First Friday Art Walk in Denver

Reflections, 38 x 92, ©2008 Deidre Adams

UPDATE – 2:15 pm
Just found out from gallery manager they are NOT planning to be open tonight. I apologize if anyone is inconvenienced by this!

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As today is the first Friday in December, this means tonight there will be another opportunity to peruse the galleries in Denver’s ArtDistrict on Santa Fe, including Translations Gallery, where my solo show continues through January 2. Above is one of my latest works which is on exhibit at the gallery. This is the end result of the piece that you can see me working on in the video on the gallery’s home page.

Also, a reminder to anyone in the Denver metro area that the Speaking in Cloth: 6 Quilters, 6 Voices exhibition, featuring the work of Ann Johnston, Jeannette DeNicolis Meyer, Cynthia Corbin, Nancy Erickson, Quinn Zander Corum, and Trisha Hassler, is currently showing at the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden, through Jan. 31, 2009.

Hand papermaking for fun and profit

Just kidding about that last part — monetary rewards are unlikely here! But I have been very much enjoying my papermaking class. In fact, it’s quite the all-consuming activity, involving many different materials and techniques.

Over the last several weeks, we’ve been making sheets of paper from cotton and abaca fibers which were obtained as “half stuff” (which means the fibers have been partially processed and sold as compressed dried sheets that the artist then needs to process further into usable pulp), as well as raw plant materials and recycled papers.

Here’s a selection of sheet samples:

From left to right, these are abaca, recycled bond paper printed with black inkjet ink (which turned blue when soaked), cattail mixed with abaca, daylily with abaca, green iris with abaca, kozo with bits of recycled cardboard, dried iris, and kozo papers.

There are several ways to process fiber. The preferred method is to own your own Hollander beater, a specialized machine made just for this purpose. Failing that, an ordinary household blender could be used, which works especially well with recycled paper. Plant fibers must first be cooked, and can then be processed either in a Hollander or blender, or by hand beating with some kind of mallet or a baseball bat — marvelous for releasing tension and long-suppressed aggressions.

Prepared fibers are then suspended in a vat of water, where they can then be made into paper with the use of a mold and deckle — two same-sized frames, one with a screen, which are dipped into the pulp to form the sheet.

Over the course of the last few weeks, I’ve made two sizes of my own mold and deckle sets, plus acquired most of what I need for my own papermaking studio, which currently consists of outside on my deck. I don’t know how much paper work I’ll continue to do, but I do have some ideas about combining paper and textile processes for something new in the future.

I’ve been trying to develop ideas for my final project in the class. I want to use recycled paper, because the idea of making something out of another used-up thing has a huge appeal for me. I took a bunch of old unsuccessful watercolor paintings and turned these into a pulp by soaking several hours and then processing with the blender. Here’s a sheet made from this:

The chunky look of it is due to the fact that the original paper consisted of different compositions, including some good 100% cotton and some crappy student-grade stuff. The cotton breaks down better than cheap stuff, which stays chunky. The blue comes from the old placemat I pressed the wet sheet with. This is also how I got the ribbed texture.

I also have a huge stack of old maps which were rescued from a recycle bin where my husband works, and I would love to use these somehow. I need to think up some kind of a concept for them which makes sense as a finished piece, though, and that’s the stumbling block. Better get going on some brainstorming in the sketchbook.

Horizon I

adams-horizon1.jpg

Horizon I, 12 x 12 inches, ©2005 Deidre Adams

This piece is like an old friend to me. I recently had a chance to see it again after it came back to me from the Fine Focus 2006 traveling exhibition, before I shipped it on to the buyer. When I first made it back in 2005, my only goal was challenging myself to work within the very small format required by Fine Focus. Although at that time I had no idea that it would turn into an ongoing series, I did make two others at the same time. That may have been what helped me to see that this was an idea worth pursuing through more variations.

Here’s a photo of all three of them together. I thought they made a nice triptych, although after the first one sold, that was the end of that. I still have Horizons II & III.

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Horizon I, II, and III; 12 x 12 inches (ea.), ©Deidre Adams

The challenge of making work this small within the fiber medium is that because of its size, weight, and physical presence, it’s hard to avoid the association with other familiar things made of fabric: placemats and potholders. Small paintings don’t have this problem – they’re still paintings.

Lots of artists have discovered that mounting these smaller pieces can solve the potholder problem. There are a myriad of ways of doing this, including matting and framing, attaching to a larger fabric-covered mounting, or attaching to a canvas. The latter is my preferred method. I use a stretched canvas, attach the piece by hand-stitching it (I’m afraid of glues or other adhesives), and then paint the edges in a coordinating color. Here’s an image showing it from the front and side:

adams-horizonii-mounted.jpg

I think this gives it enough presence to make it look like a work of art and not a household object.

February 29th, 2008|Fiber / mixed media|9 Comments