My Love Affair with Paper Mache

People who see my heart sculptures are often amazed that I make them entirely out of paper. When we think of paper mache, we usually think of children mucking around with newspaper and balloons, though the truth is that people have been making sturdy, beautiful objects out of paper mache for centuries - probably for as long as there has been paper. Here are some of the ways that paper mache has been used that I find most interesting:

Medical models

Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, religious dictates made it hard for medical schools to find bodies to use for dissection so models had to be made to teach students about anatomy. Many of these  were painstakingly made with paper mache. If you haven't seen these models, I highly recommend taking a look (if you're not too squeamish!). They are truly beautiful. You can find a good selection here.

Furniture

The Victorians started out by copying lacquered paper mache boxes and screens from Japan and China, and then they started making furniture. Henry Clay invented a process in the late 1700s that made a heat-resistant paper product as hard as wood.

Helmets

Paper and lacquer were used to add decorative elements to samurai helmets and armour in Japan.

Masks

Masks are probably one of the most common uses for the medium. This one is from the Japanese Noh theatre and was made in the early 20th century. I found plenty of adorable animal masks for sale on Etsy as well.

Puppets

Making puppets has always been on my list of things to do. Perhaps I'll add one to my paper mache repertoire!

Personally, I love the medium for its versatility, and the fact that materials are cheap and readily available. And then there's the goopy feeling of dipping the paper in the glue and shaping something with my fingers. Sigh... It's no wonder that I've been using it as my go-to construction medium for years. Recently, I searched through my photo archives for examples of other things I've made with paper mache, to show you a few fun examples. (I apologize for the terrible quality of some of these photos!)

A friend of mine was really into radio when we were in university so I made her this sculpture using real radio parts, paper mache, and collage. She was the first recipient of one of my hearts and I also made her a paper mache fish as a house-warming gift... She's probably hoping I don't make her any more bizarre objects.

I made this ornament for my mom for Christmas one year when I was a student and trying to save money by making all my gifts. Her Rottweiler, Tara, had passed away that year so I wanted to give her something to remember her by.

This was another project from an ambitious Christmas. I made two of these, one for my mom and one for my aunt, with different patterns. They were inspired by my trip to (surprise!) New Mexico and the amazing art that I saw there. I think I should probably make more of these. A cross-section of a heart would look amazing in one of these box frames.

My 2008 birthday had a gangster theme and I used the old paper mache over a balloon trick to make a piñata and painted a face on it. I still haven't decided if this was funny or twisted. If it's the latter, please don't judge me...

My most ambitious paper mache project was the set design for the play The Love of the Nightingale in university. I made two six by six foot triangles and had them mounted on castors so the actors could roll them around the stage to create the various settings of the play. It was an enormous amount of work and even with the help of friends, actors, and anyone else I could drag into it, I spent many a late night in that shop.

Look how much fun I'm having, covering that giant frame bit by bit, by bit.

How do you feel about paper mache? Fun? Gross? The best way to make things every? Leave a comment!

Inspiration: Weird and Wonderful Children's Books

I think children's books are a source of inspiration that often goes untapped. The combination of an intriguing storyline with beautiful images can get those creative neurons firing like crazy. I remember one Christmas my mom brought a huge stack of children's books home from the library, and we spent hours reading them by the fireplace. It was both relaxing and energizing at the same time, and became one of my favourite Christmas memories. Over the years I've found a small collection of books that are meant for children but still appeal to me as an adult - probably because, like many things that inspire me, they're a little dark and very strange. Two of the writer/illustrator teams that grabbed my attention for both their stories and their illustrations are:

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

I love the irreverent tone and out-of-the-box storytelling in these books. Most of all I love Smith's wacky collaged illustration. My parents bought us the first book when we were kids and I'm still a fan.

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales is a ramshackle collection of fairy-tales spoofs and parodies. The art spills from one page to the next, playing with conventions. Even the table of contents and the end papers are part of the fun.

