Reproduced from Hay, G., Paper Love, Craft, the magazine of Craft Victoria, (33), 242, 2002, 20-22, with permission, from Craft Victoria (Email March 29, 2002 7:03 AM) and Karin Muhlert (email Saturday, 16 March 2002 7:05 AM)
Paper Love
by Graham Hay
Our perception of paper is shaped by our personal experiences with this material. Jane Thomas summarised her perception of paper after curating On Paper: New Paper Art, an international survey and symposium that showcased and discussed paper as a three dimensional material, at the Craft Council, London, earlier this year.
“I have become aware of certain threads in the narrative of the use of paper in art: there is the nature of paper in its use as a carrier of information and language, promoting the development of personal codes and vocabularies; its choice as a material is an engagement with issues of language as it is employed as a vehicle for communication. Then there is the physical nature of paper itself, and the exploration of its structure, its tensile strength and flexibility. As paper itself has been elevated to a medium of artistic expression, so has the manipulation of paper, whether handmade, manufactured or found.” 1
Most people do not have such a specialised experience of paper as a creative material. However many would immediately associate paper with newspaper: something that is read and then recycled. One of the London exhibitors, Andrea Stanley, converts newspaper and magazines into papier-mâché to create an artificial wood that is dried and cut on a woodturning lathe.
Similarly many people think of books when discussing paper. Through books we learn about the world, and are taught from an early age to treasure them. In the London exhibition Carl Jaycock and Jennie Farmer deliberately subverted this code by dismantling, folding and carving books and documents. Others such as Cas Holmes, Deb Rindland Les Bicknell construct their own books as sculptural forms.
Paper is also closely linked to our bodily functions. Toilet paper, tissues and other sanitary products collect and/or remove our secretions and waste. These paper products are soft and absorbent. One of the London exhibitors, Kaarina Kaikkonen once unrolled and hung 1.5 km of lavatory paper for her My Outline installation.
Our perception of paper is shaped by our personal experiences with this material. Jane Thomas summarised her perception of paper after curating On Paper: New Paper Art, an international survey and symposium that showcased and discussed paper as a three dimensional material, at the Craft Council, London, earlier this year.
“I have become aware of certain threads in the narrative of the use of paper in art: there is the nature of paper in its use as a carrier of information and language, promoting the development of personal codes and vocabularies; its choice as a material is an engagement with issues of language as it is employed as a vehicle for communication. Then there is the physical nature of paper itself, and the exploration of its structure, its tensile strength and flexibility. As paper itself has been elevated to a medium of artistic expression, so has the manipulation of paper, whether handmade, manufactured or found.” 1
Most people do not have such a specialised experience of paper as a creative material. However many would immediately associate paper with newspaper: something that is read and then recycled. One of the London exhibitors, Andrea Stanley, converts newspaper and magazines into papier-mâché to create an artificial wood that is dried and cut on a woodturning lathe.
Similarly many people think of books when discussing paper. Through books we learn about the world, and are taught from an early age to treasure them. In the London exhibition Carl Jaycock and Jennie Farmer deliberately subverted this code by dismantling, folding and carving books and documents. Others such as Cas Holmes, Deb Rindland Les Bicknell construct their own books as sculptural forms.
Paper is also closely linked to our bodily functions. Toilet paper, tissues and other sanitary products collect and/or remove our secretions and waste. These paper products are soft and absorbent. One of the London exhibitors, Kaarina Kaikkonen once unrolled and hung 1.5 km of lavatory paper for her My Outline installation.
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But paper’s importance is much greater than the daily newspaper, book or what we wipe ourselves with. For paper is often linked to important emotional and symbolic experiences. Paper records the most important events in our lives: birth, marriage, divorce and death. Similarly we all receive get well, birthday, wedding, farewell, anniversary and condolence card, all of which remind us that others are thinking of us.
