was a tonne of work, and at the beginning I truly had my doubts this piece would come together, but the completed installation looks even better than I’d hoped.
I made sure to document the process from the beginning, starting with Boris up a ladder weaving metal cable back and forth through the existing hooks in the twelve foot ceiling. The cable is the basic infrastructure from which all the wing clusters hang.
The clusters are made up of eight wings cut from card stock in various sizes and shapes. I was using the bottom of the ladder as a staging an assembling area to string the wire, and then cut and fit the wings together one cluster at a time.
Boris did all of the ladder work on my behalf, which I am extremely grateful for because I am afraid of heights and this was a twelve foot ceiling.
Once we get a rhythm going, I was assembling six to eight wing clusters at a time so we could hang a bunch in one go. It was a good way to work because it filled the space faster, and helped me figure out how much more we needed to complete the work.
I cut just over six hundred individual wings to use in the installation, and did not end up needing to include them all. I think the final tally of wings included in the piece is somewhere between four and five hundred. I wanted to make sure I had more than enough to work with because I wouldn’t be able to cut more once I arrived in Toronto. The wings were created using a Silhouette Cameo digital cutter, rather than done by hand. I am not that crazy.
Once the installation was completed we tweaked the lighting. The shadows projected on the wall behind it are pretty dramatic and incredible. It adds a beautiful sense of movement to the piece.
Here is a short video of Flight Path / Taking Flight. I think this may win as the largest piece of artwork I have made to date.
You can see Flight Path / Taking Flight as part of If Walls Could Talk at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto. The show opens Thursday March 6th 2014, and my work will be up until March 16th.
For the last few weeks I’ve been trying to fast track the production of a paper installation made up of a ridiculous amount of individual pieces of paper. I’ve been using the digital cutter to do most of the cutting for me, but it hasn’t been a smooth process because the machine has a tendency towards paper butchery at random intervals. It’s a moody little beast, but to be fair, I have asked it to cut a couple hundred (or so) pieces of paper over the last few weeks.
My final count, for now, is about six hundred paper wings in white, silver, beige, and black paper. It should work out to about sixty clusters of these wings, which will hopefully fill up the space nicely where these will hang. There is a lot of guess work going on here because I’ve only seen photos and videos of the space these are destined for.
Yesterday I took one of the black wings and used it as a surface to doodle a meditative drawing. I love the way this looks and it made me wish I could so this with all them. But I’m not that crazy…
I have a few undocumented paper sculptures that pre-date this one, but because this cube is small I can do it more quickly than the others. These are photos I lit with a desk lamp and photographed with my iPhone. Simple. Quick. Done
The cube is a work in progress for a larger series of small paper sculptures I want to make for an upcoming show. I see them as a collection of paper cut objects, piled one on top of another, and casting interesting shadows.
This first one is a prototype that turned out a bit wonky because my measurements were a bit off. I used a digital cutter to create the form and cut the design by hand. I think these are the first paper cut sculptures I’ve made with black paper instead of white, and am curious to see how they work as a grouping of pieces.
On Friday afternoon I found myself doodling with a silver gel pen on card stock, not with any purpose in mind or end goal. I wanted to keep my hands moving while my mind wandered and I worked through something completely unrelated in my head. It was soothing to move the pen across the page making a grouping of curved lines, and then eventually straight lines interconnected into clusters of triangles. (None of which is pictured here).
I’ve drawn like this before in my sketchbook but the silver gel pen on black paper makes it something fascinating and special. The initial drawing I did on Friday led to a whole lot more over the weekend, because when I like something I am obsessive about it. I’ve completed four of these on 8.5″ x 11″ paper.
The drawings are a meditative process on par with the paper cutting work I love to do. My mind becomes a calm blank if I allow it to, and I don’t see any further than the next line or cut. It feels as good as the smooth glide of the gel pen across the page.
A friend suggested making paper cut hearts using black paper instead of red, and it led the designs in a completely different direction than the previous ones. I used triangles as the repeating shape within the form of a heart.
The first version has randomly cut triangles. I cut these freehand without a ruler or drawing anything other than the outline of the heart and lines to centre things on the page.
With the second design I decided to go with a more structured pattern of triangles working from a centre point within the heart. I drew lines radiating from the centre point and used a ruler to guide me as I cut. The end result makes the heart seem shattered. Take from that what you will…
I’ve been productive since my last blog post, with three more paper cut hearts available in my Etsy shop. Valentines Day sure has been inspiring this year.
I’m a little obsessed at the moment with cutting these heart-shaped pieces. I’ve found myself working on a few ideas in my head, which is always the sign of an obsession.
I completed two different designs earlier this week. The first is a piece with two hearts, one large, and one small. I drew the heart outlines first and then created the form from an interesting mishmash of different shapes. This is cut from an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of red card stock, with the larger heart measuring at 5.25″ x 4.25″, while the smaller heart is 3″ x 2.75″
The finished piece is listed on Etsy, and is available for purchase.
This is my favourite of the hearts I’ve made so far. I decided to create the work from the repeating crescent shape I often use in my work, and the results were amazing. It makes for a mesmerizing design that plays with the eye (just what you want from a heart).
This piece is also available in my Etsy shop, with more to come…
Earlier this week I was feeling uninspired and not really sure what I wanted to do next with my paper cutting work. At the same time an upcoming project unexpectedly went on hold so I decided to take the time to play and explore ideas for Valentine paper cut pieces. This is something I mean to do every year but I never make time for it. I don’t have any special feelings about Valentine’s day, but I do love the colour red.
I’ve had this idea of a paper cut heart in my head and it felt so good to get it out. I drew the outline and freehand cut the design with an xacto knife. The heart is roughly 4.5″ x 6″ on an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of card stock paper.
Making time to play with a simple side project, and to work with coloured paper rather than white, was just the thing I needed to get inspired.
The paper cut heart is listed in my Etsy Shop as an unframed original. I plan to create a few variations of more hearts as I have time.
