Tangle

Description: This tangle of encaustic prints collaged on sekishu, washi and cardstock fills three dimensional space. The berries of the North Cascades are the heart of a vibrant ecological network. Ripe salmonberries and huckleberries interact with other plant forms and topography. Overlapping imagery and the aerial, shifting relationship of the pieces highlight the many relations across ecological scales.

One of my favorite blobs: many layers, colors, textures, and a coat of wax.

Process: I began printing from a stack of freshly carved blocks- some hand carved, others laser cut. Bright colors, thin paper, and many layers accumulated. I pasted some bits together with wheat paste, experimenting with new combinations of the imagery. As I moved towards presenting the prints, I thought three-dimensionally. First I tried mounting the prints off of the wall using magnets and nails of various lengths. Then one night in the studio, I stumbled into a pan full of wax, turned the heat on under it, and began dipping the prints in wax. This made them a little heavier and changed their luminosity. I added string and then constructed the mobile in a few orientations.

Work in progress, aka configuring a configuration. I’m still working on the final arrangement and getting some good documentation of this piece. I’ll take a video, as it’s really neat to move around and through the objects and get them to spin, meeting the patterns on both sides and getting a feel for the interplay between the pieces. This is the first time I’ve really put my prints into the air and I am excited to keep experimenting with suspended wood, acrylic and paper.

60 second video moving through an early casual installation of the piece