An explosion of artistic exploration
This summer was a period of intense artistic exploration: papermaking, cyanotype, sculptural paper, natural ephemera collecting, drying and embedding. Different processes demand different setups. Since my studio is small, I needed to get inventive. I created a pop-up driveway papermaking studio (read more about these adventures here and here) and converted the utility room into a dark room with a red bulb and black out material for the cyanotype process. The dry box used to dry wet handmade papers, once unloaded, threatened to colonize the studio space with its layers of wet linters, felts and weighted drying sheets laid out to dry. Nested buckets and bins, sheets of ¼” glass, pulp vats, work in progress, sculptural experiments, and drawings on Dura-Lar sprout everywhere.
I experience natural rhythms in my studio practice. Periods of intense activity wax and wane interspersed with periods of relative quiet. For months I am knee-deep in several processes, moving from one to the other until little by little my studio becomes buried in jumbled piles. Every surface is heaped deep with materials, tools, work samples, and collected treasure. Teetering stacks obscure surfaces, zig zag paths wander through mounds stowed on the floor, all of which threatens to tumble over. There is not a clear surface upon which to work, and a point at which it becomes uncomfortable for me to be in the space. My energy flags and feelings of overwhelm creep in. It is time to dig out, reassess and re-organize.
Digging out
These ebbs and flows happen naturally, and often occur with the changing season. Falls’ brisk mornings, sharp light and achingly blue skies beckon a turn inward, and slowly my thoughts turn to considering inside projects. Creating large drawings for cyanotypes for next summer, the hand stitched teabag project that I've yet to finish, the COVID-19 series that I left behind for the summer. I want to tackle the bird nest sculptures, hang and really contemplate the embedded handmade paper and listen to where the work wants to go, to follow that meandering path to completion.
So begins the slow process of cleaning out and reorganizing to make my studio space habitable and more functional for the next projects I’ll tackle. The papermaking studio gets folded up and put away, the dry box cleared out, the cardboards and linters, felts and netting dried, neatly stacked, and stored away until next season. I organize the found nests and the eggshells, the pins, needles and thorns, glass and ceramic bits and pieces that will become integrated with the found nests, refill and label containers. I categorize threads by color, clear surfaces, and hang and display works in progress in order to better contemplate.
“In the slowing down, there is room for reflection.”
Space for contemplation
I find true satisfaction in cleaning up. Holding each item, running my fingers through and across surfaces, reacquainting myself with these materials I am so drawn to, contemplating and figuring out where each fit into the larger scheme of my work. There is an assessing and evaluation after the flurry of making, and questions surface about where it is these things that I am making need to go. In the slowing down, there is room for reflection. Through physically cleaning the space I can mentally organize my ideas. Like a squirrel hoarding nuts for the winter, I gather my resources, take inventory, allow ideas to ferment and percolate, to develop during these colder months in order to set the seeds for what will burst forth next spring. Becoming quiet… the better to listen to my inner muse.
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