Making Paper

In 1986 I saw a very innovative type of art made from sheets of unusual paper, sewn together with thread and decorated with antique ceramic shards, feathers, leaves and other objects of uncertain identity and mysterious origins. These beautiful and sensitive abstract compositions were called assemblages and were encased in shadowbox frames made of Plexiglass.

René, the woman who constructed them, became a friend and mentor. On a visit to her studio, while I was admiring an assemblage with a sculpted paper fish, she presented me with a few handfuls of pulp balls and instructed me on how to use them. “Just reconstitute them in water and push them into a mold.”


















Her mold was a rusty fish-shaped jelly mold. The wet paper picked up the rust color adding just a touch of antiquity that blended into the tail area. I took the pulp balls home and followed her directions but I didn’t have any kind of mold. The only thing around, with an interesting texture, was a pair of pink swimming scallop shells.













The shells were purloined from my dinner plate a few months prior, on an overnight stay at the Sooke Harbour House, a seaside restaurant/ bed & breakfast. It was a ‘young’ restaurant then and has since become a world-class destination, winning many awards.

















I would have taken more than two shells from the plate of twelve but I was worried what they’d think about the weird lady staying in the Blue Heron Room who didn’t return any of the shells on her plate. “Maybe she ate them!”


















When I came home I tried casting recycled paper. The wet paper pulp dried and literally snapped off from the shell. Every minute detail was transferred.














After a little research I found several products to use for mold making and started my new career: paper shell maker.


















I made mauve shells, pink shells, green shells and blue shells. Then pink & mauve shells, green shells with a touch of blue, and so on. Happy, happy, shells! Now what?















Greeting cards! Each one an original signed work of art with it’s own title. Over the next four years I turned out hundreds upon hundreds, maybe thousands of shell cards and sold them. Little shell cards alone financed my first computer. Another friend asked me during a Christmas open house (where I was selling shell cards), “Have you ever thought of using a larger format?” No. It never occurred to me. I was having too much fun pumping out cards.












Frame the shells, add a few embellishments….quite arty! They were as popular as the cards. Over time other themes and objects were tried in the framed format and people I knew stopped referring to me as a crafter and began calling me an artist. I remember feeling uncomfortable with this metamorphosis and it took me a long time to accept the new title.

One of my recent workshop students asked, “How do you really know when you’re an artist?” I suppose my answer is, “When people tell you that you are.”

Road Trip

A short road trip was scheduled at the beginning of the month, only for a two-night stay but far enough away for a change of scenery.

British Columbia, Canada is a huge province, most heavily populated in the south-western corner, just north of the 49th parallel which borders the USA. The central part of the province’s cities and towns are much smaller and farther apart. The closest city that’s larger is 521km (about 324 miles) to the south. Opted instead for an eastern direction, into the province of Alberta: totally different landscape, booming economy with lots of shopping opportunities (not to mention a lower sales tax rate) and a somewhat better weekend weather forecast.


















So, it's off to Grande Prairie….530km (332 miles) one way - 6½ hours of driving, at a speed of 90-100 kilometers for a good part of it.

For comparison, approximately the same travel distance as:
Los Angeles to San Jose, CA
Dortmund to Dresden, Germany
Miami to Jacksonville, FL
Madrid to Barcelona, Spain
from Swansea, Wales to London & back to Cardiff
farther than Paris to Lyon, France
farther than Wellington to Gisborne, NZ

Northern roads take a real beating in the extreme weather conditions. I knew the winters would be cold when I moved here but didn’t know the summers could be scorchingly hot. Repairs to the asphalt make a thwacketta-thwacketta sound as you drive over them. With all the bumping along, it's surprising these pictures aren't all a blur!















Within 100-200 km in any direction from home, BC's scenery and landscape changes dramatically. Rain forest to the west, desert-like areas to the south, mountains and prairie to the east.














The twisty highway through the Pine Pass winds over the Hart Ranges


















…..taking you though valleys past meandering streams


















…..then over the Rockies.


















The highway straightens out over the rolling foothills and the speed limit increases to 100 km/hr.













Those farmers and oilfield workers are really in a rush to get everywhere, judging from the whoosh as so many passed us and disappeared into the horizon.

Maybe they know where the good sales are in Grande Prairie, just over the next hill.






























I usually bring a book to read when traveling but this time I brought a ‘traveling art kit’. Basic supplies to make a few ATCs for recent trades.


















