Connect 2016 Handmade and commercial papers with pulp painting and gelatine prints, Edition of two.
Connect is part of a suite of artist books around the theme of connection all featuring in some way gelatine prints and handmade paper. Nature is a constant source of inspiration for me and each of the prints has leaves and thread. The text contained in Connect derives from a saying by John Muir, a famous Scottish-American environmentalist and writer. The base concertina is pulp painted with a mixture of reconstituted abaca paper and plant fibre papers to give the idea of a landscape. It was made from several overlapping sheets of freshly formed paper rolled onto a sheet of fibro cement thus making one long sheet. The internal sheets are handmade recycled and plant fibre, tissue paper and gampi and the text was printed using stamps and a stamp pad.
It reads ‘When one tugs at a single thing in nature he finds it attached to the rest of the world’. This in fact is a misquote from John Muir who actually wrote ‘When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.’ It does however give the gist of the idea and fits the theme of the book.
Circularity 2016-7 Handmade papers with pulp painting and gelatine prints sitting in a case made from cane and handmade hemp paper.
Paper is: Circulation 2016-7 Handmade papers with pulp painting and gelatine prints bound using Coptic stitch encsed in spherical slip cases and sitting in a case made from cane and pulp painted handmade hemp paper.
In Paper is: Circulation I am playing with words, papers get circulated and in this piece both the images and the form reflect circulation.
Paper is Music Work produced to fit inside a black stationery box as part of the Paper is Exhibition. The papers used were Bangladesh hemp and well beaten abaca the abaca was stretched over a cardboard form to produce the skin of the drum. A mix of the hemp and abaca was used to make string and the beads for beating the drum.
© 2021 Gail Stiffe
papergail.stiffe@gmail.com