A Beautiful Cascade of Paper

“Cascade ” is one of the two pieces I created for the exhibition, On The Same Page: Transforming Paper on now at Cityscape Community Art Space in North Vancouver. I shared the tiny prototype of this a few months back, but not the finished piece. Until now.

The piece is made from nine layers of hand-cut Yupo translucent paper, and measures 38″ x 25″. It was an epic project to work on, and figure out how to bring all these layers together successfully.

“Cascade” and “Dreaming In Patterns Borrowed From The Sea” are the beginning of a new direction involving layers in my work. I just started working on a new prototype today for a third large piece.

On The Same Page: Transforming Paper

I’ve been working on this group exhibition as an organizer, co-curator, and participating artist for the past five months, and I’m thrilled to finally share it with the world.

North Van Arts in partnership with Crafted Vancouver presents On The Same Page: Transforming Paper. The exhibition showcases 12 artists working with paper as an obsessive occupation, devotional labour and commitment to artistry expressed in this humble and familiar material. This exhibition of 2D work, sculpture, and installation elevates and transforms paper in unexpected and provocative ways.

Featuring the work of artist-curators Rachael Ashe and Connie Sabo, and fellow artists Charles Clary, Concealed Studio (Mario Sabljak and Cheryl Cheng), Gail Grinnell, Annyen Lam, Monique Martin, Leslie Pearson, Brangwynne Purcell, Martha Ritchie, and Grant Withers.

On The Same Page: Transforming Paper
Dates: May 10 – Jun 15, 2019
Artists’ Reception: Thursday May 16, 7pm – 9pm
Gallery Hours: Mon – Fri, 9am – 5pm | Thu, 9am – 8pm | Sat, 12pm – 5pm
Location: Cityscape Community Art Space, 335 Lonsdale Avenue, North Vancouver

Workshop: Creating Altered Books

I’ve scheduled a second class for the year, and this time you can learn how to create art from old books. It’s been more than a year since I last taught this class, so be sure to grab your spot.

This five hour workshop is an introduction to examples and techniques for transforming old books into one-of-a-kind pieces of art. There is an unlimited potential for creating interesting work by altering books through cutting, folding, rolling, collaging, etc. This course will demonstrate a selection of techniques and provide a starting point for creating work of your own. The goal will be to complete one finished altered book by the end of the workshop. Please bring at least two old books you would like to work with, one for experimenting, and one to make a completed project.

Visit Eventbrite for further details and to register for the class.

Altered Book Workshop
Date: Sunday June 9th, 2019
Time: 10am to 3pm
Location: BC Artscape Sun Wah Centre, 268 Keefer Street, 3rd floor
Cost: $105 + fee

Making Waves in Layers

Over the past few months I’ve been working on experimenting with taking the work in a new direction involving layered pieces of cut paper. I’ve wanted to explore this idea for awhile but couldn’t quite get my head around how, until recently. I’ve been working with Yupo paper for these pieces, starting with the small prototype I shared in a previous blog post.

One my struggles around layering was how to retain the elaborate designs of the cutting across multiple layers of paper and have them not become a big jumble of busyness. Should I cut the entirety of each layer or part of each one, was the big question. With the piece pictured here I created each layer to overlap slightly and used alternating lightness and darkness of the same colour to differentiate. I think it worked out really well.

Freshly painted layers laid flat
Layer assembly in-progress

The work is titled, Dreaming in Colours Borrowed From The Sea and is inspired by the repetition of ocean waves. It’s approximately 14” x 11” with six layers of hand-cut Yupo paper painted with gouache.

This is the second of two pieces I’ve created for an upcoming show titled, On The Same Page: Transforming Paper, happening in May as part of Crafted Vancouver. More details to come!

The completed assembly of all six layers

1 Second A Day of Patterns Part 2

I continued with the theme of patterns for my 1 Second a Day videos in March. I came across so many interesting bits of pattern design last month, and also kept noticing new things in familiar places.

I decided to take a break from the project this month but I’ve been missing it, and still noticing so many terrific examples of pattern design.

Settling Into A New Studio Space

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One of the goals I’d hoped to accomplish last year but instead got pushed to this year because of the flood, was to look for a studio space outside of my home. Doing it has always felt like an unattainable pipe dream in this city of unaffordable rent, but I’d really outgrown my tiny second bedroom. I felt the space was putting hard limits on growing as an artist and stifling my ability to create larger work.

