Juniper Pollen, Soup + Bread
Juniper Pollen, Soup + Bread
I have not tired of the view from this table where I sit eating, writing and musing about what has been and what is to come. The space between seasons, like the space between everything, is a lively place full of anticipation of the emergent. Like choosing which material to work with on a given day based on a dream or premonition, seasonal changes are hormonally erratic. One moment sun is shinning, then cloud cover, then snow, then hale, more sun. Luckily the plant world here in the high desert is accustomed to the nuance of change. My interfering with the way things are by planting a perineal too soon or too late disturbs the natural flow. And yet, I too am a material of the landscape.
The interrelationship between material and etherial is like seasons changing. As I step into the ethereal through the use of material I follow the thread of my creativity…where will it take me? I know from this long thread that brought me to this moment, more often than not, takes me to a place of discovery. Returning to the beginning over and over I see the materials with new eyes almost like meeting an old friend who's wearing a different pair of earrings, or new shoes. Each time the materials sing a new song, like a siren, they guide me to remembering who I was, who I am and the dance we share on the path of soul work.
I invite you to join me on this journey by sharing experiences in a workshop or retreat environment. My workshops are designed to offer instruction as well as individual time for creating and ‘saying hello’ to the materials I use such as rattan, handmade paper, sticks, thread, ink. I’ve added photos of the four workshops I’m offering this year from my studio. The fifth is an exceptional six-day experience in France. I welcome your questions and comments.
Materiality: Ideas & The Art of Making
Three-Day Workshop Online
Fused & Formed: Flax Fiber Sculpture
One-Day Workshop Online
Paper + Constructions
In-Person at Paper Rain Studio
Shaping Space with Flax Fiber: Level II
Two-Day Workshop Online
Material Matters: Contemporary Fiber Sculpture Workshop Retreat
This is an all-inclusive workshop experience in France this Fall.
seeing/perception
seeing/perception…spring new beginnings
During my month long Artist Residency at the O’Hanlon Center for the Arts in 2022, I was reintroduced to Ann O’Hanlon through her book “seeing/perception, looking at the world through an artist’s eye”.
This little gem of a book provided a foundation for what emerged over the following weeks a the place where the seed of my art practice was sown. I came full circle to the young woman who had her whole life in front of her and the the mature woman with experience under her belt. I wasn’t sure what would emerge from my time at the base of Mt. Tamalpais in Cascade Canyon, but I knew I was going home to the place of my beginnings. A time to recollect thoughts and memories of the past forty-eight years. And what a journey it’s been…love, loss, birth, re-birth, sorrow, joy. A life well lived I would say. Passionate and fearless.
Ann O’Hanlon speaks to how we see our interior self and our relationship to place. She writes: “seeing is gathering of physical statistics outside of us through the instrument of the eye an involuntary mechanical act. perception is the gathering of consciousness from those outer things”.
Gathering of consciousness from those outer things…WOW.
We are so shaped by those ‘outer things’…what we do with that information is a process of discernment, digestion, transformation, integration. I think that’s why I love papermaking so much. I transform all that is outside through materiality into something new, something fresh and exciting.
This transformation of materials and imagination has kept me engaged in the art of making for fifty years. It’s hard to imagine so much time has passed, but here I sit at the beginning of the mystery of spring awakening in my treehouse studio with so much to look forward to.
Emergence
Emergence
They call the wind Mariah…
Oh now, Mariah blows the stars around
And sends the clouds a-flying
Mariah makes the mountain sounds
Like folks were up there dying
The lyrics of this old cowboy tune paint quite an image, don’t you think? As I sit in my studio this Sunday morning, the sky is speckled with tuffs of cotton ball clouds in an azure blue background. The trees are swaying with the roar of Lioness wind…she arrived to the high desert.
Since moving here from coastal California, I have cursed the wind. Three years ago something shifted on a trip to Crestone, Colorado. Passing the San Luis valley the wind was furiously creating sand sculptures dancing across the plateau. I returned home to my studio and began making the “Desert Wind” series. Through this process, I made friends with the wind, although, not so much so that I want to live in the flat lands, but enough to ease my endocrine system when she arrives - along with the sound of moving water by way of small indoor fountains.
I recall my early years in Abiquiu (after designing and overseeing the building of my live-work studio) researching Bedouin life. How do these nomadic people life in the ferocious desert - I wanted to know. They cover up from head to toe and place their encampments away from the wind. I chose to just not be in it.
My multi-storied home-studio is the perfect place for me. Winter has been absolutely magical facing the mountains. The white laced trees now offer protection from the southwest wind. Moonlight and starry skies soothe my soul. I look forward to experiencing the seasons in Arroyo Hondo and making paper with rain water outdoors this summer.
Announcing MATERIAL MATTERS: CONTEMPORARY FIBER SCULPTURE WORKSHOP RETREAT-SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2024
Join me in France this fall for a 6-day residential workshop experience.
A Boste, Sauveterre-de-Béarn, France
I’m delighted to offer a residential, all-inclusive workshop retreat this fall at A Boste, an ancient castle converted into a guest house or chambres d’hôtes in Sauveterre-de-Béarn, a medieval village perched above the Gave d’Oloron and facing the Pyrenees in south-western France. Be-artz.com, Magdalena Groszek, will host the workshop.
