all rights reserved by the artist © 2015
all rights reserved by the artist © 2015
After a long quiet time of few or no words or visuals, I am once again here to greet you from the birthing canal of the Spring Equinox...the signs of spring are everywhere and I feel like I am rebirthing from, not quite dormancy, but perhaps a slothish winter retreat. But with more sunny days, buds are being pushed open with emerging flowers, there's the uprising of underground sleeping plant life and, of course, the heart full twitters of returning birds seeking mates while flittering about collecting remnants for garnering their nests, I am happily embracing it all with open arms and senses.
Of late I have been gestating ideas for a BOOK show which opens April 6th at the Northwind Arts Center in Port Townsend. With the nearing D Day (Delivery Day) on April 2nd and I am diligently at work on numerous pieces simultaneously and recently completed this one above, REFUGE WITHIN.
My relationship with books has been a vehicle of sorts in which I am taken away from my daily life providing a gateway to imagination within a world of words. Bringing the idea of books into a sculptural concept, to tell a story without words, has stretched my creativity provoking a way to visualize books as a metaphor. In my first approach (below, REFUGE WITHIN) I found that fabricating a book to resemble a tree as a safe haven was profoundly symbolic to me.
Books
have a way of taking us places in our creative aspects very much like art
does. This project, titled Coming Unbound: Book As Sculpture, presented me with some challenges by testing my inventiveness. My use of
natural and found elements lent themselves well to create and express books in
a sculptural art form which expanded my artistic sensibilities and
has opened up my imagination much like opening a book.
The cover of the book was made using some bark covered plywood given to me by a multi-facted, fellow artist friend, Ron. I darkened the edges to blend witlh the color of the bark. The pages were assembled with old computer paper I cut to the desired size, then cutout the niche to house the nest I fashioned out of lichen. I made and painted a polymer clay egg to rest in the lichen. I then tea dyed the pages to give them an antiquated feel and look. And what is a tree without branches...so I set foot outside my studio door into our moist woods and gleaned some old, dead Salal branches, scraped off the bark and discovered a dark surface that continued the cohesiveness of overall color.
The cover of the book was made using some bark covered plywood given to me by a multi-facted, fellow artist friend, Ron. I darkened the edges to blend witlh the color of the bark. The pages were assembled with old computer paper I cut to the desired size, then cutout the niche to house the nest I fashioned out of lichen. I made and painted a polymer clay egg to rest in the lichen. I then tea dyed the pages to give them an antiquated feel and look. And what is a tree without branches...so I set foot outside my studio door into our moist woods and gleaned some old, dead Salal branches, scraped off the bark and discovered a dark surface that continued the cohesiveness of overall color.
If you are in the Port Townsend area April 6th drop into the Northwind Arts Center for the opening 5:30 to 8pm. It will be hanging through April 29th. Visit the Northwind Arts Center for more information.
REMEMBER to click on the photos for a larger image.
