Paper Cut

Something happens when walking through an art exhibit...a tingling sensation...eyes soaking in every detail...every line...every color nuance. The mind begins to put all of this together in its own way...until you reach home and your mind, heart, hand connect to create.

A tour of State of the Art: Discovering American Art Now in late May brought all of this to the forefront along with purchasing the delightfully constructed book. Usually after an hour of looking, listening and discussing the art pieces, the kids are ready to explore other parts of the museum on their own. For this reason, I was happy that the playfulness of the book intrigued me to bring it home and discover some of the artists that we missed during the tour.

While looking at each individual card in the book, I was attracted by the strong black lines by Artist, Hiromi Mizugai. As I followed the fluidity of the lines flowing into one another, I thought of zentangle and ink. I turned the card over and began to read about the artist and her work when I discovered it wasn't ink at all, but a paper cut! I was overwhelmed with awe thinking how wonderful it would have been to see this piece in person! Luckily for us, she also has a video, although not exactly the same intimacy, a substantial feeling is awakened from this experience too.

Her work brought back memories that began to flood my mind of my mother creating Polish paper cut. As a teen, I watched her delicately make cuts into the paper and from night to night I would discover more of the image appear. I wanted to try it too!

Many years later during one of this summer's Art Experience, I tried it again. I thought of the image I wanted to create, not too traditional, a little more modern and taking from the meditative feeling one receives from zentangle. 

"Oh my, this is difficult!", I thought. "The paper rips easily, my hand needs to move in a precise manner... oops the knife went too far!... and telling my mind to cut out what I don't want was a constant conversation." After some time, I developed a rhythm and was pleased with the finished piece. It has a bit of folk art mixed with modern pattern.

The following pieces were created by my daughter who obviously had a wonderful time making them! While looking for inspiration of paper cut art for our guests, she noticed examples of mixing paper cut and color paper together. This brought me back again to childhood when we made stained glass windows out of paper.