Bonito Living

Drawing with scissors

 

Expectations

This is my first residency with this inspiring group of artists, creators, life-savers and nature lovers was much more awesome than I anticipated. I had already gone to the international symposium on drawing in 2015, and in the last few years I’ve been working with Dr. Michelle Fava, in several projects, the latest is about Design Thinking. Anyway, this was ‘stolen’ time in a very busy period of work, carving out the space just for drawing, also opened time for being, for slowing down, for contemplating.

 

My Tree

I was chosen by a blue pine next to the house, its colour revealed the passing of time and the seasons: dark green needles are replaced by blue soft ones, and the spiky branches are slowly transformed into this magnificent tree. The landscape is generous, flowers and trees and birds, framed by a crystalline lake. The tree is proud and vain, as its contours reflect less ‘pretty’ bunches, but the stark and spiky branches behind the colourful clothes. The pine is not ashamed of such combination, it is part of her nature… her, mine? Who knows…

 

Process

I decided to draw my tree with scissors, in the best tradition of my favorite artist Henri Matisse. The process started with our impromptu party with Michelle at Helsinki airport while waiting for Eirini to drive the almost 450 kilometers to Kuopio and the residency. We decided to collect as much material we could for collages, and what a party that became! With that material, and a beautiful concertina book created by Michelle for my tree,  I cut branch by branch in order to create the foliage, and I used a city map as the main trunk. It took me a good while to do this, as each of the branches needed to be specific to the composition. Drawing with scissors is very interesting as it implies some sort of sculpting process, something that resident surgeon Neil mentioned in relation to memory, haptics and movement. The handling of such a humble material as paper also makes sense also because such paper is the child of a tree, somewhere in the world…  maybe this is a way of returning to its cradle.

 

Impressions

The opportunity for contemplating, observing, illustrating and representing the tree allowed me to really slow down, which is actually a rare thing in my life: I am naturally a “quick” person, hence, my challenge here was not just to dive in and do the task, but to embrace the whole attitude as instructed by Emma Fält our host/artist: contemplation. This also opened a time of silence within my own work, and the whole process of the collage also reflected such breathing time. The branches coexist with the blank space, and it is in this configuration that the eye can make sense of the object. Similarly, the eye, the hand and the paper, seems to be connected. Even more because not only I drew with scissors but the handling of glue and paper was rather sticky process.

 

What’s next

I think this is helping me to continue with my textile collage project of the Yonis. Also I feel that I’d like to explore more the idea of drawing and learning.