Artist discusses latest project
By JILL MAXBAUER
New Writer
Artist Pamela Paulsrud is visiting Saint Mary's to discuss her latest projects and to assist students in creative papermaking.
Paulsrud received her master's degree in May of 2000 from Columbia College in Chicago. She studied Interdisciplinary Arts with a focus on book and papermaking. "I would call myself an interdisciplinary artists. I like to use techniques and art forms that represent the concept and the process that I would like to articulate" Paulsrud said.
At the moment, Paulsrud has an exhibit entitled No Boundaries, where she gains her inspiration from her love of handwriting. She is a celebrated calligraphy writer as well, and out of her studies of handwriting, "abstract mark-making followed," she said.
She studied the different lines handwriting created and began making large, sometimes 8 feet by 4 feet, homemade paper sheets and would use pigment to create a single abstract mark.
"My mark-making began as an abstraction of handwriting, intuitive movements with particular attention to rhythm and mood referencing response to my environment...I felt myself being drawn to nature...the lines, the stories, the visual language. Surface gave way to being ... I saw before me that meaning embodied in the `mark.'" She hopes that her mark statement will cause people to think about art in terms of their own lives. "I would like my work to deal with the quality if resonance— people bring their stories to my work and take something back with them."
Paulsrud's other project is called Tree Whispers. She and fellow artist Marilyn Sward have created a collaborative art instillation that explores trees and their relationship with humans.
"What I wanted to do in this is bring together the stories people have about trees and create an artistic representation of these stories," Paulsrud said.
This project relies on outside people to create circles of homemade paper and place a poem, story, or a symbolic representation and send them to Pamela or Marilyn, who in turn are creating an artistic "forest" out of them.
"Tree Whispers includes 3 year olds, the elderly, professional and novice artists alike coming together," she said. So far Pausrud has representations from a dozen countries and ten foreign languages. Her hope is that that the exhibit will travel around the world.
More information can be foundat www.treewhispers.com, a site that allows people to write their stories, find out how to make paper and read about the progression of the exhibit. Tree Whispers and No Boundaries are currently on display at the Columbian College Center for Book and Paper, located on 1104 South Wabash Street, Second Floor, in Chicago.
All News Stories for Thursday, October 11, 2001
