Cut Stories

Beatrice Coron with her paper cut fan "Changing Air"

We're lucky to have paper cutting artist Beatrice Coron in town this weekend at MCBA. She gave a slide presentation to the book arts roundtable last night that was almost overwhelming in its depth and breadth. Starting with paper cuts in China and Japan and continuing to include her contemporary artists and friends, we saw beautiful examples of paper cutting from around the world.

Bronx Literature, 2006, faceted glass

She brought many photos of her own work (I've borrowed these images from her web site with her permission) and some some actual examples for us to look at after her talk. She is so prolific in the medium that it's almost impossible to focus on one particular work. Currently she's is doing a lot of designs for public art projects (baseball parks, subway stops and sculptures outside of fire houses), her own book sculptures and a series she calls "the whole 9 yards": literally papercuts that are 9 yards long.

Flower City

I think the work that I enjoyed most were the ones that showcased her unique combination of wit and intelligence. Many of her "9 yard" projects include cities of her own inventions: cities in trees, cities in hot air balloons, cities in water. Dogs run, people read and talk with their neighbors hung high up in the air. In her web site personal statement she says "Everything is time and space. The viewer is invited to find his or her own way in these worlds."

Fleurs d'Insomnie, 2005

Like so many generous book artists, her site is full of terrific links to other artists, research on the topic and places to find supplies and books for your own cut stories. She keeps a current schedule of her workshops there as well, and dropped a hint that she will be at Penland next summer.

Road to Heavens Above at Penland
@ 2008 Béatrice Coron All rights reserved

P.S. Did you know that the word "silhouette" comes from Mssr. Silhouette, a French minister of finance who drastically whittled down the budgets in his country in the 18th century.

Building Words

Studio Bricolage in south Minneapolis (the older sibling of Leonardo's Basement) is offering a free evening next Friday in building words.
It's not up on their web site yet, but the email agenda for the night is highly intriguing!

Susan Armington will be on hand to "make words that swing, stand-up and stick out."

Some books will be cut with a bandsaw with the help of artist/engineer Willis Bowman.

Books will pave a sidewalk and buttons will spell things out.

And on June 2, you can find 10 things for just a dollar!

Still improvising

I'm taking a big leap in my own perception of my work this month. I've decided to apply for a Minnesota State Arts Board artist initiative grant...due June 2! They say that Minnesota is the land of lakes (and treatment centers...we're famous for our recovery facilities), but really it's the land of artists. I went to an informational session on the grant last week and the room was nearly full up of artists all interested in applying for the grant. The top award is $6,000....just enough to encourage you, but not enough to pick up and move to Italy, for example. The moderator said 1 in 5 visual artists generally receive a grant, so I'm not overly optimistic. I'm mostly doing it for the discipline of writing about my work and my goals. A process like this often crystallizes previously cloudy concepts and benefits other work, often without even being aware of it.
I'll need to give them 9 samples (or pictures) of my work. Since the January experiment in documenting my work, I haven't progressed much. A friend suggested that I try again, but go outside on a hazy day when the light is somewhat filtered by the clouds. So I gathered up a white sheet, a few display fixtures to hold my books and boxes and went outside this overcast morning to experiment.

It's too bad that my neighbors aren't blog readers, as I know they're watching out their window and wondering what I'm doing. And Bella has been in and out checking on me as well. (I wonder if a friendly dog nose in a picture would help my case in front of the grant panel?) But even as the sun was still in the east, I started to get some decent pix. I'll keep experimenting all day...you have to love the digital camera...but my first efforts have definitely been rewarding. Many thanks, friend!

