"Head"

"Head" Blind embossing on paper, paper construction



Blind embossing is incredibly difficult to photograph, I've found. This piece is another in the ON|PAPER show. It's in an edition of 100, and I made it intentionally easy for people to construct themselves, but I don't know if anyone who has purchased one has actually tried it yet or not.



All of the papercraft pieces I've made heretofore have been very complicated. The little man with a ghost in his chest takes me about an hour to construct, and I'm the person who designed it so I can't imagine how long it takes the people who bought one, or if they even try, for that matter. The other concern was how I didn't think I've brought anything very new to the medium so far. What is it that I can do that all of the other artists can't or haven't? A black and white illustration is pretty common.

With this in mind, I designed two new papercrafts that are very simple to construct but a little bit more complicated and innovative on my side. They're blind embossed, so all of the detailed on the surface is actually 3D instead of a flat drawing. To make this one, I carved out the features in reverse--making a mold. It takes some getting used to thinking this way, but since much of printmaking requires a constant awareness of reversal, I got the hang of it pretty soon.