Marbling Madness

The best workshops are the ones that leave you feeling completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. I had the pleasure of taking just such a workshop this past weekend at the Morgan. I had long been interested in learning how to marble paper, so I was excited to take a two-day workshop with master marbler Steve Pittelkow. We had a big group-13 people, so we had to share vats, but it was nice to work with a partner. Working so closely with other people means getting to see all the fantastic results others are getting, which is one of the best parts of the workshop experience.

I really enjoyed learning how to marble. It's a very accessible medium, something you can do in your own kitchen without a lot of specialized equipment, and easy enough to do, although I suspect lots of practice is required to do it well. I left with a huge stack of beautiful marbled papers and, as a reward for assisting with the workshop and scrubbing out the vats at the end, Steve was nice enough to let me select two sheets of paper that he marbled himself. He also let me take some of the leftover marbling supplies and paper so I can continue marbling at home. Once I get some more practice in, I'm hoping to try marbling on fabric, as well. In the meantime, I have all these lovely marbled papers to play with.

Finals

I did it. I completed my first semester of graduate school. It was touch and go there for a minute, but once I found my stride, I had great fun and allowed myself to embrace being a real artist. I took a Feltmaking class and an Independent Study. Feltmaking was pretty amazing-there's something kind of magical about taking a bunch of wool fluff and turning it into whatever you want. My class was given a full month to work on our felt final. While my midterm project was really different from what I normally do, my final was very much like the rest of my work in that the structure was very repetitive and some might describe the whole thing as obsessive. I can't help it. That's just the kind of thing I like to do.

Felt pods in process

To get started, I made over 100 felt pods. I constructed them by winding natural colored wool roving over ping pong balls and, after felting them and allowing them to dry, I cut them in half, thus forming two little bowl shapes. Once they were off the ping pong ball, I finished felting the pods and allowed them to dry. The way I describe making them sounds simple but, trust me, it took so long and my hands spent so much time submerged in hot water and soap that I thought all the skin on them would fall off. Seriously, the tips of my fingers were blistered.


After I finished felting all the pods, the next step was to sew them together. I sewed them by hand, of course. I thought the individual pieces would look more round once they were all connected, but they took on kind of a honeycomb shape, which I think ended up working really well.

The front and back, after pods were sewn together

The concave side of the piece was intended to hold many, unique miniature sculptures. I like working small,

Paper sculptures in process

so this was the perfect project for me. I used mostly paper to construct them, as well as thread, wood, metal, and adhesive, among other things. I'm really pleased with how the little sculptures came out, so I'll likely make more of them in the future. It's interesting the shapes you can make with just scraps and glue.

Once I finished making the paper sculptures, I inserted them into the base piece and glued them into place. For my final critique, I hung the piece from the ceiling with fishing line so that it appeared to hover in mid-air and people could walk around the piece to view both sides. I spent so much time putting all of this together, probably more time than I've ever spent on any individual project, that I was definitely short on sleep in that week leading up to final critique, but it was all worth it. And I'd like to thank my wonderful feltmaking teacher, the lovely Dena Gershon, for helping me through all of our projects. She's a patient and inspiring teacher and I feel lucky for having the opportunity to learn from her.

Inserting the paper sculptures

My independent study class was interesting because I was allowed to make pretty much whatever I felt like. Once I finished a piece, I got to present it to the other grad students. It was really helpful to get meaningful feedback from them and it's so nice to be back working in a community with other artists. I mostly stuck to working with paper for that class, as it's the medium I'm most interested in. While I was able to combine the paper with felt in my feltmaking class, the paper pretty much stood on its own for independent study. My favorite piece turned out to be a sort of net I made out of thread and strips of paper with hand drawn hash marks on them. The picture doesn't do it justice, but I'm sure there are many more iterations of this one to come.

I'm pleased to say that I'm a straight A student and I have a lot of great ideas to work on in the future. I'm on break for a few weeks now and, although I'm grateful for this much-needed time off, I'm actually already looking forward to next semester. I'm taking another independent study as well as an art history class on Dada and Surrealism. I hope I have as much enthusiasm and fun as I did this semester. It's weird how I planned on going to school for so long and now I'm already finished with one semester. When long-term plans become a reality it's kind of surreal. But here I am, doing what I love and moving ahead. I couldn't be happier.

Gallery Submissions

The folded circles

I've spent the better part of the past two weeks working on a couple of submissions for The Morgan's inaugural juried exhibition. Pieces had to either be done on paper or consist of at least 50% paper. Each of my pieces were made of paper attached to canvas, and while they were made of the same material, the two couldn't be more different.

The first piece is called Blank Botanical #1. I folded many hundreds of these small paper circles and strung them onto linen bookbinding thread, and then I sewed the strands onto a plain white, 2ft by 2ft canvas. The result is overwhelmingly sculptural. The more strands I sewed onto the canvas, the more textured and layered it became. And although the pieces that I attached were all white, I used different shades of white to get a variety of tones in the piece.