I looked at a few different space options in January and February of this year, and have ended up in a shared studio in the BC Artscape run Sun Wah building in Chinatown. My new studio is more than double the 80 sqft of the second bedroom I’d been working out of for years. I finally have room for a paper file to store work and supplies, and also a second work table. It feels amazing to have this new expanded work area, with more surface areas to place things (instead of on my bed), and room for storage.

I had my first open studio last weekend, and many friends and acquaintances dropped by for a visit to see the space. They all seemed as excited as I am about the whole thing. I can’t wait to see how this will help me grow as an artist.

Sticky: A Post-It Note Art Show

I am excited to have work included in the latest art event hosted by Hot Art Wet City, happening for one night only on March 30th, 6pm to 10pm. I have created six small works from post-it notes for Sticky, which is an entire exhibition of art made from sticky note paper.

I bought the most lovely colours I could find at Staples, and then tried to get creative with it. I made the work in three sets of two so I could try a few different ideas. This type of paper proved to be a huge struggle to work with in paper cutting and crafting, but I managed to make a few pieces I love.

STICKY features over a thousand tiny, original, pieces of art made on 3×3 inch Post-It notes! Almost 140 artists contributed 6–10 pieces each, with every Post-It priced at $20/each. Our focus is on great art from local and international talent at a very affordable price. Join us on Saturday March 30 at The Arts Factory (281 Industrial Ave, Vancouver). Doors open at 6pm and expect a line-up for the duration of the evening; please be patient, it’ll be worth it! Cash only, FREE TO ATTEND

Sticky: A Post-It Note Art Show
Date: Saturday March 30th, 2019
Time: 6pm to 10pm
Location: The Arts Factory, 281 Industrial Avenue

Creative Paper Cutting Techniques Workshop

It’s been a long time coming but I have finally started to put together a schedule of workshops for the year. Join me on Sunday April 28th for my latest workshop teaching paper cutting.

In this hands-on workshop I will introduce students to the joys of creating intricate art through paper cutting. During the class participants will work on small projects incorporating traditional techniques with a modern twist, and a focus on abstraction and pattern. The goal is to help students develop knife skills, discuss tools and materials, as well as inspire ideas for how to integrate paper cut elements into their own work

Visit eventbrite to register.

Creative Paper Cutting Techniques Workshop
Date: Sunday April 28th, 2019
Time: 11am to 3pm
Cost: $95 + $6.80 fee (materials included)
Location: BC Artscape, 268 Keefer Street, 3rd floor

1 Second A Day of Patterns

In February I continued doing 1 Second A Day Videos as a creative side project. This time I decided to focus on the theme of collecting patterns. This was really fun to do because it forced me to pay more attention to my surroundings, especially in places I walk all the time. It was also fairly challenging because some days there just weren’t any interesting patterns to find.

I love the end result of the collected patterns, and decided to continue with the same theme for my videos in March.

Reading Habit For Life

Lately I’ve been often asked how I manage to read so many books, usually because I share my recent reads on Instagram Stories. I guess people have noticed I share a new book almost every week.

I’ve always been an enthusiastic reader of books, but when I first moved to Vancouver almost fifteen years ago I lost the habit. I couldn’t afford to buy books very often, and I stopped making the time to read. I think the internet took over at this point and that’s where my free time would go.

I don’t remember exactly what brought me back to enthusiastic reading again, but I’ve been tracking the number of books I read using Good Reads since 2012. I read 58 books that year, and since then the number of books I read over the course of 365 days has increased to 71 as of 2018. I usually aim for 60 books and easily surpass that number.

My secret weapon to reading lots of books over all these years has been to borrow them from the library. I can request books using their app, which sometimes gets out of hand these days because there’s no longer a limit on the number you can request each year. The limit used to be 50, and I’d always blow through that and hope a kind librarian would grant me a few more to get me to the end of the year. These days I have between 12 to 20 books on hold at any given time.

I love the library, and probably go in there at least once a week to drop off and/or pick up books. Library books give you a built in deadline to read and finish a book before the date it is due. I think if I didn’t have that, and access to an all-you-can-read amount of books, I would not be able to read as much as I do.

So there are my hot tips if “reading more books” is on your list of goals this year. Use Good Reads to track the number of books you read, and use the VPL app to request books at the drop of a hat. Now stop looking at the internet and go read a book.