A chimera is a thing hoped or wished for, but which is in fact illusory or impossible to achieve. Somehow this seems an apt description for this piece. There is something very delicate, wishful, and ephemeral to these folded prints. They flutter and turn on the slightest breeze, like charms, and glow as light moves through them.
Since beginning to work in prints I have pushed the boundaries of what prints are and do. Sue Oehme at Oehme Graphics has helped me explore all kinds of interesting questions: what if we use a woven textile as a printing plate? What if we print on both sides of extremely light, translucent paper and then fold them into 3-D forms? Sue is the expert who brings my imaginings to life.
I began these works by folding paper into a bell-like shape. I was looking for a shape that was curved, that utilized both the front and back of the paper, and that would move with air currents. I wanted to experiment with printing on both sides of a piece of paper, and I wanted the colors and patterns to show through from one side to the other. Standard printing paper canno be folded, nor is it translucent. We experimented and found a 30mm Japanese kozo paper that was strong, translucent, and took the color beautifully.
I love the cross-pollination that occurs through exploring similar folded forms in woven textile and printed paper works. They respond differently yet feed off each-other nicely.