A detail of the finished Blank Botanical #1 piece

The strips all prepped and ready to be attached to the canvas

The second piece consisted of hundreds of little strips of paper. I drew repetitive lines all over these pieces and then glued them onto a long, narrow white canvas in rows. The shape of the canvas itself is similar to the shape of the pieces of paper, and also to the shape of the lines I drew on the paper. I call it Line Study #3 and it's a design I've been working with for quite a while now and plan on continuing with. As you can see, a lot of my work deals with repetition and my techniques tend to be pretty labor intensive. The Blank Botanical piece took somewhere around 40 hours of work and I estimate my Line Study piece took about 15 hours. I often joke that I don't like to work on anything that's not obsessive. Most people who see me work on these things just think I'm nuts because, to them, that kind of tedious task would drive them crazy. But it's just the opposite for me. I find the work to be meditative, and for this reason I find the method to be as important as the final result.

Anyway, after all that I hope at least one of the pieces gets into the show. I love The Morgan and it's because of them that I work so much with paper lately. It would be a real honor to have a piece of mine included in their first juried show and, let's be honest, the exposure would be great. I'll keep my fingers crossed. 

Ann Arbor

 I took a little road trip this past Friday to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in celebration of my birthday, which was on Sunday, and just for an excuse to get out of town. A change of scenery is always refreshing. Last year I was in Paris for my birthday and, although Ann Arbor is no Paris, it's not without considerable charm. In fact, it's pretty wonderful as far as Midwestern college towns go. This was the third time I've been to Ann Arbor and I expect I'll keep going back.In fact, each subsequent visit elicits from me exclamations of intentions to move there. Everything is so lovely and vine-covered!

The drive from Cleveland to Ann Arbor is just shy of three hours, not too bad for a day trip. It's a very walkable,  artsy place and there's plenty to see and there are lots of good things to eat. My first stop was Zingerman's Delicatessen, a sandwich shop that puts all other sandwich shops to shame. If I were on death row, I'd get a Zingerman's sandwich for my last meal. Though there was a long line, it went quickly and the staff came by to feed us samples of bacon and cheese while we waited. Imagine if every line you waited in guaranteed you bacon and cheese samples! Sure, we'd all be fatter but wouldn't we also be happier? After perusing the lengthy menu and fretting over making the right decision, I finally settled on #23: delicious, hand-cut Amish chicken salad with some of that lovely applewood smoked bacon I had a sample of, with mayo, onion, and celery on challah bread. The husband got #61, a BLT made with Arkansas peppered bacon and Vermont cheddar served on farm bread that was toasted to heavenly perfection. We split a side of some mouth-watering lemon couscous and I finished the meal off with a chocolate cupcake with espresso buttercream frosting, which I inhaled too quickly to take a picture of. I can assure you it both looked and tasted amazing.

Selection of Papers From Hollander's

Our next stop was Hollander's, the holy grail of paper stores. I thought I would literally pass out from the excitement of seeing their huge, beautiful collection of fine and decorative papers and bookbinding supplies. My pulse quickened at the sight of it all. It took some serious self-restraint not to buy way more than I needed. I could spend hours ( in the place and I would if it weren't for my husband politely telling me that he was getting terribly bored and antsy. I guess we can't all be bookbinding/paper nerds. After spending quite some time perusing the inventory, I finally made my selections and purchased some lovely paper, including Egyptian papyrus, banana leaf, and cork skin papers. I also couldn't stop myself from buying a new, teeny-tiny bone folder (too cute to resist), which was far less expensive than the Japanese hand drill I've been drooling over. Before I became interested in book and paper arts, I never gave much thought to the tools I used in my art making. Now my heart is set aflutter at the sight of a nice glue brush. It's something that most people won't ever understand. Anyhow, I left pleased with my choices and I can't wait to start making things with my new stash of paper.

Violin Monster

 Probably the most entertaining aspect of the trip was my encounter with the Violin Monster. We happened upon him while wandering around downtown. Who wouldn't love a violin playing, street performing werewolf? He howls when you throw money in his case (hilarious!) but, apparently, it has gotten him into trouble, as of late. I think his act is wonderful and I hope he keeps up the good work. If you ever find yourself in downtown Ann Arbor, seek him out. You won't be disappointed.

 After walking around for quite some time, we were lured into the Tea Haus by our thirst and the gigantic sign promising macarons. I didn't even realize how terribly thirsty I was until a giant, sweaty glass of blood orange iced tea was set down in front of me and the macarons were fantastic, despite their slight squishyness due to the humidity. I had one green tea matcha, one strawberry black tea, and one lavender flavored macaron. Just writing this is making me want another.

 

We spent the rest of the afternoon popping into different shops and had some cider and pizza before heading home to Cleveland. I watched the sun set from the passenger side window and thought about what a good day it was. By the time we got home it was time for bed already and I slept soundly, exhaustion and happiness being the best sleep aid.