Thus paper is a physical link between loved ones. The Greek philosopher Epicurus argued that it is good friends, not wealth that is a more enduring and richer source of happiness. Therefore paper associated with loved ones, can take on an emotional value. It is this emotionalisation of paper, as a symbol of our close relationships with loved ones, which perhaps explains the creeping creditialism and bureaucracy of our lives (it also is a reason for its’ persistence in our “paperless” world). |
Karin Muhlert,'Metamorphosis', 2000, Manipulated paper, 13 x 20 x 20 cm.
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As formal education becomes a screening process of intellectual and financial potential, the process has become extended and intensified. The result is reduced time for friends, with paper becoming a proxy for face-to-face contact. WA Artist Moria Fearby explores this idea by stacking and carving Christmas cards and letters into solid objects.
More impersonal government processes have always been linked with paper. The oldest existing Japanese paper is a series of census registration documents from Mino, Chikuzen, and Hizen provinces dated 702.(2) The reliance upon official documents, rather than personal experience and judgement, may provide emotional as well as mental reassurance when confronted with a large number of people with conflicting demands.
Paper enables the communication with a large number of people, often personally unknown to the author. Today more paper is used to market and discuss art, than is actually used by artists in creating their work (think of the hundreds of invitations, books and journals). One exception to this rule was the spiral of four tonnes of government documents installed in the High Court of Australia for the 1998 National Sculpture Forum. Prior to the London exhibition, last year, Jennifer Mehra and Tim Maslen created installations of eroded rock faces created out of layers of books, some reaching over eight feet tall in the Void Gallery Contemporary Art Space, London and in Sydney 3.
Historically Japanese paper has been recycled into clothing. Working in this tradition London exhibitors Kei Ito , Charlie Thomas , Alison Wilson-Hart and Julia Keyte create paper clothes, jewellery and brooches respectively. Recycled paper has also been woven into baskets and other containers. Norie Hatakeyama and Lois Walpole use these techniques to produce organic forms and colourful containers.
The common thread running through the exhibition in London is a commitment to creating objects out of paper by practitioners increasingly defining themselves and their craft by the material they use: paper.
According to Ian Howard, the ascendance of consumer goods as art objects over the last century, and the more recent dematerialised experience of the interactive mass media, has created a crisis for sculpture. In categorising sculptural practitioners’ responses to this crisis, he highlights the role of the Authenticists, as requiring closer attention. He defines Authenticists as “where the materials are of or refer directly to a significant experience; personally, locationally, politically, historically etc.” 4 We have all had significant personal experiences, and there is almost always a piece of paper to remind us of the event.
It is these emotional, intellectual and physical experiences with paper over our lifetime that shape how we view paper sculpture. As soon as we realise something is made from paper, we view it in a completely different way to that when viewing work created in any other material. The type of paper from which the work is made specifically reminds us of particular experiences (such as personal vs official letters, textbooks vs novels).
Perhaps no other art material offers such an evocative experience to such a wide range and large number of viewers.
Graham Hay exhibits, writes and promotes paper and paperclay sculpture internationally www.grahamhay.com.au
Footnotes
1. Thomas, J. in Thomas, J. & Jackson, P., (2001) On Paper: New Paper Art (exhibition catalogue), Merrell, UK, P.25
2 Hughes, S. (1978) Washi-the world of Japanese paper, Tokyo, Kodansha International
3. See http://www.voidgallery.com
4. Howard, I., (1998) Catalogue, Canberra National Sculpture Forum, 22
Footnotes
1. Thomas, J. in Thomas, J. & Jackson, P., (2001) On Paper: New Paper Art (exhibition catalogue), Merrell, UK, P.25
2 Hughes, S. (1978) Washi-the world of Japanese paper, Tokyo, Kodansha International
3. See http://www.voidgallery.com
4. Howard, I., (1998) Catalogue, Canberra National Sculpture Forum, 22
Reproduced from Hay, G., Paper Love, Craft, the magazine of Craft Victoria, (33), 242, 2002, 20-22, with permission, from Craft Victoria (Email March 29, 2002 7:03 AM) and Karin Muhlert (email Saturday, 16 March 2002 7:05 AM)
