Blog 46

For a long while now I have been collecting the packaging material that comes with your parcels. I have more than you can see in this picture. I like the structure, the shapes, the textures, the colours, the idea of recycling / re-use, even as a medium in the development of ideas only. But what to do with it all? 

Having not been in the studio for a while, properly, it's been a bit like starting anew, and I began by scrunching the paper material up, looking at it in 'piles', contemplating different possibilities...

In January this year I was in a group show called Discardboard looking at artists, designers and makers who work with cardboard. Work that I had done a little while ago, it has re-engaged my curiosity to work with cardboard again.

I've been trying to understand the concept of recycled paper and cardboard and searching on the internet. I came across a lovely article called 101 Ways to Recycle & Reuse Cardboard Boxes at Home, Work & Play. Have a look here 

Looking at the scrunchy 'tail' you can see draped over the cardboard box in the second picture of this blog, it reminds me of my hand-made paper yarn which I have been making with old dress-making pattern paper. It's not finished yet. How could I present this? As a ball of yarn, or a three dimensional drawing in space? ... Where does this fit into my work? 

I started to make some books out of the packaging material. 

And I like the idea of piles of paper, a 'stack'. But the paper is not completely flat having been manipulated in some way, used, drawn upon...

Last year I began a series of black pierced paper drawings which look more and more sculptural and book like. I would like to develop this further.

I have recently been given a second-hand sewing machine. This is a two-fold exercise.

1. I would like to do some dress-making again, which I haven't touched since I left secondary school. 

2. Having hand pierced paper for so long in my artwork, what would it be like to machine stitch holes into paper? The idea of the mechanical verses the hand-made...

I began very simply, machine stitching holes into some of the packaging material, to see what it felt and looked like.

I then machine stitched holes into the watercolour paper that I use for all my pierced paper drawings. Piercing by hand, as the needle goes through the watercolour paper, it pushes the paper away from the flat surface on the back, raising the back of the paper slightly, adding texture to the reverse side (see image above on the right). This doesn't happen on the machine. It is squashed.

My partner has given me some large sheets of white tissue paper that had interleaved some plastic sheeting that he uses at work. So I started machine stitching holes into that and then sewing thread through the machine stitched holes by hand.

This paper feels much more favourable than the watercolour sheets and not so thick and chunky, although you can get different grades of watercolour paper that I could try? I like the delicate nature of this tissue paper, it is light and fragile. 

Using a simple straight stitch and different threads, I have been looking at lines. Single, multiple, spaced out, together.

I like the tension that can be seen between some threads and their holes, very slightly puckering the paper along the line. 

There is something very striking about a single line of stitching across a tear in the paper. 

And because my lines are not perfectly straight and equal distance between them, the more lines you stitch, patterns appear to form, creating lines of disarray, ever so slightly.

I repeated the process of straight stitch and different threads using my watercolour paper but at the moment this work feels thick and chunky, not quite right.

I took some A4 lined paper and repeated the process of straight stitch and different threads. What is interesting here is that my hand sewn line does not lie exactly on the line printed on the paper and so there becomes two lines, the original printed ink line, and my slightly wonky stitched line.

Also, on the left hand side piece of A4 paper in the picture above, there is the perforated line that runs vertically between the torn edging and punch holes. Hmm...  In fact, if you look really closely, the perforated line looks like a row of stitching without the use of thread. Double hmm...

I repeated the process of straight stitch and different threads into some very delicate bamboo paper that I have, following the very faint lines that have appeared I'm guessing, during the manufacturing process of the paper. But this paper tears very easily, too delicate I think. What is interesting, is that I felt red thread worked well with this paper, not black and white, and I only work in black and white...

I returned again to use a similar opaque paper to the white tissue paper, this time, tracing paper. Tougher and slightly 'crispy' in texture, i.e. not soft, it was pleasant enough, and the multiple un-stitched vertical lines on the left hand side of the image above, look a bit like rain. Again, the more lines I create, the more they diffuse out in disarray across the page. 

I finished this block of making by stitching different threads into clear cellophane. It's actually the packaging that wraps around your birthday cards etc. to keep them clean before you write on them. I have a stash of this 'paper' too. The exciting bit was when I pulled the woollen thread at the end of sewing and the paper puckered up quite drastically. The piece became a sculpture, 3 dimensional. This piece reminds me of Karla Black who works with cellophane on a large scale. 

Taking notes as I make, I question why am I doing what I am doing, in an enquiring way. I am concerned this work has the potential to become too craft based. It needs a fine art context to it. 

I would like to develop the 'pierced hole' paper artworks that I am known for, taking this process into a new direction. I would also like to develop away from my blackening process which I have explained is very difficult to work with in previous blogs, Blog 43 in particular.  But this work has been my identity up till now and the results are successful. 

I found this drawing in my studio which I had done a while ago, drawing lines with an embossing pen onto watercolour paper.

The detail image on the left above, is from a body of work I developed in 2009. It is an embossed line drawing, but has punched dots in amongst the lines. The finished piece is hanging in our hallway. What about something like this, as a template to stitch into?

The right hand image above, again done some time ago, is a series of black lines drawn very close together. The lines give the illusion of fabric. 

What I'm getting to is that my pierced paper when blackened with pigment resembles a 'malleable textile', as quoted by Rebecca Gordon in an essay she wrote for my solo show in 2012. Can I develop this concept in a new way? 

This work is very much about relationships between paper, holes, and thread.

In my collection of papers I also have some scrolls of white cotton (?) paper, 1038cm long x 30cm wide. I don't actually know what the paper is but I brought it at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester during our travels in 2010. Is there someway I could stitch into this paper to create a 'malleable textile'?

A list of notes I have written during the making process... Notice the cluttered, de cluttered comment on the right. I had a cluttered studio at the beginning of this exercise which I emptied out, which I now feel I have cluttered again! 

I do like to work in a simple way, using a simple process, and simple materials. 

I end this blog questioning why am I hand-stitching thread into machine made holes? And what is important? 

How can I develop these ideas further baring in mind the craft/making element, but within a fine art context?

Blackened pierced paper has been my identity up till now and the results are successful. How can I develop this further and take it into a new direction? The enquiry goes on.