Proms and Paper

Yesterday  we went to out first Prom of the season - a Saturday Matinee at the Cadogan Hall near Sloane Square . Sarah Connolly has an amazing mezzo voice,  singing in 'Pheadra's Frock' borrowed from the production at Glyndebourne.  Afterwards, as in previous years we went to the nearby  Saatchi Gallery, where Ian bought me a colourful pair of artists brush earrings to wear on my painting holiday next week! The exhibition on 'paper' was thought provoking: used in so many ways from large scale drawings of overlapping pieces;  collage; paintings  to puppets, papercuts and diverse sculptures

Trees featured heavily from 'branches' made of layers of newsprint to delicate paper-cuts from paper bags(  I'll never look at a McDonalds bag in quite the same way again)

The structure made of kites had the wow factor.

I would have liked to have had more time to look at the suspended city made of tracing paper but the gallery was closing  and we were racing round to have a glimpse of everything  before they chucked us out ( we have a bit of a track record in that regard!)

Strangest and most intriguing was this papier mache boulder attached to the wall suspending belief.

Kozo Revelation

One of the delights of doing a workshop at Art Van Go is going on a hunt for treasures in the packed storerooms. My find this time was beaten kozo (mulberry bark). The sheet form is bleached, soaked and beaten to produce the irregular 'twiggy' form. After soaking a piece of 'twig' in water for about an hour , it can be teased out into a wonderful lace of fibres - and it takes dye wonderfully. I incorporated some of it in the piece I was doing with Amanda Hislop (more about that in another post) , trapping the undyed fibres under a layer of tissue soaked in cellulose paste. It gives the appearance of trees or bushes. In this piece, I trapped some dyed, dried kozo 'lace' under some dyed tissue. I also discovered coloured hemp string which I used to outline shapes in the landscape. Just as well I like the effect of it bleeding slightly when placed under damp tissue!