In the Studio

It was a productive day, that is after I cleared some of the pile off of the work table in the garage. The blender is leaking sodium alginate that ended up clogging the motor. I couldn't find a used blender at any of the 4 thrift stores I tried last month so I ended up purchasing a new one for $12.95. Planning ahead is always a good thing; the urge to make paper struck late last night so today the new blender was finally released from the box and put to use. I have my own way of making paper that includes a handmade mold with built-in deckle. Velcro holds the window screen and plastic canvas in place and I pour pulp onto the mold. Lots of blotting with a sponge and kunin felt to remove as much water as I can, then the paper is left on felt to dry. (google "paper making" for the right way to make paper.)

I'm still creating art pieces with hearts in them. I found a set of cookie cutters at Target last week that I knew instantly would be make perfect molds for paper pulp. In the photo, pulp has been poured into the cookie cutters that were placed on a screen stapled to a frame. They were left to drain before removing the cutters and pressing between kunin felt to compress the pulp together. My pulp recipe? About 3 cups of water and a handful of paper blended until I like the looks of it. Today I used some brown paper bags from the grocery store and added some plastic coated paper along with a spicy salt that I tried on some chicken a couple of months ago. Yikes!! I thought that maybe the combination of herbs might add something to the paper. I also tried a batch of brown paper with some onion skins. A third batch of pulp was a combination of paper from the paper shredder, brown paper that I didn't clean out of the blender, and some onion skins. I placed some rusty washers on a few pieces.

The photo with the paper casting sitting on top of a painted paper towel was taken early this morning in the bathroom. The counter, covered with freezer paper, is the perfect place to paint when it's freezing or boiling in the garage, or in this case, when it's after midnight. I painted lutradur. Tip: because the lutradur is fibrous I like to put a paper towel, or another piece of lutradur, or fabric under the piece that is being painted. Otherwise, the paint ends up on the freezer paper. Often whatever is placed under the lutradur ends up being more interesting such as the paper towel in the photo. The casting was made using one sheet of paper towel.

When I made the bundles yesterday for the disintegration project I missed a page torn from a French book. I tossed it on a wet rusty cookie sheet and put a metal heart on it. The heart isn't as evident as I hoped it would be, but I love how the rust from the cookie sheet created an interesting design. (click on images to enlarge)

Quote: Art is when you do something just cockeyed from what is the right way to do it, then it's art. Will Rogers