Heartbreak

Despite a really lovely day yesterday, I actually feel a little heartbroken this morning.
I have to be very careful about what movies I see because I actually, somehow, think that they are real. (I remember being nervous about walking in the movie theater parking lot after watching a movie about Chicago mafia members shooting each other throughout the entire film. I was sure that I was about to get gunned down.)
Last night I went and saw the beautiful movie, "The Visitor," a movie about a middle-aged professor who meets an immigrant couple living in his apartment and, inspired by them, reconnects with his life. But the couple are not here legally and one simple misunderstanding sends one of them back to his dangerous home in Syria. The story was so well told (and acted) that I sat in my seat as the lights came on simply heartbroken.
I woke this morning thinking about the friends that I work with at the Minnesota Literacy center every week who are there to improve their English. I have no idea if they are legal or not and to me, it doesn't matter. But if they are here without their papers, I think about how they have to live with the fear of discovery every minute of their day, and that is the price that they're willing to pay to live here. A car accident, a home robbery....there is so much that they can't control that could reveal their situation to the authorities...and yet it is a risk that they're willing to take in order to live here. I would be absolutely heartbroken if one of them disappeared, and unlike the movie, it would be all too real.

Redbud is blooming

I've always thought my life list is pretty pathetic. I have no desire to climb a mountain, learn Italian or read Plato. (Although I would sort of like to learn Spanish lately. I think it's only fair to my students at the MLC to not be fluent in their language.)
But one item on my list is having my own Redbud tree. My KC family knows how crazy I am for them...I often try and time my visits to when the Redbud (and the Whitebud) are blooming. In Missouri they are so profuse that they are sold on the sidewalks of local hardware stores for $19. And now our own University of Minnesota has taken the tree and created a hybrid that can survive our more difficult winters.
The history of the back corner of my yard is a long one and not quite done yet, but last year I finally planted a Redbud. Last week, the branches showed lots of "bud" but no blooms. "At least it's alive," I thought. But this weekend, it's having its day in the sun (so to speak). I sort of want to throw a party for it. Welcome to spring, Redbud! Congratulations for making it through the longest winter of your life!
I'm not sure what else to on my life list to start working on, but this item has been very satisfying.

A good morning's work

It looks like we'll have 70 degrees for the first time this year. Out on the porch for lunch today, I can hardly imagine a more beautiful day. There is even a hint of lilac in the air.

Anne passes out hairnets for all of us.

Food tastes especially good to me after my morning experience at Feed My Starving Children. Together with about 50 students from the Minnesota Literacy Center and 10 teachers and volunteers, I spent the morning packing food for easy-to-prepare meals which will be sent to aid-relief organizations around the world for distribution to families. In just two hours, our group packed nearly 120 boxes of meals. The cost of the meal is just 17 cents to produce (although expected to go higher as the rice shortage becomes more severe) and has been designed to be easy and safe to transport, simple to make with only boiling water, and culturally acceptable worldwide.

Ali waits for everyone to get organized.

FMSC is located in an unremarkable office complex in the suburbs, but the facility is well-designed to get the job of food packing done quickly and economically. Each station is set up for 5 people: 2 people to hold the food pouch (taking turns), 1 to add a protein powder and dehydrated vegetables, 1 to add soy and rice, and 1 to seal the plastic and line them up to be boxed. Bags are weighed to be consistent (to hold down shipping costs) and spills on the table are swept right back into the rice bucket. We even did our own clean up at the end of the morning, washing utensils, tables and sweeping the floor so it was all ready for the next group.

Amah scoops up the rice.

We had a goal of 120 boxes for the morning..and just about met that goal (our bus was a little late). That was 4320 pouches of food that provided 25,920 meals or just about enough to feed 20 kids for a year.

Jorge tastes the meal after we're done.

Proof of Spring

My redbud is blooming.

A robin's egg discovered on the ground, but completely intact. No nest visible anywhere. The photo does not do its "turquoise-ness" credit.

Bleeding heart. I seem to have lost a peony bush in the front yard, which is a bit of a surprise. But its siblings should be blooming in a few weeks.

The Bee Box

I started way too late on my preparations for Craftstravaganza (CG), so I pretty much stuck with the box patterns that I did well and that had sold at the MCBA sale last Christmas. But a few days before CG, I decided I wanted to do a box with a divider on the inside, a "bi-valve" box as a friend said.

