my creative life with paper
Paper story
Tag: shoes
Day three “orange”
Day one started on Monday, I spent a long time gathering images and writing the post, pushing the publish button lost it all. Â A little frustrated, but had no time to sort it out. Â Yesterday I found that the post wasnt even saved as a draft, so did it all again, only to have it happen to me again !!!
So this is now Day Three, not sure if orange is in my realm today, but sitting here next to a bowl of orange tulips I cant help but feel sunny and warm inside. Â The sun is not shining today as it was the last two mornings, the sky is grey, but somehow this doesn’t matter, I can still feel that uplifted feeling that the memory evokes.
Orange is such an enticing colour, its pure creative energy and a colour I am drawn to in my artworks.  I have  even been using it in a more burnt marmalade shade in my next project  being installed in March/April.  sumptuous velvets, Toleware from Paris, silk sheaths on the chandelier chains……….. and much more.  It’s all very exciting
Here is a pictorial view of how orange has inspired me , first off my kitchen flowers
A bowl of Parrot Tulips in my kitchen
taken on visit to Krishnamurti Centre
Tree Fertility, pencil sketch coloured digitally
Tree Spirit family – painting
 watercolour – I called this Fragility but now I can see it’s a beautiful forest
Leaves I collected on an autumn walk
A small scultpure I call Freedom
patchwork coat for my daughter’s puppy
playing at breakfast
shoes I made of paper
The list could to on and on and on !
Oh dear I have lost my tail
Up early this morning, resting on my seat with a view. Â Spent the whole day working with my shoe images. Â Guess unconciously I am drawn to the feet, seeing as I cannot walk far with this cumbersome ” walking plaster” boot thing. Â It is very restricting, but then I guess its meant to be. Â I am off to hospital after breakfast to have another xray and see if it needs putting in plaster, hoping not. Â I managed to persuade them before christmas to give me the boot, they wanted to plaster, so watch this space.
Here is an image I like and this time there is no feet only mermaid tails, Â original drawing executed in oil pastels, paint and pencil. Â It was inspired by a dream about a mermaid and her tail fell off and could be seen floating down deep into the depths of the sea
the shoe journey
Another day of enforced resting ! Â a long while back I began a journey with my ancestors, I made shoes out of white paper and tissue paper that I printed with images of my grandmothers. Â Its been a long time since I looked at them and have today spent sometime working with a pair I made with hydrangea petals, I wanted to bring them together in an image, and here it is.
Click on the shoe to see more paper made images
she died so young – shoe no.9
this shoe is for my great grandmother ADA, she died long before I was born at the age of 34.  How sad, she left five beautiful children, one of whom was my grandfather.  The shoe is elegant, as she is in the photograph I have of her taken in St Petersburg, Russia around the turn of the century.  This shoe seems more solid, its the first “complete” shoe, by that I mean it has a heel and and is fully enclosed.  Again I printed  my pattern using Ada’s photograph and printed it onto white tissue paper, everything is handmade in paper.  You can see my collection of hand made paper shoes here http://www.flickr.com/photos/8853574@N03/sets/72157622409764848
Made the Guardian! front page art and design section
Rose d’amour – paper shoe no.6
Red preserved petals, toile, intamacy, unfurling, sensitivity, fragile, vulnerable. Â All handmade in paper, shoe lining taken from 18th century erotic etchings to make my own toile, preserved flower petals. Gold dresdon paper edging
somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes and opens;
only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
ee cummings
The “Dada” paper shoe” no. 5
Todays shoe was inspired by dear friend Analu in Rio. Â Her Dada workshop produced so many colourful images on flickr that when I started working with crepe paper I just had to dedicate this shoe to her. Â THANKYOU ANALU!!
I cut strips of crepe paper and “twirled ” into long spirals, then glued them onto the shoe upper shape. Â After finalising the pattern I then completed glueing the upper to the sole……….. Â Cannot wait to produce shoe no.6 … what to do with them all I ask myself
Flickr: Your Photostream.
Paper shoe no. 4 – an angel at my table
colour……… not sure
Colour, working with colour I find difficult in a paper context……….. Â to me white on white is magical, ethereal, ghost like. Â Its simple but has great strength, its architectural, Â its my choice for paper work, feels more structural, captures the essence and feels like a design and not just decoration.
However I thought I would try colour and try crepe paper…………… Â I enjoyed cutting and crimping, progressing from the photocopy paper prototype of last week. Â However, it feels frivolous, decorative, like icing a cake and not the same as working in white
What does this mean? Â its something very powerful, brings up many emotions, something I want to explore over the coming weeks.
fragile, delicate, fit for a princess
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart: William Wordsworth
 My paper journey swept me off my feet today, literally…………  shoes, delicate, fragile, made of paper.  My first attempt, these are just first prototypes and excited about making more…………….  as I make them I sit patiently, cutting and crimping, folding and shaping, watching my vision become reality.  Its amazing, from a flat piece of white photocopy paper, some love and vision, and hey presto a fairy tale shoe fit for a princess.
