This last blog entry concludes our three-week project, From Foraging to Forging Communities. We thank you for the many ways you participated in and supported the project. It was a truly rewarding and inspiring experience for us working with a diverse community and connecting with our natural environment.
We will keep this website to serve as a memory of our shared experience with so many wonderful people whom we had the opportunity to meet over the last three weeks.
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We have extended hours today. We are open 12-9PM. We still have lots of handmade paper to build with. There were many new additions yesterday to the gallery installation including a beautiful bird made by a little girl and a well-dressed figure that is still missing a head and arms.
Satellite Project Space was buzzing with activity yesterday. As a result, we have a new group of figures and forms populating the gallery. People come with or without ideas. If you don't know what to make, just pick up a sheet of paper and make a cut with scissors. Then fold it, twist it, roll it, tear it or make another cut and see what form emerges from these manipulations. Does it remind you of something? Lynette and Andra's fish eating bear started this way. Lynette made a small woven brick-like form that reminded her of a bear’s paw, so she made four altogether, and the sculpture developed from there.
One of the figures that we envisioned was someone relaxing on the beach with her hair flowing in the evening breeze. We constructed a head with great care, spending lots of time to form the curly cottonwood hair. But then we had to learn through trial and error that the tree branch we used for the figure’s internal support could not hold such a big head. We redid the head, making it smaller but still needs hair.
Join us in the fun; we are open today 2-7PM at Satellite Project Space, 121 Dundas St. You can come anytime; we have tools and skills to share and will support you in realizing your ideas. Yesterday we bought beautiful hand spun and hand dyed yarns from local artist, Rene Vandenbrink. We are very excited to start the paper sculpture workshops today - drop in sessions, you can come anytime - and share the joy of working with the wonderful materials Rene produces. There are many ways we can incorporate these threads into the collaborative sculpture. They can play a functional role of holding sheets of paper together or serve as decorative elements to attract the eye with their colour and texture.
The project ends Sunday, July 17th with a closing reception and artists' talk at 4 PM. At the conclusion of the artists' talk, the artwork brought to life by the community through collaborative labour will be dispersed into the community. Everyone is invited to participate in the de-installation of the artwork and take home handmade paper.
We have extended hours this week. Mon - Fri 2-7PM, Sat 12-9PM, Sun 1-5PM Today is our last day of puling paper. We still have lots of pulp. Yesterday we cut preprocessed abaca pulp sheets to add to the foraged fibre so we can experiment today with mixing a variety of fibres. We have already made paper of mixed grass and cottonwood. We are open 12-6PM today. We hope to see you in the gallery.
Evan, a Bealart student, dropped by yesterday so we took the opportunity to take a photo of him next to the press. Evan is one of the Bealart students who built the press for us.
We learned less than two weeks before the start date of our project that we were successful with our grant application, so there was not much time to pull things together and have all the materials prepared for the project. We were fortunate that the wonderful teachers and students at Bealart who supported us, volunteered to help out. We are grateful for all your hard work! |