Math Curse: What happens when you realize that math is inescapable? A descent into mathematical madness (educational too!)

Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

I found these two through the Sandman comics - Dave McKean did the covers - and was instantly smitten. McKean's style is full of shadows and mystery, and he layers elements in such a way that I'll stare at the images wondering, "How did he do that?" It's the perfect compliment to Gaiman's imaginative (some might say twisted) stories.

The Wolves in the Walls is a slightly terrifying tale of a family dealing with the wolves that have taken up residence in their home. "When the wolves come out of the walls, it's all over."

The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish is the story of a boy who traded his dad like a baseball card, and then had to try and get him back, sending him and his sister on an adventure. (There's a really great map in this one!)

I discovered the following artist more recently when a friend mailed me one of his books (getting books in the mail is one of my favourite things), and I can't get enough of his work.

Shaun Tan

I discovered this artist more recently when a friend mailed me one of his books (getting books in the mail is one of my favourite things), and I can't get enough of his work. Equally comfortable with vast surreal landscapes and hyper-realistic portraits, Tan's illustrations might make your imagination burst if you're not careful.

The Red Tree is a quiet story about a bad day that keeps getting worse, until you find that one beautiful thing that makes it all okay.

The Arrival is a meticulous wordless study of an immigrant to a new land. The strangeness of his new country is evident in Tan's fantastical drawings and the character's faces are rich with emotion.

Are there any children's books that you still like to cozy up with? Do you have any weird and wonderful titles to add to the list? Leave a comment below.

All this Stuff: The Objects that Inspire Me

Like many people, I collect objects and images and use them to decorate my home. Some have flown with me across oceans, some were made by friends and my boyfriend, and plenty are gifts from people I love. I have always loved having these objects out where I can see them - minimalism is definitely not for me. When I met my boyfriend and saw that his apartment was crowded with his own collection of objects of wonder, I knew that we would get along fine. Sometimes I feel guilty for feeling so connected to objects, and I sometimes wonder - why these things? What is it about them that makes me never tire of looking at them?

In her book The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp talks about creative DNA: "I believe that we all have strands of creative code hard-wired into our imaginations. These strands are as solidly imprinted in us as the genetic code that determines our height and eye color, except they govern our creative impulses. They determine the forms we work in, the stories we tell, and how we tell them."

I think these objects are part of my creative code. When I look closely I see that certain themes come up again and again: navigation, exploration, and discovery are big ones, along with a sense of history, and of being very far away in place in time. These themes underlie my art (my obsession with maps and old things) and my life (I feel a constant urge to explore, to learn, and to venture further and further afield).

Some of the things you'll find taking up space in my tiny bachelor apartment include: postcards from an exhibit I saw in Edinburgh called "Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery", an old map of the north of England that my boyfriend had beautifully framed for me, an old window frame filled with dried flowers made by a local artist, a vase full of dried local grasses, weavings from Peru, and large wall-hanging that I made in Argentina, glass insulators from the tops of old telephone poles (we used to go looking for them in ditches with my dad), an antique mirror and brush that I bought while visiting a friend in northern Alberta, a sock puppet a friend made for me when I went away for a summer, a Kachina doll I bought in Arizona, a fan my brother brought from Japan next to one from New Orleans, a tea pot my mom gave me when I moved out.

To me, these things evoke the feeling of a jumbled 19th century museum, with strange new treasures around every corner. Natural history, textile arts, maps. They provide a record of what I have already discovered and inspire me to continue exploring. Even the colour schemes that I'm drawn to are straight from the dark corners of of a natural history display - the deep rich woods of old cabinets, the dusty beiges of dried plant matter and animals, the occasional shock of green or pink from a faded botanical print. This explains, perhaps, why I keep dead plants around, despite their supposedly bad fung shui, and why I still have the vertebrae of a cow that I found in a field when I was eight years old. That slightly morbid fascination with things that have long since died gives a clue as to why I currently feel compelled to create sculptures of hearts and eyeballs, and why I cover them with old, found papers.