One of the divided boxes used a paper printed with a bee for creativity. The paper is not actually Asian and is difficult to glue, but I really liked the design and wanted to build a box that used it really well. (It looks good on the front of this box, but I wasn't happy with the other 3 sides.) So I've spent the last few days measuring the pattern to down to 1/32 of an inch and cutting board that will show the pattern particularly well. Usually the paper I use is either solid in color or has a broad enough pattern that it doesn't matter where I cut.
When I get into production mode for boxes, I will often cut all my paper at once and do each step on 10-15 boxes before going onto the next. But the Bee Box is all about slowing down and doing each step with great attention. In fact it almost uses a new technique in covering the box, as I want the bee stamp to be centered on each side of the box.

I had assembled the boxes yesterday (one step that I could do in production mode), but this morning, I cut the paper for only one box and worked out all of the problems in covering it as if this one was the only one that would ever be made (I actually hope to make 10). It was a new way of working for me: no pressure of an upcoming sale; no Christmas or birthday gifts. It was truly a step into what I most want: working on a design that I'm intrigued with for no other purpose than that I want to see what it looks like. And because of that, and the bee's own value of creativity (it says so on the box!), I think I have to keep the first one for myself.

Playing God

Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist and kinetic sculptor who creates beach animals (or Strandbeest) that, over generations, are learning to take care of themselves. Not truly alive, of course, they are nonetheless beautiful as they walk the beach and learn to avoid the waves and to flap their paper wings to give them energy.

A book on his work is available and gives some insight into his inspiration:
Since 1990 Theo Jansen has been engaged in creating new forms of life: beach animals. These are not made of protein like the existing life-forms but from another basic stuff, yellow plastic tubing. Skeletons made from these tubes are able to walk. They get their energy from the wind, so they don't have to eat like regular animals. They evolved over many generations, becoming increasingly adept at surviving storms and water from the sea. Theo Jansen's ultimate wish is to release herds of these animals on the shore. In redoing the Creation, so to speak, he hopes to become wiser in his dealings with the existing nature by encountering problems the Real Creator had to face.
The Great Pretender is a testimonial to his experiences as God. It's not easy being God; there are plenty of disappointments along the way. But on the few occasions that things work out, being God is the most wonderful thing in the world.

Board shears karma

I'm lucky enough to be just five miles away from the Minnesota Center for Book Arts and not one but two full-size board shears. Cutting book board (the preferred material for boxes and most book covers) is incredibly hard by hand and nearly impossible to cut straight. (Right, Sarah?)
My teachers would all totally and completely disagree, but I think that there is a karma involved in cutting book board "square." Sometimes I almost want to burn some incense before I start. It's pretty simple to cut a few covers for books at the shears, but more complicated to cut, for example, 20 of the same boxes at one time. You do the best you can, pack up the cut pieces and take them home to see if you did it all right. If not, the best thing to do is sweep them into the trash can and call for some more time on the shears. (It would be great to assemble the boxes in the studio, but studio rental is a little pricey.)
I was lucky during the lead-up to Craftstravaganza...virtually everything I cut was usable. But the week after I booked an hour on the shears and came home to discover that everything was off just enough that my boxes looked like the homes in Ron's neighborhood in Harry Potter.
Yesterday I went back to do the boxes again. I took big deep breaths, and tried to pay attention to what I was doing. Clearly, though, my karma was having a coffee break: I came home with 2 sets of "Side A" and no sets at all of "Side B."

The Six Word Memoir

A friend told me about the concept of the six word memoir a few weeks ago. Begun as a project by SMITH, a story telling magazine, the responses have now been published as a book "Not Quite What I Was Planning."
If you sit down for a few minutes and think about what you'd like to say in exactly six words, it can be quite illuminating. Stephen Colbert's memoir is spot on: "Well, I thought it was funny." Daniel Pink's is "Pink. Yes. Just like the color."
More from SMITH's six word web site:
"I gave God credit. He demurred."
"It's ok. My dogs love me."
"Told to marry rich. Married Richard."
"English major. You do the math."
And mine?
"Full of wonder, full of pie."

