A “Show” Piece

In thinking about the show, we are trying to create a ‘look’ that will draw people into the booth. As a result, I have venturing into calligraphy and collage on canvas. Might not sound like a big change, but it’s huge – literally! The canvas is four feet by five feet and looked VERY big hanging on the wall…white, big, blank and a bit daunting. I prepared the canvas on Monday night, and then completed the calligraphy. Kevin took pictures and will post them as soon as we can. Until then, here is what I am doing…

I am creating a kimono out of japanese, handmade and italian papers. The background is polylinear calligraphy – which is a fancy way of saying the same phrase over and over again until the repeat creates a pattern on the background. I had to get creative in the execution as I could not draw lines on the canvas to follow as I wrote. Thank God for painter’s tape, it is sturdy and yet easy to re-position as I moved from line to line. YES, I still draw lines to keep things level – I am not THAT good yet!

The kimono portion will take a greater deal of planning and execution. I plan to work on that this weekend. It is going to take a lot of cutting and planning and positioning of the paper pieces to get the image to look cohesive, so I will need more time than an evening after work can provide. I have set aside MANY different pieces of paper that I bought in Florence, Italy and Kyoto, Japan…and online from Tibet and India. I am excited, nervous and pondering all at the same time. Sometimes the creative process needs to include silence, pondering and thoughtful time in order to ‘work out’ how the creative end result will be completed via execution.

And yes, this ‘show’ piece will be for sale during the show. It will be featured as the center piece of the booth, behind the tables we have built for display and to serve patrons as they buy my art. Because let’s remember, the inventory, and table and show pieces are WONDERFUL to create and enjoy, however the whole goal of the show is to sell my work…and hopefully sell LOTS of my work. (I have to remind myself of that as I ponder and move closer to the show dates!)