Workshop Retreat:
Bring your creative ideas and immerse yourself in the tranquil beauty of an ancient French village for a SIX-DAY FIBER SCULPTURE Residential Workshop Retreat. Listen to the natural beauty around you. Let it guide your creative spirit! All skill levels are welcome to attend.
Do you love the concept of materiality? This residential workshop retreat will allow you to dive into your creative process by using flax fiber and other materials to manifest what is deep inside into three-dimensional expressions. We will transform flax fiber into textured paper and build armatures for paper applications. We will use indigo and plant-based stains for surface embellishment. Although these materials may seem simple, with time and patience in a calming retreat setting you will be surprised at what they can become.
This is an all-inclusive workshop retreat experience. Materials, lodging, and meals are included in the fee.
A New Year…New Work.
I begin this ‘musing’ with a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye. It resonates on many levels, and I wanted to share it with you hoping it might offer a moment of inner-peace, a tear and heart-opening as it did for me…
Kindness
Naomi Shihab Nye 1952 –
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
First Snow. Taos, NM
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I’m truly grateful to accept the invitaion to show my work at a private gallery in Santa Fe. “Two by One” will open May 5. More information coming soon…
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My beautiful ‘tree house’ studio is open for in-person multi-day workshop retreats. I’ve designed residential and non-residential retreats featuring fiber art sculpture and papermaking.
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I continue to offer workshops online as well. There are one and two day classes in papermaking with flax fiber and sculpture.
Fiber Art Workshops
Christmas in a Treehouse
Christmas in a Treehouse
As I settle into treehouse living along the Rio Hondo, I smile a lot passing windows that reveal treetops and negative space that inspires thoughts of what to make next. Living a makers life everything becomes potential for sculpture. And the birds…I could watch them for hours referring to the Birds of New Mexico Field Guide to identify who’s visiting.
I recently read an article in Emergence Magazine called “The Pillar” by Stephen Gill. He set up a motion sensor camera to photograph birds as they visited a pillar he planted. The images are wonderful.
Winter is the time to gather red willow from along the marshlands. When I lived along the northern California coast I often gathered willow storing it for certain projects. Living here along the Rio in northern New Mexico, willow is calling me once again. Cycles have a way of revealing what was missed the first time around, or as many times as it takes to satiate my creative process.
A Papermaker’s Journey
The art of making, nature and creative process.
My creative journey has taken many twists and turns over the years. While living in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains I studied basketry, weaving, spinning, animal husbandry, gardening and botanical wool dying. This was the beginning of stepping onto the road to self-discovery through the art of making. Living in France, I designed and created custom clothing for friends. Early years studying interior design set the stage for my imagination in 3D. In 1988 I returned to academia and studied three-dimensional fiber sculpture. I began making handmade paper with kozo fiber when my son with young. Making paper using a traditional Japanese technique seemed to bring me full circle with everything I had done previously. Living in a rural coastal town in northern California for 27 years gave me the support of village life where I raised my son and pursued my art career.
And so, papermaking has been the thread of my creative process all these years. I’ve used paper with armatures made of rattan to create sculptural lighting, site-specific installations and minimalism sculpture inspired by Asian aesthetics and philosophy, mother natures installations and seasonal changes. I’ve also carved stone and worked with raku fired ceramics.
My sculptures are theme oriented that embody process and reflections on life and the human condition. After moving to the desert I returned to the coast every summer to escape the hot arid climate. Like a homing pigeon, I migrated from the desert to the sea every year. The first series living in the desert was called “Wind & Thorns”, my response to spring wind and cactus. My work became even more minimalist and spare in response to the great expanse of nothingness the desert offers. The second series was called “Sea & Sand”, about my migration. I explored the artist book idea using mono prints made from plants and sumi ink collected in the desert and at the coast. Then the work became insular, as if I needed protection, and started making nests and cocoons. The “Broken Eggs” series appeared; reflections on grief, loss and renewal. The “Currents” and “Journey" series are recurring themes after returning from the coast and are reflections on life, death and everything in-between. I recently created the “Chrysalis Series” which is about transformation and rebirth. Also during the years in the “Abiquiu Outback” I wrote haiku as a means of using focused words to gain appreciation of living in the desert. My book “Solitude” was published in 2018, the year I sold my live/work studio and moved to a tree lined property near the Santa Fe River, previously owned by a Japanese weaver.
After a month long residency in California at the Cascade Canyon Artist Residency last summer, I began working on a new series about waterfalls; again the theme of currents, flow and movement became the focus. What was new about the work after the residency was how I touched on sense of place from within. The residency was located where my art career began in the 70’s. I came full circle (again) meeting myself on the streets and shops of my past. The “Roots” series emerged. What was great about the residency was that I had time to step aside from my usual way of working with mulberry fiber. It’s been totally freeing and exciting to tease the cooked fiber into shape. Ethereal in nature, the mulberry sculptures speak to vulnerability and resilience.
About 8 years ago I began incorporating flax fiber into my work. I use roving to create textured paper that can be cast or applied to a form. I learned this technique in the 90’s but I was so in love with Kozo that it wasn’t until harsh cold high desert winters limited my outdoor papermaking process opening a doorway that introduces new materials into my art practice.
I’m deeply grateful for the life journey my work has taken me. The work continues to evolve, and I feel fortunate to have the courage to look inside to see what wants to be revealed.
I’m a member of IAPMA, International Association of Papermakers and Paper Artists, American Craft Council, North American Hand Papermakers and the NM Committee for Women in the Arts. This year my studio is open for in-person as well as online workshops.