I like to work visually much like the writer or poet, who jots down a phrase, or sentence ... a thought, idea, feeling or image.... and then she puts it aside for a while. There is a certain "coming together" that inevitably seems to happen in the quiet passing of time.
My work with paper pulps has been a channel to a very dear intimacy with the spirit of this amazing, vibrating, living environment we all share. Paper pulp is a material that is alive ... it can go from fresh to sour if not used in its own "time". After peeling bark from a mulberry or fig branch to make paper, I hold in my hands those smooth, newly peeled, bone-like sticks -- glistening and creamy white. I can’t help but feel grateful for this quiet yet thrilling connection…an intimate and renewed sense of ALIVE!
I’ve explored ideas with handmade paper and fibers for over the past 35 years andseek to discover connections with Paper and its sources as well as its kindred spirits. These are natural materials that are paper-like or paper-related: Fragile but tough, fibrous, thin, with a certain crackle and sturdiness, often translucent, self-woven…and sewable! On a daily basis and I find myself collecting these bits of nature - flower petals and leaves mostly (I have numerous bags of them) gathered from the yard or from the endless indoor flower bouquets brought in from the garden. A trip to Carmel, CA yielded a whole bag of papery jelly fish called “By the Wind Travelers”, which had recently blown up on the beach.
These collections of papery bits mark time and place in an ongoing, rhythmic way and slowly find their way into my visual works along with other paper-related materials such as sticks of all sorts and handmade felt (an animal fiber equivalent to the plant fiber of paper).
Through my work I hope to communicate and celebrate an ongoing interaction with all these blessings of nature.
