Happiness

Happiness, 2017

This sculpture is made from milkweed fibers, yellow dogwood (from my brother-in-law's garden), and a branch I found in my garden.

Arts on Main 2014

Arts on Main Experienced Artist Winners (Debra Gibbs, Joanne Rich, Michele Eissler, John Schmelefske, and Mary Luck), and Presenters Patricia Middlebrook, and Colleen Kotnisz).

Thank you South Simcoe Arts Council, and their contributors for presenting my light sculpture Maple, 1st prize in three dimensional art category during the Arts on Main 2014. I am very excited and at the same time, speechless. Below is the winning sculpture, Maple. 

Artist In Education 2013-2014

Thank-you Ontario Arts Council for giving me the Artist-in-Education grant for the school year 2013-2014. This grant has allowed me to teach the skills and techniques of building a light sculpture to six high schools in Ontario. 

During the 5 day workshop, the students are taught how to use the materials to form the structure, and the techniques of applying the tissues. Here are some pictures of the workshop and some students' work. 

Light Sculptures Made From Dogwood

In my previous post,  From Reeds to Dogwood, I introduced my newest harvest straight from my garden - dogwood. I've started experimenting with this new material as a substitute for reed to form the skeleton of my paper light sculptures. Below are the first three of my latest art lamps, handmade with dogwood:

Creeping, 2014

Creeping was the first light sculpture lamp I made with dogwood. Dogwood may not be as flexible as reed, but it still has some good flex to it. This sculpture started out as several circles in various sizes, later joined together by three dogwood branches. Getting it to balance was not as easy as I thought it would be, but after hours of fine tuning, I finally got the piece to balance. The sculpture is covered with several layers of tissues with paste. As the paste dries, it shrinks and pulls the tissues, giving Creeping it's unique shape. Once lit, my husband said "I feel like it's creeping towards me". So I named this sculpture, Creeping.

Light In The Woods, 2014

Light In The Woods was the second sculpture I made using dogwood. For this sculpture, dogwood is bent just like how I would with reeds, except I didn't cut off any twigs that branched off the dogwood. The result? Once lit, intricate "branching" details hidden inside the sculpture, are finely visible.

Echo, 2014

For Echo, I wanted to see if I can imitate the "free-flowing" sculptures I made using reed. I gathered all the dogwood similar in size, and snipped off all the branches. The result is a sculpture that is "free-flowing", but in it's own special dogwood kind of way.

My next project will be making tissues from the milkweeds I collected earlier in Fall 2013. Currently the weather outside is a bit chilly to start my papermaking project, but at the first sign of spring, I'll be out there!