Squares and Beginnings

:: full circle ::
Acrylic, ink, and Arches paper on canvas
12 x 12 x 1.5 inches
from the series “Minimalist Seriality”

This piece is a throwback to art that I was making many years ago. It was the first time that the creation of something with my own hands absolutely thrilled me - and I had to do it over and over again. I was obsessed. I think I made upwards of 50 pieces that comprised square pieces of paper attached to a plain white background. Most of the time the format was 25 squares in a 5 x 5 grid. But I experimented with much larger pieces, where the grid might have been upwards of 25 pieces by 15 or more. Very large - and I don’t even have photos of those pieces that have long gone on to live in private collections where I have lost touch…

The process I used to color the papers evolved from a technique that I learned when my oldest daughter experienced Easter egg decorating at a Waldorf school when we lived in Eugene, Oregon. That technique involved using eggs where the insides were blown out, and then the eggshell was moistened and wrapped with bits of brightly colored paper that was infused with fugitive inks. It looked like regular tissue paper, but you would not use it that way because any amount of moisture and it would “bleed”. When the paper was dry, it was easily peeled off of the egg, and the result was breathtakingly gorgeous colors that had dances and mixed and created patterns of enchanting beauty. These eggs would then be strung with a thread so that you could hang them from a tree branch. A tradition that I didn’t grow up with, but quickly adopted simply for the joy of seeing these eggs! The first year we decorated eggs we filled a tree with them, and then saved the eggs for next year. But the next year we had to decorate more, and etc.. We ended up with several dozen decorated eggs, which was super fun. But it was only once a year. I had to figure out a way to enjoy this more often than that!

So - I experimented by taking a full sheet of watercolor paper and soaking it in the bathtub. I had a flat board I put it on, then placed the torn bits of ink-infused paper on the paper in random ways, and waited a day or two for the paper to fully dry. When I took the dried up tissue off, and saw the watercolor paper for the first time, I almost wept for the beauty of it. But I was quickly experimenting with tearing up the watercolor sheet - resulting in small squares, and then playing with the squares in ways that I found interesting. The 5 x 5 grid became my favorite, and I was off to the races.

I ended up effortlessly selling most of these pieces - except for the oneI gave to my parents (see below). I knew that the ink infused papers would not last forever - that the dye was “fugitive” and not light-fast. So I was very clear that this art was ephemeral and would fade, especially if directly exposed to sunlight.

So this piece, “full circle” is using some of those squares in a new way - and affixing them to a canvas, then sealing with a glaze that has some UV protection. It still brings me joy to play with these squares. Both colorful and tactile, I love how they sing together and make a chorus of color and harmony, while each of them glow with individuality and interest.

first light
ink on paper,  12 x 12 image size, framed