This isn't even all of it. I have a box full of items that didn't make the cut - a quote from a poem written in Chinese calligraphy that I watched being made in the Chinese garden in Portland, weavings made by one the best weavers in all of Bolivia, and the pieces that she taught me to make, postcards from Chicago, New York, Santa Fe, Buenos Aires, Lima, and plenty more maps. I dream of one day having a library where I'll be able to display everything and have a visual inventory of my travels through space and time.

I'll be moving in with my boyfriend in a couple months and will have to pare down even more and be extra choosy about what will be displayed and what will be stored. What will stay and what will go? And how will he and I decide how to merge our creative code and tell our shared story? I can't wait to find out.

What objects are part of your creative code? What do you keep around to remind you of who you are and what's important to you? Leave a comment below.

I Invite You to Try...Visual Journaling

  Last week I wrote about my experiences with journaling and apparently I'm not ready to let the subject go since this week I want to talk about visual journaling - about how I got into it and how you can get started.

What is a visual journal?

Any form of record keeping that uses images can be described as a visual journal. In the book, Drawing from Life: The Journal as Art, Jennifer New explains that the word journal can be used almost interchangeably with sketchbook, field notes, notebook, or logbook. Visual journals are most frequently associated with artists, but they can also be kept by scientists, musicians, travelers, parents, or anyone who wants to keep track of their ideas and observations. In fact, rather than dividing her book into sections based on disciplines, New called her chapters Observation, Reflection, Exploration, and Creation - though most journals contain a little bit of everything.

New explains the magical properties of visual journaling:

"Visual journals are created in a secret language of symbols. Intentional or not, they are private maps only their makers can follow. No one else can look at a page and understand the specific meaning of a punching bag or a set of arrows. And no one else can remember the moment of its making. Joni Mitchell blaring on the stereo. Sage wafting in a hidden garden. The discomforting echo of last night's argument.

That said, visual journals may provide stronger records of the cultural milieu in which they were created than their purely written counterparts. Rather than describing the stuff of the day, they are often made from it. Anyone who has used primary source materials for research knows this. The difference between reading about someone's life and opening old, yellowed letters is startling. When pressed flowers and handwritten recipes escape from a tattered envelope, one can almost see hollyhocks growing in the garden and smell bread baking in the oven."

How I got started

As with many things, I first became interested in visual journaling when I saw someone else doing it. Somewhere I stumbled on the books of Sabrina Ward Harrison, who became famous for her "visual memoirs" - messy, chaotic art journals that vividly capture the rawness of certain moments in her life.

In the introduction to Messy Thrilling Life, ward explains:"This is a document of how we can traipse about wondering how we can devise plans and theories on how to make life feel better, more safe and right, more beautiful, and how all the while our life, this big messy thrilling life, is waiting for us to step into, to dance to, to write about and to live. This is a book about doing just that."

Her words are mingled with photographs streaked with paint, pieces of detritus from her daily life, and collaged paper dolls and vintage images from the covers of sewing patterns. She draws herself as a sad-eyed girl with pursed lips, staring out of the pages, watching and wondering. The pages of her books showed me how beautiful the art of visual storytelling can be, and gave me the desire to move beyond the written word in my own journals.

It's clear that journals like this are not made on the fly - they cannot be carried around in a purse and worked on casually. These take serious commitment. I was never quite so committed in my visual journaling efforts. I started when I was in University, and between classes, a part-time job, writing papers, rehearsals for theatre projects, and a social life, it was simply impossible to find hours for exploring in a journal. I would make a quick collage, or an even quicker drawing, before racing off to my next commitment. My efforts were sporadic and often disappointing, but it was enough to give me the desire to press on and to experiment more with different ways to tell my own story. Now I carry a small notebook with me to record observations, feelings, and quick sketches, and I have one at home for more elaborate collages. Though I may go months without creating an image, I always find myself returning eventually to this satisfying form of creative exploration.

