I was recently interviewed by Matthew Decker of the Alexandria Team on ETSY. Here is the link to the entire interview on his blog: http://alexandriateam.blog.com/member-spotlight/
I have related bits and pieces of my story over the years; but I've never actually written out the entire story of Corrugated Mosaic Arts, as it evolved over the years.
It's not like I had a "Plan" at the beginning; I just needed a new career and I've been making it up as I go along.
1994 – I left a 15 year career in mechanical engineering feeling totally burned out from the impossible deadlines and months of 80 hour work weeks. After returning from a family wedding in Belgium, I wanted a shadowbox frame to display several mementos from our trip. As my father was no longer available to make one for me, I went shopping. The shadowboxes I found were expensive and not well made; so I decided to make my own.
I had already used corrugated cardboard and velcro to add some shelves to a cupboard in our motorhome. The idea of using corrugated came to me while shopping at Costco: all over the store were big boxes and pallet sized sheets of corrugated. Costco collects these to be recycled into new boxes but I saw them in terms of raw material: sturdy, easy to cut to size, light weight, abundantly available and free.
I collected some corrugated, set to work with pencil and paper designing, cutting and glueing together my first shadowbox. Once I had the frame built, I covered it with beautiful paper left over from gift wrapping. I’ve always loved and collected bits of interesting paper and stationary.
I soon discovered that my wonderful shadowbox had some problems with the humidity. I had built it using single wall corrugated, and didn’t seal it. Shadowbox 1 soon found it’s way to the recycle bin and I started working on Shadowbox 2; which I made with double wall corrugated and was sealed with spray varnish. It was all a learning process as I discovered how best to design with corrugated, experimented with different kinds of glues and sourced used packaging materials and recycled papers. I still have Shadowbox 2.
1995 – I got my City of Berkeley business license and juried for a street vendors’ license so I could sell my pieces at the Telegraph Avenue Holiday Street Festival. I didn’t sell a lot but I sold enough to continue. I really had fun: surprising people with my corrugated box creations, talking about recycling and discussing my work with people who appreciated what I created. Plus, I really enjoy making things with my own hands.
I named my studio Paper ReCreations and my focus was recycled materials. My studio was a 9′x9′ room with floor to ceiling bookcases and it was packed with boxes of this and that! Art books, recycled books with interesting pictures or foreign text books, sheet music, fabric, ribbons, wire, braille magazines, postage stamps and lots of different kinds of corrugated. I collected all sorts of urban detritus and discards. I’d stop to check out anything abandoned at the curb. All this rejected stuff screamed ‘potential raw materials’ to my ear. Life was a treasure hunt!
And then I made two giant discoveries that changed everything. I noticed the corrugated scraps and thin slices and started rearranging these pieces. Soon after this, I devised a simple method of removing the top layer of paper from the sheet of single wall corrugated.
I began experimenting with mixing the cross sectioned slices of corrugated with pieces of peeled corrugated and creating abstract designs. I was making it up as I went along and needed to find words to explain to what I was doing to myself and the public. I settled on explaining it as corrugated mosaics and changed the name of my studio to Corrugated Art.
I‘d fallen in love with the textures and subtle color differences hidden within each box. Most corrugated boxes are a standard plain light brown color, on the outside. Under the outer layer of paper, when I peel back a corner to see what is inside, I sometimes find a different color of paper. Shades of gray, browns that range from pale tan to chocolate brown and once a very large box with a beautiful shade of salmon hiding inside.
I continued to develop my corrugated mosaics while I also explored collage, assemblage and other recycled/paper arts. I was fascinated by the works of Louise Nevelson, Frank Geary, anonymous Tramp Artists of the depression era and many other artists that I met in library books, galleries, museums and at local art festivals.
I joined a number of arts groups and in 1999 I became a member of the newly created organization called the Society of American Mosaic Artists, or SAMA. I was a bit surprised when they did not question my unorthodox mosaics and was shocked (along with many traditional mosaic artists) when my 70” x 60” corrugated mosaic room divider screen was selected as Juror’s Choice for 3D mosaic at SAMAs inaugural exhibition. SAMA has always been a welcoming, open minded and artistic nurturing organization.
For over a decade I pursued corrugated mosaics; experimenting with designs of squares, rectangles and triangles. The peeled corrugated pieces continued to get smaller, patterns and designs got more intricate and I incorporated circles into my designs. But I was bored; all my mosaics seemed to look the same!
At this point I received an invitation to take part in the contemporary mosaics exhibition – Cutting Edges, which was part of the 2009 Festival of the Arts in Lake Oswego, near Portland OR. I was happy to be invited and sent two corrugated mosaic pieces. There were to be all sorts of mosaic oriented events over the weekend, plus many mosaic artists I’d met at SAMA conferences would be speaking at the opening mosaic forum. We decided to drive down to Portland to see the show, meet new and old SAMA friends from all over North America and explore Portland.
We had so much fun at the exhibition I never made it to Portland! This was just what I needed to reawaken my creativity and stimulate new excitement in my art. I had no idea that this was to be the largest mosaic exhibition ever organized in North America, with some mosaics from international artists. One of the events was a weekend mosaic marathon where many mosaic artists helped create a 3′ x 3′ mosaic to be gifted to the Lakewood Arts Center. This demonstration project involved stained glass, ceramic tile, marble, stones, smalti and recycled materials like broken dishes. I got some hands on tutoring from experts in cutting glass, chopping marble and using thin set adhesive. I was hooked! On our way home to Canada, we stopped in Portland so I could find a book on traditional mosaics at Powell’s Bookstore.
I started looking for recycled glass, tile, slate and marble, while I assembled the proper tools to work with these traditional mosaic materials. I was never interested in the ancient mosaics of the Romans and Greeks, but was fascinated by the contemporary mosaics, particularly the abstracts of the 21st century.
I created my first stone mosaic in early 2010 using marble, travertine and granite. In the summer of 2010 I took a stacked glass mosaic class with Kelly Knickerbocker and continued to experiment and learn to work with the traditional materials while I continued with my corrugated mosaics.
My current mosaic is a small piece for the 2012 Doctors Without Borders fundraising auction. This piece will include stone, glass, wire and corrugated.