I HAVE returned. I had been looking forward to meeting Deborah Kapoor ever since I signed up for her workshop at the Encaustic Center in Richardson, TX. It concerned making art work 2-d to 3d, which is something I don’t do but now and then have a urge to do but just do not know how to go about learning how to make it all happen.

It’s a little hard to convey what you did or learned from this sort of workshop. It is not a technique demo type learning experience. Deborah gave us a plastic bag of various materials like 4 inch squares of stainless steel mesh, paper napkins, twist ties and that sort of thing. We were to all use our own aesthetics of art making to use these materials or anything else we brought with us or could scrounge up to make something that would not be the usual ‘hang it on the wall traditional work’. The work that everyone did was totally different than anyone else’s.

Deborah showed us a lot of work she had encountered and the processes and thoughts behind these works were discussed. Although we worked… we talked and watched all this more than making something to be taken home as a finished piece of work.

We did all make something with one of the stainless mesh screens though……… I can tell you ..I panicked, what in the heck and I going to do with a piece of wire mesh?  I pulled the outer edges until 6 or more rows were left unbraided.. we twisted 3-4 strands together all the way around… then started trying to add other elements in whatever way you could think of. I started folding and pleating mine. It started making me imagine the creek bed. I know… a far-fetched stretch for a piece of wire screen. I was shocked when we were showing them that Deborah did see it before I said anything as ‘landscape‘ in feel……..good gosh, maybe the idea was not so far-fetched as I thought.

Anyway, we set all that aside and kept up our immersion into how all kinds of forms could be made and joined or connected. The next day, working on something new, I pulled out the Stonehenge paper I brought with me…along with a ton of other stuff I thought it possible I might use or need. I felt lost… so I just started on that paper like I would my other collage work (work I haven’t done in quite some time). I was interested in the past in ‘pleating’ paper but never had gotten around to doing it. SO… this was the time to do it. The piece I will show here has collage elements from various places along with that paper I pleated and sewed down with black thread with a darning needle. I did not put encaustic on that pleated paper as I wanted the paper to stay white and a different look than all the other work that is embedded with wax. It was an intuitive process like most of my work. It built on itself. Getting toward the end of the day, I picked up that little stainless steel mesh piece and just dropped it down on the work……………WOW, I liked where it landed so I then attached it right there with more thread.

This is as much of the process of this piece as I can remember now…….I like it but now have to consider how I can disply this besides putting it into some kind of traditonal frame (which it could look good in)……..find some other ‘connections’.

This workshop was about making work that is meaningful, while using your personal process but thinking of ways you might display it in a more non-traditional way. It was about making 3-d work… even if it is 2-d, but a little more projected from the surface like mine. It was about finding new ways to make connections.

Oh yeah… how can I forget… Deborah is a font of knowledge about how to get your work out there, being professional… I could go on and on.

3-d collage on paper, approximately 12 x 12 inches

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