New directions in print and photography

A new year.

New projects.....

..........gradually coming together from a collection of half formed ideas. Each time I enroll in a course I learn new skills and from these come new ideas. Not necessarily to everyone's taste, but one thing I am sure of right now is that it is the process of creativity that matters most to me, and if someone else enjoys the outcome then that is a bonus.

In February I  spent three days learning how to make a Japanese scroll. 

This is a very niche skill. Not many people choose to give up three days of their life to learn how to glue pages of fine paper together and wrap them in cloth backed with fine kozo 
(mulberry) paper and then lined with decorative paper.

For me this was a burning ambition that is now happily fulfilled. I dream of creating long books that can be layed out or hung from the wall, full of images created with my camera or with sumi-ink.  

I learned to make a scroll under the kind and attentive eye of Lucy May Schofield. 

Lucy describes herself as

'an artist whose intuitive practice explores a somatic relationship to the earth within a palette of light and time. Charting the seasonal shifts through performative interplays with paper and expanded print; a meditation on materials and making as meditation.'

She makes much of her work using the technique of japanese wood cut ( Mokuhanga). The scroll is one of many ways that she presents her work. 

Mokuhanga scroll by Lucy May Schofield

There were ten participants on the course. All had different underlying reasons for attending, and all were female. I don't know what that means.....

Day one had me quite worried. At the end of an exhausting day all that we had done was to choose a piece of fabric and glue a sheet of kozo paper to its reverse. This was to be the cover for the scroll. I could not see how we would finish the whole thing in the time remaining.

Oh me of little faith!

linen cloth glued to fine mulberry paper. the sum of day one's achievements.

Day two was my birthday.

A birthday made in heaven...... doing something that I have been longing to do for a long time. 

On day two we did wood carving. This was somewhat alarming for one who has a fear of sharp knives. 

Carving a post to fit a hole using a chisel was a challenge mentally. But the sense of satisfaction was enormous, and we celebrated with cake. 

Day three was the bringing together of all the elements; glueing pages together, trimming and glueing the cover, attaching the scroll to the wooden end, and finally adding a decorative ribbon in a very fiddly process also involving a chisel. Much excitement filled the room as we laid out our works of art. 

The making of a traditional scroll is fiddly and labout intensive. But the resulting structure is a wonderful way to tell a story with images. The images are gradually revealed, and the linear layout is very different to viewing pages in a book. The whole thing can be viewed in its entirety, or small portions can be revealed and concealed. 

So do I really think I will have the patience to make another?

I am honestly not sure, but I really do wish to try. If not, I may well create something more contemporary. Like any new skill. once you understand the basic principles it is allowed to break the rules and go off-piste down your own personal rabbit hole. 

Here is some work by Cas Holmes  based on fabric rather than paper that embraces the  joining together of 'pages' in a vertical display. 

On a more photographic note here is some work that I saw recently by the Canadian artist Lotus Kang at MOMA in New York.

Enormous sheets of photographic film draped over bars.... another modern variation on a traditional theme. I enjoy the sculptural nature of the work. 

Something will come out of this...... of that I am certain..........

I just don't yet know what.

But I am taking Japanese paper and cyanotype chemicals with me on my next adventure, and that will be a start.