What Inspires Me? #6 Paper Sculpting
Calvin Nicholls is an artist, a sculpture. His medium of choice: paper.
Paper is my medium of choice, too. I click away on a computer, sure, but as a substitute for paper (and slave to technology) not by choice. Paper is my happy place. I scribble on it, print on it, stack it, cut it, tear it, crumple it—toss it into the recycle bin, too (rarely score a 3-pointer), and while sometimes my paper scribbles inspire art. My paper is not art.
Calvin Nicholls shapes, molds, cuts, transforms paper into art. Just look:
Here’s a cardinal.
Here’s Calvin Nicoll’s cardinal.
What’s so appealing about creating paper sculpture? Here’s a snippet from Calvin Nicholls:
I still recall working on my first bird sculpture and marveled at how my interest in drawing, model making, sculpting and photography blended so beautifully with my life long interest in wildlife and the natural world…Every piece is a discovery of sorts too. I’m always learning with each
new sculpture.
To see more about Calvin Nicolls and read about his process—and see more of his paper sculptures, click over to his website: Calvin Nicolls
What Inspires Me #1-Family Photo Collage
The holidays behind me, I went to bed last night with a feeling of “Tomorrow back to the same-o?” Soooo…? We all thought by 2022—all those welcoming curves and 2 two too me toos—the world would be all sunshine and light, but… Thinking maybe, like me, you too “22” need a little boost, I’m returning to a practice from those darker days of Bird Flu and empty nest syndrome: Collecting inspiration.
Each week, along with my regular posts, a 7-Minute Poetry Challenge each Wednesday & Ask Norman, response to a reader’s letter each Friday, I’m going to post What inspires Me. Here’s #1
What Inspires Me #1
Collage Art by Sharry Wright
You know all those old family photos—the ones of people you know and most especially those you can only wonder about? Sharry, a friend and fellow classmate from VCFA uses them in collage art. And her captions are the best! Check it out!
Here’s a bit of what inspired Sharry to begin creating these delightful collages:
“…found myself pouring over photos of my grandparents and great grandparents, great aunts and uncles, cousins in various categories of removal and my parents in their youth, wondering about their hopes and dreams and all of the “what-ifs” and forks in the road not taken.”-Sharry Wright
To view more of Sharry Wright’s art (and perhaps snag some of her notecards) click over to her website: SharryWright.com
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For a Paper Moon on April Fool's Day
“Words words words I’m so sick of words . . . Is that all you blighters can do?”
These may like odd words , especially coming from a writer. But it's what's stuck in my head just now. Frankly, I am sick of the of pages and piles of unwanted printed material--catalogs, magazines, outdated text books, playbills, obsolete manuals--heaped and mounded, fanned, basketed, lined-up and otherwise cluttering up my spaces...words, words, words. Do I toss them into the recycles? Donate them to the nearest library bin so they can try to sell them and or toss them into the recycles? Burn them on the balcony? Or . . .
My friend Alicia, a former bookseller now happily ensconced in the children's section of Conroe Central Library, reminded me that one art form can feed another by bringing my attention to exhibit, Rebound, at The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, "featuring five contemporary artists: Guy Laramee, Long Bin Chen, Francesca Pastine, Doug Beube, and Brian Dettmer, who create sculptures and installations using various books and printed materials." Here's info about the exhibit and museum: Rebound.
Rebound-9
Which reminded me of the Mysterious Paper Sculptures created and deposited anonymously in stores, book festivals,etc. that captured my fancy a while back. I wrote about them in my blog posting: Word Sculptors Inspire Paper Sculptures.
Here's the link to more: Mysterious Paper Sculptures link:
Which brought to mind the charming "word nests" my writer, friend, fellow UN, Sharry Wright, co-blogger on Kissing the Earth, created and wrote about in a spring post titled "Building a Nest"
Sharry Wright's Word Nests
Dealing with outdated reading material is a "Third-World" issue, and historically-speaking, a recent one. Prior to the invention of toilet paper any unwanted paper was put to good use. (Aww come on, surely you've heard stories of olden-day outhouses stocked with Sears Catalogs?)
In less developed places there's no such thing as "unwanted paper." When we moved to Jakarta in 2005, my housekeeper, Rusnati, painstakingly smoothed out packing paper and used it to line all the cupboards and closets in our house.
Back in the day, outdated phonebooks, Sears Catalogues, and the big thick Yellow Pages was a problem my mom turned into an annual Christmas tradition, and "how to keep the kids busy over the long holiday" solution. Her friends and our friends gathered around the table making Christmas tree table decorations from telephone books. Clump by clump we'd fold back the pages while the grown-ups chattered and Dean, Bob, Johnny, Mitch Miller's Singers, Elvis, and Don Ho "Live from Honolulu" seranaded us. Being a Multi-tasking Queen, Mom usually had us cookie baking at the same time. A little peanut butter cookie grease never hurt anything. Maybe even made the page creases neater . . . Anyway, when the folding was over, gold spray paint and enough glitter and sequins made every tree merry and bright.
Martha Stewart's mom or friend's mom must have done the same thing. Her updated version uses outdated magazines--even her own! Telephone Book Christmas Trees.
Martha showed how to make them on her show. Here's the video
All of which reminded me that I have scissors and glue and imagination that I could use to refashion those unwanted volumes of words words words . . .
. . . Which would make room for so many more . . .
"Show Me" from the musical, My Fair Lady, lyrics by Jay Lerner.) Have a listen on U-Tube
Spending My Summer Vacation
Were your "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" Back-to-School essays fact or fiction? Or like mine, some of both.
I used to think you had to "go somewhere else" in order to have something "interesting" to write. I'm learning what Tam Smith and Sharry Wright, blog sisters on Kissing The Earth
seem to have known all along, and what led young reader-me to spend countless satisfying summer days curled up in a cozy spot, reading: the landscapes of a book can be a real, as captivating, as life-altering as any. In case you're wondering why I haven't been posting, it's Summertime. I'm spending my Summer Vacation. I'll write you all about it, later. . .