Who cares what the city nightlife has to offer if you can make ATC’s in your hotel room?














A new technique: the original intention was to fasten brads into each corner of the pile of found papers. In my studio I like to be able to see all my supplies at a glance. This was no different – if I secured everything, I wouldn’t be able to see each individual page, so one brad and a giant paperclip was the solution.



















































This post is getting long, so I’ll upload a ‘shopping spree’ set to flickr.com later.

On the way back home, a stop at the museum in a small town called Pouce Coupe (rhymes with ‘loose toupee’), which is about a 13-minute drive from Dawson Creek, BC and ‘Mile 0’ of the Alaska Highway. Besides the wealth of local history, including WWII uniforms of a dozen men and women from the town, a shelf in one of the back rooms had stacks of books, catalogues and magazines from the 1930’s to the 1950’s. The next trip will be an overnighter at the nearby B&B to do a full day of ATC ‘research’!


















After a roadside lunch stop miles from anywhere, I found a shale outcrop and begged some help to scoop up enough pieces to build an inuksuk or, plural, inuksuit if there’s enough stone. A couple of prize rusty car parts came home, too, for an assemblage at a later date. The ordeals the families of artists must suffer through!

Four hours later.... home.


















With the one major purchase.


















As I hurried ahead to open the door and snap this photo, I heard, “It just gets worse, doesn’t it?”
That was a smirk on his face, not a grimace, right?

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

After the ATC excitement of the previous post tapered off and we came back home from our trip (more about that later), I finished the little project I was working on, that grew and morphed from an ATC idea to an art doll. The construction of the doll's body was going well with one major problem to solve.














In case you don't know, using other artist’s or photographer’s work or pieces of it in your own creation is, both morally and legally, absolutely verboten. The dolly, however, needed a head, and the head in question was residing on the flickr.com website.

















I was apprehensive about making a derivative work from it (from her?) and even tried a few other options but sometimes you can’t work against the muse. However, if you steal somebody’s photo to use, you’d better pray like crazy they don’t sue ya and that they like the object you’re making for them.














As I was working on the doll my mind was trying to figure out how to explain the 'photo theft' to its owner. It would have to be something like a letter of apology with a couple of please forgive me's in it. Anyway, on with the struggle of using a needle when I can't see how to thread it because the new prescription for lenses for my glasses is still sitting on the dresser. (Mostly, because I don't know how I can cope without seeing for a week, while they're being replaced.) This was supposed to be an easy project! Good thing the fun factor is way up there.


















The whole idea was so much fun that it had to be posted on flickr even before it was finished. Nobody would know exactly what it was if I cropped the shot closely, so the surprise wouldn't be spoiled. I didn't expect to get the reaction it caused. People were saying things like sexual energy and hot, which meant I had even more 'splainin to do.

















Protected between two sheets of blue x-ray film (no longer available - it's now digital) and some goodies, the package was off to California. Seven days of agony while I waited.....would she like it or was I in big trouble? Couldn't bear it if she blocked me as a flickr contact, yikes!

Good news came on Friday when I checked all my contacts new photos. Yay, Ruth liked it and Sarah looked happy too!

Some Days You Get a Nice Surprise

Most mornings I’m woken up by the thump of the mail dropping into the mailbox. I should (a) buy a new one and install it somewhere other than in the entry outside the bedroom wall, (b) put something in the bottom to silence the thump, (c) throw something at the mailman or (d) go to bed earlier and not be such a flickr.com addict. Last Tuesday, the day before we left for a short road trip, the mail was late. I know it was, no 9:30am wake-up thump and I checked around noon to make sure.…nothing. Around five o’clock I heard a voice from the vicinity of the front door, “I see nobody remembered to check the mail this morning.” The mailman must have been awfully late (again) or they changed the routes. In any case, there were two bills, a pizza flyer, a “currant occupant” envelope and a gray envelope stamped AIR MAIL from Claremont California. I went for the Air Mail first, of course.


















In the envelope was cellophane bag with a bundle of ancient looking sheet music tied up with a red string. Inside the bundle was sparkly, sheer ocean-colored fabric, matching dyed cotton fabric, several kinds of turquoise water-colored paper with sparkles, ribbon, buttons and a little bird stamped on cotton muslin. In the middle of the goodies was a lovely fiber art ATC and a business card printed with RUTH RAE Jewelry and Mixed Media.


















