If you have been following along with my “work on paper” experiments you might remember…
Way back in the summer of 2021, I was playing around with making stains from metal scraps. Back then I made a bunch of rusty experiments.
This time around, I figured out how to make the “elusive blue” stain I was going for. I gave up looking for copper scraps and just went to Lowes and got some pipe fittings.
Oh! the blue was beautiful…but almost disappeared when it dried on the paper. Although, it does seem to deepen after I add wax to the paper!
I’m still not sure where all this paper experimentation is ultimately going.
It’s interesting to see…how both the light plays through the holes and to feel the raised texture on the silky waxed paper. When I sit working on these pieces there is something so deliciously tactile about it! It’s hard to put into words how it feels in my hands and to move it around while holding it up to light. I imagine focusing in on the tiny spots of light coming through creates a feeling of meditation…that “stay in the moment” feeling.
Will it be a piece to hang in a window? Will the sun melt it? Or, will it be a piece to hold in your hand like an abstract manuscript? Sometimes I imagine a sort of display system with light boxes. That is usually after I imagine I won the lottery;)
Also…
I’m curious to see…how far I can push the limits of how many holes paper can actually take? Waxing the paper makes it sturdy and I have been able to pin-punch it a “second time”…it’s like layering.
How might the copper stain age through time? I wonder…will sealing the paper in wax stop the natural alchemy of patina that happens to copper?
Art always asks more questions!!!!
Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding, and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a new clarity is born: this alone is what it means to live as an artist.
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Wondering why I call this work lacuna?
The word lacuna has to do with empty and missing spaces. Lots of metaphor to explore with that…you can read more about here in this post >> Lacuna:nothing is something
Thanks for following along with the art & hope you can come visit this spring!
2023 OPEN STUDIO
PS…
Here is A YouTube video on how to make the blue stain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyeCb43uQz0