artist highlight: paperdashery

"the artist

is a receptacle for emotions

that come from all over the place:

from the sky,

from the earth,

from a scrap of paper..."

-pablo picasso

paperdashery: (n) the artful design, creation and selection of fine paper and paper arts.  the woman behind paperdashery is my own mother, julieann madl!  a very talented artist, my mom manifests the most amazing mixed media pieces ranging from dolls to hand bound art books and display pieces.

this santos cage doll is a work in progress but is already a beautiful expression of mom's creative vision.

this gypsy caravan has so many details i couldn't even begin to show them with my simple camera!
 

each side (front, back and both sides) have a myriad of marvelous little curiosities to explore from a winged pig, ghostly american gothic painting, lamps that actually work, and even a full sized art album concealed in the base of the wagon!

a host of hand bound books exhibiting a wide range of binding skills lean here and there throughout her studio...

books whose binding techniques challenge even the most creative bookbinder... with pages that have tags and note sheets tucked everywhere, upon which to record your most secret desires or creative ideas...

books of various themes and styles are everywhere!

even flip books filled with imaginative pages for photos and memories of every kind...

 not to mention all the mind-boggling display "boxes" (for lack of a better term) harboring still more books and albums!

mom doesn't have a blog (though i've been trying to drag her kicking and screaming into the 21st century!) but i did just buy her a brand new digital camera, so maybe we'll start to see more from her soon enough!

namaste'

tattered beginnings

cutter cloth. there's nothing quite like it. soft. delicate. weathered and worn. so much history whispers from the depth of stitches and the woven threads. stories humble and grand...sad and joyous! nothing else churns the creative ocean quite like cutter cloth. some are folded neatly on shelves where they whisper quietly night and day. others are sliced into pieces and woven into other cloths to create new, yet tattered beginnings, both grand and diminutive in scale.

a thought, whispered quietly into my patient ear, has begun to manifest. the idea: to cut stars, hearts, moons and other shapes from cutter cloth scraps and incorporate them into larger cloths as dimensional applique.  now, to find the time to allow these larger cloths to coalesce...

as you can see, the snows have all but melted away now as warmer weather creeps silently in to steal any lingering dreams of a white holiday tomorrow... at least the lights are still prettily lighting up the dark night!

and what to do with so many of these old book blocks that are beginning to pile up? in my bookbinding journeys (which have not appeared much in this particular blog...yet), i tend to deconstruct and re-use old books, much as i do old cloth. book boards are stripped, recovered, collaged, or otherwise redesigned and given new life. individual pages are frequently harvested and re-purposed...

into new manifestations such as paper wreaths...

...paper flowers, amongst other things...

and you can only tie up and display so many book blocks before your home begins to look like an old, misdirected book shop...

so, what to do with so many book blocks? right now, i am simply quietly waiting and listening for them to begin to whisper... but i have faith that their stories will soon emerge.

namaste'