I spoke last month about slowing down and taking a pause. I was beginning to dig out of my studio and fully intended this month to write about that process. However, as with all things in life, life happens, plans shift and one must pivot. I decided that rather than skip a blogpost this month, I would invite another artist to talk about her own studio practice. There is so much to learn when peeking into other artists’ studios, seeing what the process is like and the materials used. It’s a way of looking at the world through their eyes. So occasionally I'm going to invite other artists to write guest blog posts.
Avery Syrig is an artist, friend, art installer, artist advisor and fellow conceptual and material-based artist. I'll be back next month!
Avery opening the paper making studio
A flurry of making
This past summer, as many of you know, Christine invited me to do a “mini” paper making residency at her home studio. I jumped at the opportunity to work alongside a good friend making a preciously scarce material (handmade paper) that I had been hoarding in my studio since my last access to a paper making studio 10 years ago in college. As is with most things with Christine and I, we got overexcited and overambitious and bought 8 pounds of pulp (that’s 8 pounds dry for you papermakers). Our one mini session turned into 3 mini sessions. I pulled 60+ sheets of plain paper, 50+ sheets of paper with embedded mixed materials, made 15 sculptures on frames, and 10 free-form sculptures off frames. By the end of the fall my studio tables were overflowing with paper. As a predominantly three dimensional artist I was overwhelmed and stuck: What do I do with all this two dimensional stuff?
“What do I do with all this two dimensional stuff?”
Studio tables overflowing with handmade papers
At first I ignored it, and jumped into the busy holidays and new year. Then I started going to my studio and just sitting there, staring at it. Then I decided I needed to get it off of my work surface: the sculptures piled in a large plastic storage bin; the papers individually pulled into their own plastic sleeves and stacked in a cardboard portfolio. And then I sat down and stared at the empty table. Why did I spend all this time, money, and energy making these things? Why take all the materials used in my sculptural assemblages and flatten them into paper? What was I gaining from flattening and putting my concepts into a neutral toned box?
A list from the past
I was still stuck. I signed up for a critique group and in the meantime I completed every household task I could think of: cleaning and upgrading my wood shop, making a new cat litter box, making a seed starting table, framing collected artworks, reorganizing all the closets, deep cleaning the bathroom, editing my bookshelf, and finally finding places for the remaining belongings of my partner, Spencer, who had just moved in. I happened across a sketchbook with a list I made in a random life goals class I had taken many years ago:
I paused and looked over at Spencer sprawled out on the bed writing and I started giggling. When I wrote these goals, they seemed like insurmountable feats but two months later I would go on my first date with Spencer. Six months later I would quit my day job to install art and advise artists full time on my own schedule and making more money for myself than I ever had working in restaurants, offices, and contemporary galleries. Two years later I would happen across an artist zoom group focused on studio practice that would support me in making more work in just a few months than I had in four years. Three years later I would make my house down payment goal and qualify for a higher mortgage than I had originally thought I would qualify for. Each step was terrifying and some seemed much more risky to the path normally taken.
I looked through the rest of that sketchbook of old sculpture ideas and sketches and then I went into the studio and pulled out all of the old work that I still had. I looked at each piece. I found work I hadn’t seen in years that wasn’t my favorite at the time or I had quickly deemed unsuccessful. I photographed work I didn’t have pictures of and examples of the new paper work. I compiled a history of past work and the current handmade paper work to present to the critique group. I was unsure about even including the handmade paper since I couldn’t see it going anywhere but I did just to see what would happen.
Risky business
Work in progress, 2022, gold pencil drawing on handmade abaca and flax paper embedded with bible pages, snake skin, lace, and hair, 18 x 15 inches
The next day in the critique group we discussed the concepts in the new work but more importantly for me, we talked about how the paper, although flat was still conceptually layered like my sculptures. The way I was layering my carefully chosen objects in the paper echoed the layers of objects in my sculptures. I thought back to all the choices I had made in life and in my studio, all the different turns I had made and vastly different series of works. Even though the goals seemed insurmountable, I didn’t let that stop me. I took chances and made what many would see as risky decisions just like my layering in my artwork. I wrote down a list of all the risky things I could do to the paper, swallowed my fear, and decided to start with the simplest one.
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