Dimensional Thinking

Putting two folded paper sculptures together

How to think in a sculptural dimension? I love working with paper, but my artworks tend to be flat(ish). So I challenged myself to take a sculptural book workshop this weekend as a way of extending my practice so I could think in 3 -Dimensions.

The best part about doing these one off workshops is you get to play. People are often daunted when faced with a blank sheet of white paper, so our first task at the workshop was to get folding and cutting. I loved the idea of cutting away giant shapes and then folding them back on themselves to create curling waves.

Our next task was to walk around the OVADA gallery space and take frottage rubbings. This was all about creating textures through surface patterns; rolling paint through vegetable bags, mesh, and other everyday materials you find lying around. I then drew on top of these surfaces, simple lines very much influenced by the roof lines of the rows of houses I have seen everyday on my way to the studio.

Yesterday we went exploring on our bikes and discovered another new housing development that is going ahead in Jericho, one of the little villages just north of central Oxford city. It shocked me to see this ugly new housing development right alongside all the lovely old houses with gardens backing on to the Thames.

All of these images play into my own image making as I explore Oxford and feel that tension between the need for housing and the aesthetic of design and green spaces. The river itself was rather dirty and brown, but there is something quite magical about being near flowing water, whether it be the canals or the streams which feed into and intersect with the Thames.

I have been repurposing and reusing the consumable boxes I started collecting since I arrived in England. One of the boxes I used was from a chai tea packet, the other from a bottle of Glen Moray whiskey while the river was created on the back of a camping gas wrap around packaging.

This week we will be putting everything together in an installation which the public are invited to. Its a very low key ‘open studio’ with our responses to the city and the gallery space. The books are a great start to envisage how I can use large sheets of cardboard. Let’s see how it all comes together…

Folding, cutting and gluing papers into templates for sculptural books