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!

Creative Challenge: #InspireOctober

October is an amazing, crazy month. Birthdays, anniversaries, Halloween, Thanksgiving (my favourite holiday - and yes, here in Canada we celebrate it in October)... and I'm moving. The days are getting shorter, the last of the green leaves are turning colour and falling to the ground, and that inescapable winter chill is starting to creep in. It's a month of celebration and transition. What better time to sharpen my creative muscles and focus more clearly on the world around me? This month, my creative challenge is back with #InspireOctober.

Last week I wrote about the importance of rituals, habits, and routines to help you stay creative every day. This week I have just the thing to help you with that goal! Introducing #InspireOctober, a 31-day creativity challenge that will inject some inspiration into your creative practice every day this month. It's easy to play along: Each number on the calendar is a day of the month. Using that day's prompt as a jumping off point, take a picture or write a short post and publish it on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook with the hastag #InspireOctober. That's it! Full "rules" (there are no rules though, really) below. Enjoy!

The Mission:

To stretch our creative muscles a little bit each day in October. To open our imaginations and share our stories.

The Rules:

1. Use the words above as prompts to create a story: either a visual image or a small piece of text each day.

2. Post the story you create to Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook using the hashtag #InspireOctober, along with the word that inspired it. Follow me on these platforms for even more inspiration.

3. Interpret the prompts any way you want, literally or off-the-wall figuratively.

4. Use any media you want. Try to stretch a little bit and think about the different stories you can tell with each word. Will you sketch or paint a picture? Make a collage? Take a photo? Use found objects to make a sculpture? Take a video? Use found text? Transcribe overheard conversations? Create a map? Of course, if you want to use all photographs that’s fine too!

5. Do as many or as few as you want, in any order you want. I don’t want to stress anyone out, so make this challenge whatever you need it to be to have fun.

6. Share with your friends! The more people we have playing along, the more fun it will be.

The challenge starts tomorrow and will go to the end of October. I hope you’ll join in on the creative adventures!

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Rituals, Routines, Habits: The Secret to Constant Creativity

"If I waited to be in the mood to write, I’d barely have a chapbook of material to my name. Who would ever be in the mood to write? Do marathon runners get in the mood to run? Do teachers wake up with the urge to lecture? I don’t know, but I doubt it. My guess is that it’s the very act that is generative. The doing of the thing that makes possible the desire for it. A runner suits up, stretches, begins to run. An inventor trudges down to his workroom, closing the door behind him. A writer sits in her writing space, setting aside the time to be alone with her work. Is she inspired doing it? Very possibly not. But this is her habit, her job, her discipline. Think of a ballet dancer at the barre. She is practising, because she knows there is no difference between practice and art. The practice is the art."

Dani Shapiro, Still Writing

Last year a friend gave me a Tarot deck for my birthday and I tried a reading for the first time. It was a time of upheaval and uncertainty so I asked the cards what was the next step I should take in my business. Many of the cards made a lot of sense but one that confused me a bit was the Hierophant card. Here's an interpretation: "The Hierophant Tarot card suggests that you may be wise to follow established social structures and traditions. You may be involved in some sort of ritual, ceremony, or the trappings of religion. There is also a need to honour some tradition in your life, or maybe start some traditions of your own if you have none."

After thinking about it for a bit it became clear what kind of  "rituals" and "traditions" the card was asking me to try. Creative rituals.

"It’s vital to establish some rituals -- automatic but decisive patterns of behavior -- at the beginning of the creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or going the wrong way.

A ritual, the Oxford English Dictionary tells me, is a “prescribed order of performing religious or other devotional service.” All that applies to my morning ritual. Thinking of it as a ritual has a tranforming effect on the activity.

Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, Why am I doing this? By the time I give the taxi driver directions, it’s too late to wonder why I’m going to the gym and not snoozing under the warm covers of my bed. The cab is moving. I’m committed. Like it or not, I’m going to the gym.

The ritual erases the question of whether or not I like it. It’s also a friendly reminder that I’m doing the right thing. (I’ve done it before. It was good. I’ll do it again.)"

Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit

In 2014, one of my 3 resolutions was to establish new habits of creative productivity. You can read about the goal-setting process here and my system for staying accountable to these resolutions here. The quick version is that every week I come up with a new mission to help me get closer to my goals. Since I've also been reading everything I can get my hands on about creativity, I've been paying close attention to what other creative people have written about habits and incorporating these ideas bit by bit into my weekly missions.

"It doesn't matter what the deal is that you strike with yourself, as long as you keep up your end of it, that you establish a working routine for yourself, a rhythm. I prefer to think of it as rhythm rather than discipline. Discipline calls to my mind a taskmaster, perhaps wielding a whip. Discipline has a whiff of punishment to it, or at least the need to cross something off a list, the way my son Jacob does with his homework. Rhythm, however, is a gentle aligning, a comforting pattern in our day that we know sets us up ideally for our work."

Dani Shapiro

Some of the things I've tried to help establish rhythm in my own life include:

- Moving down from full time to part time work so I have two whole days to create

- Getting chores done on Sundays or evenings during the week to protect my creative days and keep them open

- Doing creative work first thing in the morning - writing when I'm at the office (I have a lot of free time at my job) and developing new projects at home. I always start with the hardest thing, the thing that I would rather avoid doing.

- Writing down a numbered list of projects for each day. Instead of scheduling blocks of time, I just number my to-do items in order of priority. This helps me fluidly move from one thing to the next at a comfortable pace. When it's time for the next thing on the list, I jump in and do it, whether I feel like it or not.

- Keeping track of time spent on all creative work and trying to increase the count each week

- Creating and keeping up with online creative challenges every other month (there's one coming up in October!)

- Working on projects just for me - not to sell - to experiment and develop my skills

"There’s a paradox in the notion that creativity should be a habit. We think of creativity as a way of keeping everything fresh and new, while habit implies routine and repetition. That paradox intrigues me because it occupies the place where creativity and skill rub up against each other."

Twyla Tharp

If these things sound really organized, methodical, clinical - the opposite of creative - that's because they are. My goal is to make space for creativity by creating routines. If I don't have to wonder about what to do next, if I have fewer decisions to make then I have more juice, more creative energy left. I want to make creative production as seamless and easy as possible so that, rather than fighting with myself to sit down at the computer or the craft table, I end up there without even realizing how I did it. I'm not there yet - certain days are easier to program and my plans frequently go off the rails. But I have noticed my production increasing, my ideas increasing, my level of satisfaction increasing - which is why we do this after all, isn't it?

“I keep to this routine without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind.”

Haruki Marakami

Will you join me in making creativity a part of your daily life? How can you set up routines, rituals, rhythms, habits to help you get there? Leave a comment below!

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.