I use my handmade paper
to create three-dimensional wall reliefs that reproduce the cataclysmic
effects of nature. Among the materials I use in my paper
sculptures are plants that I harvest along streams, then boil and
pound into fiber. I include elements from nature in my work---earth,
sea kelp, semi-prescious stones, whale fossils, and lichen--expressing
my deep affinity for the sea, winds and tides. I also incorporate
ancestral lace from both sides of my family, and human made items
as fiberglass cloth and gold foil, opposites to the natural world. I
use bursts of pigment, luster, and metallic powders along with
pigmented pulp to create saturated color fields that emulate light
moving over the earth. My papermaking studio is on a deck
in Big Sur where I am surrounded by a vast expanse of blue, with
the Santa Lucia Mountain Range rising out of the sea at my feet. I created
the Santa Lucia Series in response to this visual and
tactile feast.
The Locus Magiquorum Series,
2004 and the As
Above So Below Series, 2005-2006 explores the mediums of pigment
powders and sea kelp. Working in the manner of a printmaker I set up a
flat plastic surface (my etching plate) with pigments and natural objects like
kelp, then I couch the paper pulp on top. The plant fibers I work with
are abaca (the inner stalk of the banana plant), cotton, hemp, kozo of the mulberry
genus, and gampi (an uncultivable plant.) As the kelp dries and shrinks,
the paper fibers form into relief surfaces. Once dry I remove some of the
kelp which reveals its impressions akin to walking on wet sand along the tide-line. The
title Locus Magiquorum, latin for magic moment comes from wading into
the ocean boogie board in hand, wave just about to burst, and seeing sea kelp
backlit inside. The AsAbove So Below Series continues
with the ocean theme only working with an expanded palette, for at sunset the
colors in the sky and ocean are the same. The title also points to a spiritual
belief. The title for my current series, End-Game, 2006- comes from
Samuel Beckett’s play It is almost impossible for me to wrap my mind
around global finitude, to no longer perceive the magnitude of creation. Each
work is blind embossed with two X’s made from duct tape. Of
Itself, 2006- only
utilizes fiber and kelp, or kelp holdfasts. There are both wall-relief
and three -dimensional sculptures in the series. Emmanuel Kant’s
philosophical term “ding an sic” ( of itself) speaks to the essence
of things. As my work dries, I hear the kelp pulling, stretching, sculpting
the plant fibers, an alive-elemental-uncontrollable process, in a dance with
itself.
While living in Japan and Hong Kong in the late seventies to mid-eighties I developed
the Canto Series my epic spirit play with paper and dance which incorporates
paper, sculpture, movement, and sound. In my current series of site specific
performance pieces I cast sheets of handmade paper over whale bones which I perform
with. I have also produced a series of whale bone drawings using sumi ink, calligraphy
brushes,and porcupine quills given to me in Zimbabwe. In addition to creating
the lines, the porcupine quills incise the paper, evoking the scratched earthen
lines of early cave paintings.
In Eastern Spiritual Practices handmade paper is imbued with healing and mystical
properties. It is in this spirit that I work.
