Paper and More

Above piece is Untitled by Howardena Pindell, 1973 Ink on punched and pasted paper, talcum powder, and thread on paper, 10 1/8 x 8 3/8" (25.9 x 21.3 cm) The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Lily Auchincloss, 1974 © 2009 Howardena Pindell (Image is from the MOMA web site.)

If you follow Joanne Mattera's blog you've read her recent reviews of the exhibition at the MOMA Paper:Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded that is up through June 22. (I am hoping to get to NYC on the heels of the conference at Montserrat and see it myself.) Thanks Joanne, for the posts. This exhibition and Dorthea Rockburn's folded paper pieces brought to mind Folds, a paper and encaustic piece by Denise Stringer-Davis that is part of the Degrees exhibition on view here in Houston until the 31st at M2 Gallery.

Above: Folds by Denise Stringer-Davis, Waxed toilet paper, variable size

Besides Davis, the work of San Antonio artist Michelle Belto and myself also use paper as a major part of our work in this exhibition.
Belto makes her own paper and molds it to suit her needs. Mother's Sewing Basket is a collage of paper, Encaustic and garment fasteners used in clothing construction. She said this piece is part of a series that pays homage to the women seamstresses in her family.


My work, Slow Burn/Skin Deep below, is primarily hand made paper and wax. I didn't make the paper. It is Thai paper made of sanitized abandoned bird's nests. Thick and rough like a grass matt and very organic looking. It is part of a new series of works I call Organic Compounds.

Above: Gwendolyn Plunkett, Slow Burn/Skin Deep, 42" x 24" x 2", Encaustic and handmade Thai Bird's Nest paper on canvas on panel.

Degrees Exhibition runs through Sunday, May 31 so you still have time to see it.

In the MOMA show, the Howardena Pindell piece at the top is one of my favorites but I am intrigued by John Cage's Wild Edible Drawing No. 8, from 1990. It is handmade paper of milkweed, cattail, saffron, pokeweed and hijiki.

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Untitled, 2009 Rebea Ballin

At Joan Wich & Co here in Houston this month was an exhibition by artist Rebea Ballin whose work is not of paper but on paper. Prismacolor (black) pencil drawings of hair. Conversation with the artist in the Houston Chronicle last week is fresh and candid about how she came to this subject matter. Landscapes came to mind with my first glance at the work from the door.
No, but maybe.
A quote from her conversation with Douglas Britt, "What made me want to zoom in a little bit more was an interest in the landscape aspect of hair in the scalp, the textures and things like that."

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Thurel Wright's piece above
At A Good Idea on Paper , Eleanor Jane Cardwell's blog, you can always find interesting works made of and on paper. May 22nd post features the work of Thurel Wright.

The May 15th post features Artist Valerie Jolly's work. She says "she casts objects in sticky wet tissue paper."

TexasWAX Artists Show Their Stuff

TexasWAX artists from Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio are exhibiting new Encaustic works at Gallery M Squared during the month of May. The reception is Saturday, May 9 from 7-9 p.m. This is the first joint exhibition of all four groups.
About TexasWAX:
TexasWAX Houston was the first group to organize in November of 2007. The Dallas group followed shortly after. In February of 2008, these two groups held an exhibition in Dallas that coincided with the College Art Association Conference held there.

The Austin wax group formed not long after. San Antonio artists who were driving to Austin for meetings decided to form a chapter of their own so by the end of 2008, TexasWAX had expanded to four chapters.

Each chapter is active with its own projects and exhibitions, sometimes in collaboration with a sister chapter. This is the first collaborative project of all four chapters.

Gallery M Squared is located at 325 W. 19th Street in Houston Heights.
Gallery hours are Wed - Sat 10-6, Sunday 12-5.

Interactive Blogpost-Rituals/Collections-Time: Rebecca Crowell

Contemporary Abstractions
What is predictable about nature is change---change of seasons, birth, life, death and ultimate decay. Built into that predictable cycle of change seems a core of randomness that ultimately enlivens existence and life's experience. But it isn't nature so much that Wisconsin artist Rebecca Crowell is addressing in her paintings. Rather, the random effects of nature's cycles on man's intrusions into nature. Our walls and buildings. With her process of selectively adding and scraping away, she makes paintings that at first glance, resemble aging and ancient walls. But the palimpsest-like surfaces of her work take us beyond "the wall" to another level of thought becoming parallel markers of the passage of time.

Old Wall: Pyrenees, oil and wax on board 24 x 18 inches, 2009

Rebecca Crowell's Statement:
One of the remarks people have about my work is that it seems to embody a sense of time--that my surfaces often appear ancient, eroded and weathered. This is a result of a process in which I build up layers of paint mixed with cold wax medium, and then selectively scrape, scratch and apply solvent to portions of the upper layers. I like the idea that form/process and concept merge in this process--although my work draws on many sources, weathered and worn surfaces in nature and old human-made objects are among the most important--and the way I interpret this source is by building up and then tearing down the paint layers. As in nature, there is a random quality that results from this process, though of course, I also edit and select in order to reach aesthetic goals.

Recently I spent time at an artist retreat in a small, medieval village in the Pyrenees Mountains of Catalonia, Spain, and later a few days in Barcelona. These were perfect places for feeding my love of ancient surfaces--old stone and plaster walls, worn paths, crumbling slate cliffs, and ruins of old barns--all very beautiful to me. Abstracted interpretations of these surfaces have become an important thread in my recent work.