You know when you are having one of those days and you open up your email inbox just to see what's there, what you need to deal with? Yesterday I had one of those days and was more concerned with reading about the invoices I needed to put together, bills to pay as I went about logging in to my Gmail account. Then I came across a forward from a friend. These are the forwards you love to receive they literally stop you in your tracks and make you take a fresh look at what you love to do rather than what you have to do. This email introduced me to the work of Allen and Patty Eckman and their Tribal Paper sculptures.
The method is lengthy in time but the results remarkable. They are made using the following method:
'Cast paper sculpture has been around since the 1950's but should not be confused with papier-mache'. The two mediums are completely different. The artists first mix an acid free paper pulp in the studio hydro-pulper from two raw stocks, cotton and abica. Then the pulp is cast into molds which were made from original clay sculptures. The paper is then pressed under vacuum pressure or by hand in the mold where most of the water is extracted at the same time. The drying process is completed by evaporation while the paper is still in the mold'
They are astonishing and the extra fine details which are added towards the end really finishes them off. They look like they could break if you touched them and it's that delicate nature that makes them so inspiring.
This lead me to look up further paper sculptures and i came across this video with the work of Peter Dahmen and his pop-up designs. These are more simple than the work of Allen and Patty Eckman but in their simplicity is their beauty. The simple white paper casting shadows and shapes is what makes them so inspiring.
So from this simple email forward I have now started to search for other paper works of art and it has turned light bulb on in my head. I never thought of paper as a medium to create a sculpture from, more a tool that you use to help as you start to create your sculpture, something to sketch on, make notes on. How wrong I was.