Your turn

You don't need to spend money or have the right materials to start journaling. Cartoonist Lynda Barry uses a yellow legal pad because it reminds her that she's just playing. You can use computer paper, old notebooks, or whatever you can find.

If, like I was, you're excited to get moving but don't know where to start, here's a suggestion from Barry's memoir/creative instruction manual What It Is: 

1. Number your page from 1 to 10.

2. Relax.

3. Write down the first 10 images that come to your mind from the day before, regardless of significance.

I would then add the fourth step of choosing one or two (or ten!) of those images and finding a way to represent it visually. Can you find pictures in a magazine to evoke your image? Can you sketch a literal version or even a rough cartoon version? (stick figures can be surprisingly evocative!) If you took a photograph, can you play around with the photograph, adding text or doodles? Do you have any physical objects you can include, such as napkins, paper bags, coffee cups, feathers, or flowers?

Give yourself room to play, to experiment, and most importantly, to make mistakes. Go easy on yourself. The point of this practice is not to create works of art. For every page I made that turned out nice enough to show on this blog, there were 10 that I wouldn't want to show to anyone. I had to remind myself over and over that this was an experiment and that no one would be judging my work.

Think about all the different subjects you can explore in your journal: your emotions, your dreams (the collage with the fish at the top of the page was based on a dream I had), your experiences/memories, your favourite moments with friends and family, the things you notice throughout your day. Or, if you prefer not to use yourself as the subject, you can record what's growing in your garden, how your city is changing, or world events. Anything that involves noticing and interpreting what you find.

Once you've gotten a feel for what medium you enjoy working in and what subject matter you want to explore, then you can start collecting the materials you want to use. Decide if you want to carry the journal around with you, or leave it at home. Find a routine that works for you. You could leave it out and do a few minutes a day, or work on a page until it's finished. You can cram a ton of things onto one page, or spread them out. For more inspiration, look for the books I mentioned in this post at your local library. Have fun!

Have you ever tried visual journaling? What does it add to your creative practice? Leave a comment below!

Feeding my Creative Soul: The Art of Nick Bantock

When I was 13 years old, my mom gave me a treasure of a book. It was the story of an "extraordinary correspondence" between an artist and the woman who sees his art develop as he makes it. The truly compelling part was that the book was made up of postcards and letters sent by each character, with stunning original artwork, and real letters that you could pull out of real envelopes. I was completely entranced. Not only did the story light up the part of me that loves a good, dark mystery, but the artwork was like nothing I had ever seen before. The book was Griffin and Sabine and the author/artist - Nick Bantock - went on to become one of my greatest artistic influences.         

In the first book we learn that Sabine lives on an (imaginary) island in the South Pacific, and that she has taken over her father's work of cataloging all the islands plants and animals. She is an artist as well and designs stamps for her small country. As I reread the book recently I saw all my aesthetic fascinations come to life: natural history, maps, stamps and mail art, mythology, collage, and postcards. I don't know if these obsessions were initially inspired by my experience of Bantock's work, but it certainly breathed life into them.

Another favourite Bantock book is The Forgetting Room, the story of a man who returns to his family's home in Spain to settle his grandfather's estate. There he finds a puzzle to unravel and in the process learns to create art as his grandfather did. Again the mystery pulled me in, however to me the most important part of the book is when the narrator explains how he makes a collage, guided by remembered words of his grandfather. Each step of the process is shown in the book and this felt like a magical glimpse into the secret world of an artist I admired so much. Here he was, laying out step by step how he makes his enigmatic images. I couldn't believe I had been given such a gift, and immediately began experimenting with this technique in my own collages. I was able to create work that was so much more rich and satisfying than it had been before.

"Chaos, order, chaos, order recurring. The layering of texture, the building from ground was like archaeology in reverse--onion-like skins plumping themselves out, one by one. I worked fast, playing with the materials to see what would happen. When the picture started to work in some sections, it became more difficult and the changes I made were less radical, though I still wouldn't allow myself to become precious."

