description

Isn’t there something wonderful about temple ruins? The mysterious beauty of fragmented columns and broken pediments haunt us all. Make a tiny ruin from paper and matboard and a matchbox, while you learn to make your own push molds. Then using Paperclay we will construct little matchbox mini shrines from our dimensional paper fragments. These magical little niches can be painted, collaged and embellished to ornament a special spot and delight you year round.

Paper Ruins

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bio

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kit fee: $0        supply list

• Paperclay- one package should be enough. I find it at most art supply stores. Airtight bag or container for your clay after you open it.
• Glue of your choice. I use white glues and PVA as well as matte medium.
• Small tools for working clay-these can be a simple as toothpicks and coffee stirrers.
• Scissors and exacto knife with fresh blades.
• Little found objects to make push molds of, that might suggest architecture. I will bring some items for us to use, but look around your home. Doll objects work nicely.
• Small images, postage stamps, little bitty photos or objects, for the center of your mini shrine.
• Small charms, or beads, or even ribbons to hang and embellish your mini shrine.
• I will bring mold making materials, matchboxes and other goodies!

printable version

Like many here on the North Carolina coast I am downright infected with a love of the water. The full realization of this occurred for me in 2002, just before I decided to go back to school. The harrowing journey of applying to and completeing graduate school in metal design at East Carolina University, was punctuated by weekends and summers here on Wrightsville Beach. I came to realize my roots run deep into a land that won't perk. Water is in my blood so to speak. And much like the creeks here my artistic background meandered through many disciplines. My BA was earned at the University of North Carolina Wilmington in mostly painting and printmaking. After college I dabbled in ceramics for four years with Hiroshi Sueyoshi. He encouraged me to try making jewelry. At the time I worked for TS Brown Jewelry and was influenced by the selection of handmade work by Ed Levin, David Virtue and others. I took workshops with Lucinda Brogden and Keith LoBue at Arrowmont, visited Penland. I have also worked for watercolorist Mary Ellen Golden and her graphic designer son John for over ten years. learning to watercolor, cut mats and negotiate Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I have now basically decided I was hopelessly an artist no matter the medium. Earning my MFA in metal design in 2006 at ECU under the wings of the fine professors there; Linda Darty, Robert Ebendorf, Tim Lazure, MiSook Hur, Kelly Adams, Hana Jubran, Leah Force and Ray Elmore to name a few,(click here for images)was the culmination of possibly the finest three years of my life. I worked, cried and partied with some of the metalsmithing world's finest new talents (many located in my links section).

My loves lie in the found object, Rennaissance history, wunderkammer and the origins of Natural History, and of course the waterways and landscape of my southern home. I grew up in this sleepy, steamy town on the coast that is no longer a secret. Movies are filmed here, people flock here to buy up what remains of of the waterfront. I used to dream of fleeing, now I dream of preserving what's left. My new found love of kayaking along with my thesis research into water as a metaphysical element, have irreversibly influenced what I make. As the region I love slowly becomes the stuff of museums, I gather and collect, hoarding bits found in the sunbleached dunes on the spoil islands, filling my pockets with rusted pieces and shards of glass from parking lots where bungalows once stood. I am a remnantographer, spinning visual stories from the forgotten, cast offs that are the universe's tiny gifts.