Back at it:
I’m currently challenging myself to make paper bricks out of any non-sanitary paper that passes through my hands. Of course I’m using paper faster than I’m making it. These bricks will continue to accumulate, serving as a visual representation of ‘actual paper waste acquired by one individual’ in my thesis exhibition of The Mobile Mill at The Center for Book and Paper Arts. The symbolic gesture and actual labor involved in making bricks out of waste is strong evidence that we are far from being a ‘paperless society. Once the exhibition closes, the handmade bricks will serve as alternative fiber material for on-the-road papermaking workshops hosted by The Mobile Mill.
While non-archival, I make nearly all of my visual artwork out of recycled paper. Papermaking mechanisms have facilitated an increasing interest in deconstruction and reconstruction. In recycling salvaged found material or re-energizing abandoned artworks, I work to piece incomplete and isolated parts into a larger whole. I’m interested in the scraps, the threads and the shreds. And the shit that sits on my studio floor. The collection of grit and grime and the dust that clogs my eyes become materials for a visual language. In looking at ‘broken’ things, I see all sorts of things. Because it’s not fixed my mind tries to fix it, find place for it, save it, heal it. As a maker, I am a huge proponent of repurposed materials. For me, ‘sustainable’ means “working with what I’ve got and making from what I know.”