The minute I saw those colors, I knew where the ATC would live. In the guest room, (my “Summer Room”) I put it on the drawn threadwork pillowcase on the bed and snapped a photo.


















I tried it on the dresser next to my mom’s earrings and turquoise vanity set,


















.......then in the silver dish of “decorator candies” wrapped in turquoise foil,


















and finally behind the band of my new sun hat, sitting on a beach glass blue cushion, waiting for summer. If Miss Judith can wear ATCs on her pretty ballet slippers, I can wear one on my hat!

















While I was plotting, planning and playing my traveling companion/driver/all-round-good-guy asked from around the corner, “Aren’t you finished packing yet?” (No, just busy with my ATC.) Like a kid who wants to take his newest toy to bed with him, I didn’t want to leave my new ATC behind! (Thank you, Ruth!)

Out of Context

As I’m searching secondhand books back to front & reading the pages bottom to top for useable phrases, I can never decide whether to cut them out or just mark them. If I cut them out I’ll loose the good ones for sure – throw them out, vacuum them up, whatever. If I don’t, I’ll never again find that perfect phrase about swimsuits for the old picture of my aunties when they were bathing beauties.













There may be a solution at hand. Clear report covers, without holes, which open at three sides. When a piece of letter size paper is inserted the static holds the cutout pieces in place quite nicely. Now, to find them quickly should they be arranged by theme or what? Time spent on art would be far more productive than this nonsense!













Subjects on the left, verbs in the middle and predicates on the right. There! Sort of a variation on a flip-book for mix & match sentences. It should work.

They shook their heads / oyster pies were / an act of inexcusable barbarity.
He believed / sizing up the situation / a beribbonned bonnet had been unwise. “I am an Englishman!”

Sometimes sentences taken out of context can be downright hilarious when you have images of a future collage prancing through your brain:

Well, I really think that’s about all the clothes you’re really going to need.
She could jitterbug like the dickens and had money to burn.
It looked so much better in the shop.
She just walked right over on her uprights and whispered into his flippers with her bone box.
She blabbed to the kids during lunch, she blabbed to the kids during recess, and if that wasn't enough, she blabbed to the bus driver on the way home.

And my current favorite was about a couple of kids in the Edwardian days being read to by their nanny:
Up in the bedroom things were happy.

Who Done It?

There were two used book sales last month and I came back with a big box from each of them. When I started collecting books for re-use they were made into bases for table lamps. That was years before the term “altered book” was thrown around but they were books and definitely altered. Some were painted to match the client’s décor, sometimes the titles on the spines were changed to suit the theme, holes were drilled and the librarians who donated many of them would have been horrified if they knew.


















Several years ago I was searching the libraries and book stores for anything by author Majory Allingham. The only result I ever got was information that they were out of print so I gave up looking. Marjory Allingham wrote during the Golden Age of detective fiction (1920-1939) and was a contemporary of women writers Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Josephine Tey and Ngaio Marsh. Allingham’s fictional Inspector Albert Campion was played by Peter Davidson (also the youngest Dr. Who) in two series of BBC adaptations of her stories, shown in North America on PBS. Great fun to watch.













As I was rummaging through my boxes of books, choosing for my next lamp base, I noticed many had black covers. I’d been looking for something black like a piece of pottery or…..something….. to put on my fireplace mantle. Why not a pile of decorator books? They looked so good and for variety the brass candle holder & snuffer sitting on top would trade places with a few white shells or a fresh red apple. I figured “I should at least leaf through them” as I was dusting one afternoon. No money, no love notes, nothing. I read the titles. The second from the bottom in the pile was: “Tiger in the Smoke” and below that, in small faded letters “by Marjory Allingham”. Well, I’ll be darned! I’d had it all that time & had never known! It’s supposed to be one of her best and it was a pretty good read, although I can’t remember many details about it now.

















I haven’t made any lamps for ages but I teach altered book workshops and use the pages for assemblage and collage. When I cut phrases from novels for collage I have to read from the back of the book to the front & from the bottom of the page up so I can see them without getting involved in the story. Same thing, more or less with certain movies or TV shows. Poirot, the PBS Mystery series with David Suchet must be watched at least twice – once for the story and again, without the distraction of sound, just for the costumes and sets. No matter how many times I watch a mystery I can never remember “who done it” by the next time it’s broadcast! I’m almost certain I’ve slept through a couple of endings but for the most part it’s goldfish memory. A general idea of what happened on a previous occasion, just not sure what, so the next time everything is new again.