Rent this fish

I'm living on the cheap these days, so one site I check often is the .99 cent movie of the week at iTunes. Every week iTunes offers up one movie for .99 and the beauty is that you can download it and watch it any time in the next 30 days.
This week it's the classic Fish Called Wanda, one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. (No. 1 is probably the slapstick What's Up Doc?)
Here's the plot description. If you only know Jamie Lee Curtis as the great mom in Freaky Friday, you really have to see this.
In A Fish Called Wanda, Jamie Lee Curtis plays an ambitious con artist who uses every ounce of her sexual wiles to obtain a fortune in jewels stolen by her gangster lover Tom Georgeson. First, she romances Georgeson’s dimwitted but deadly henchman Kevin Kline (who won an Academy Award for his performance). Then, to clear the path for her getaway with Kline, Jamie woos Georgeson’s starched-shirt attorney, John Cleese—and it’s Cleese whom she genuinely falls in love with. Michael Palin, Cleese’s former Monty Python cohort, plays a stuttering mob flunkey who continually messes up his one big assignment: killing a little old lady (it isn’t that he has any qualms about knocking off the old dear; it’s just that her pet dogs keep getting in the way). A Fish Called Wanda was scripted by star John Cleese.

Pop up delights

My favorite pop-up artist/teacher, Carol Barton, is doing a great job of blogging about pop-ups. Her classes in pop-up structures are pure delight, even if it's not your primary craft. And she has now distilled her easy to follow instructions in The Pocket Paper Engineer, Vol I and Vol II (available in June). I always tell people to buy 2 copies of these books: one for themselves and one for the favorite child in their life.
With thanks to her, you can enjoy this video of the movable ABC's.

Supreme jewelry organization

Every Christmas the catalogs and stores are full of monster mahogany (or creamy white) jewelry cases. But no matter how big they are, they really are not the right size for holding a girl's jewelry stash. And more importantly, when those drawers are closed, it might as well be "out of sight, out of mind."
I love my jewelry, but because it's not really a collection that I want to display (too many different moods and kinds) I had it stashed in various boxes and drawers...usually with this kind of result. Any time I thought about it, I was frustrated with the organization of it all.
I'm not sure where this idea came from, but I started to think about putting up some kind of horizontal paper towel holder on the inside of my closet door to hold my bracelets. A few weeks ago I went on a mission to Target and came home with a variety of hooks and hangers, ready to figure out a way to organize necklaces, bracelets, pins and earrings once and for all.
A series of hooks across the top of the door was good for necklaces. But the long ones tended to bang when the door was opened and shut, so I put a little felt underneath and a loose band across to keep them secure. The paper towel holder didn't exist in the right size, so I improvised another pair of hooks and a dowel for my bracelets. It worked for the flexible bracelets but the bangles didn't fit so I made a trip to Home Depot. This time I brought home a men's tie organizer. With the prongs bent up just a bit, they do a lovely job of holding a batch of bangles. (And so far I haven't spent more than $15.)

I had never seen a good solution for earrings so I spent some time on the internet and finally ordered an earring organizer from here. It came a week later and I have to say it's perfectly brilliant. There are different holes for post earrings, fishhooks and hoops. I went through my entire tray of earrings hanging them up nicely together and found several that I had totally forgotten about. It makes such a huge difference to actually be able to see them, instead of reaching for the "usual" pair. (And unlike clothes, you never have to think about whether earrings will fit you on this particular day.) If you click on the link marked "factory seconds" you can find a nice assortment of organizers that aren't perfect but still serviceable.

You can see here the different types of holes
to hold your different types of earrings.

Finally I hung another piece of felt (I'm lucky to have a closet with 2 doors!) to hold my pins. And because everything hangs inside the closet, I don't have to think about them getting dusty. Voila! C'est magnifique, if I do say so myself.

Books make the neighborhood

It's often the case that a new idea or, in this case, a building, will be vaunted about and then forgotten. Even in its own neighborhood, a place that started a trend may not be given the credit it should 10 years afterwards. So it was particularly wonderful to see this article in the NYTimes yesterday on Open Book, the building in Minneapolis that houses the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, The Loft and Milkweed Publishing. The building won numerous awards for the architect when it opened and they were well-deserved. I visit the building at least once a week for lunch, to work, to teach or to take classes and it still works without a whisper of complaint (well, ok, it's impossible to find parking during a Twins game, but that's really all).