Bantock's art is forever fascinating to me because of the layers and textures. You can dive into one of his collages and explore it like it's its own little world. I love the darkness, the mischievousness, the feeling of something so very very old, with infinite stories to tell. His writing, too, evokes far away lands and ancient tales, and sets my imagination aflame.

Opening up these books again has felt like taking a deep breath of my own creative history. I remember why I wanted to make art. I wanted to inspire people the way I had been inspired. I wanted to explore ancient stories and feelings, to plumb the richness of my experience and dive down deep. I wanted to be like an archaeologist, an explorer, a natural historian, documenting the treasures I uncover. Thank you Nick Bantock for reminding me of why I do what I do.

Is there anything from your past that still inspires you today? I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.

Have a look at Bantock's website for more images and info. Or just do a Google image search and prepare to be blown away.

Maps as Inspiration and the Stories They Tell

If you've followed me from my I Heart Edmonton days, or have seen very much of my artwork, you'll know that I'm a teensy bit obsessed with maps. I'm inspired by them and love incorporating them in my work. What's the big deal about maps? I could write for days about all the interesting things I've learned about them (and maybe someday I will), but for now I'll just share what I think is one of their most interesting features: how we can use them to tell stories. If you've ever taken a road trip, you can identify with the map as storyteller. It shows you the ground you've covered since leaving home. A few years ago my brother and I drove all the way around the United States, touching 34 states in 2 months, and I used a map to keep track of our route. I kept it as a souvenir: the thick yellow line running in a rugged circle around the country reminds us of where we went, of the things we saw, and of the adventures we had. That yellow line is as evocative for me as a photo album.

Maps can also tell the stories of where we want to go. I'm thinking of all the times I've planned a trip - whether to a foreign continent, or to an unfamiliar part of of the city I live in - poring over the details on a map, trying to visualize a journey from one place to another and imagining how it might turn out.

Even if we spend most of our lives in one place and have no need to physically look at a map, they are still constantly helping us understand the world around us. We create mental maps of places familiar to us: of our route to work, of the aisles we regularly visit in the grocery store, of our path around the house as we get ready in the morning. Just think of how disorienting it is to walk into a grocery store in a different part of the city; on the outside it looks the same as the one we're used to, but inside things are backwards or mixed up. Our mental map tells us to go one way but reality tells us something different. These mental maps help us define how we fit into the world around us.

Mapping can be more abstract as well. We talk about mapping out our future, or making mind maps when we're trying to solve a problem. Though they refer to time or ideas rather than space, these visual representations have as much to say to us as the maps created by our footsteps. To create a map of the future, we have to explore the map of the past, examining what worked and what didn't and using that as a jumping off point to get somewhere new. When we explore the contents of our mind, we are sometimes surprised to discover uncharted territory. Either way we learn something new about our character and our stories.

Our bodies, too, form maps as we seek to understand and cure injuries or illnesses. I recently spent 5 months seeing a physiotherapist for pain in the back of my leg. The pain moved around, traveling up and down and the physiotherapist had to explore the interactions between different parts of my body to discover the cause and to heal it. I can now trace the path between tension in my lower back and pain behind my knee. I have a map. And I have a story.

We normally associate maps with straightforward geography, looking at them as completely objective representations. But they can mean so much more if you're willing to dive in and explore a bit. I would be willing to bet that no two people would draw a map of an area in exactly the same way; everyone sees things a little differently, and everyone's interpretations would vary. Some might focus more on physical details, and some on emotional. Think about it: if you were to draw a map that told the story of you, what would it look like?

If all this talk of maps and stories has got you excited and you want to explore the topic further, I will be teaching a brand new workshop on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 from 6-8pm called Personal Map-Making in which I will guide you through the process of mapping your own story. Will you choose to focus on geography or on emotional states? On networks of relationships or of memories? Either way, everyone has a powerful tale to tell, and I hope that you'll join me to try to represent that tale with your own unique map. Find more information and register here.