Stehekin Re-Bound

I’ve been back in the remote valley of my 2013 North Cascades National Park residency for an exhibit of my work at the Golden West Visitor Center Gallery. It’s a treat to be here again, to take the long boat ride up Lake Chelan, reacquaint myself with the people who were so welcoming, and re-visit some of the beautiful places that inspired me. Self-evidently it’s different in the spring than the fall – bright greens instead of golds, tongues of snow still reaching down the gullies from the heights, roiling water in the rivers and creeks, fields of flowers… a few more of the burned trees have fallen over but most of the char is still iridescent. I hiked up to re-visit the “live” models for Corrugated, Knotted, Trochanter, and De-Limbed shown below. I’m happy to see some of the kids from my day in the school last year at the opening.

Several landscape views (framed) and individual burned tree watercolor paintings at the Golden West Visitor Center Gallery in Stehekin, Washington.

Fireweed above Rainbow Bridge is the work I donated to the North Cascades National Park in partial fulfillment of my term as 2013 Artist-in-Residence. It is watercolor on paper, 20.5 x 33.25 (32 x 45 framed), with singed edges.

Arnica blooming — rather than fireweed going to seed — under the Rainbow Bridge burn.

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Artist Books

I’ve been having fun making some images of my landscapes and burnscapes into book forms. They have always seemed like an inviting genre to me, as a visual person who’d rather play Scrabble™ or do crossword puzzles than concentrate in the studio 😉 I took a short class from Dara Solliday at Pratt Fine Arts Center called “Bookbinding for Printmakers.”

But ever the artist-craftsperson-engineer, of course I had to engage in lengthy trials to reach my vision, and I pass on some of my learning in hopes that it will serve yours:

• Measure and cut everything with more precision than you think you will need, especially anything with a 90-degree angle. Then stack the pieces that are supposed to match next to each other and correct any egregious smidgeons, it will be well worth the trouble later on. If one piece is too small, it’s better to recut the offending board than try to make it up later in the process
• Thanks to MalPina Chan, I’ve been finding matte medium to be a more effective adhesive for paper and cloth
• I had hoped to bind acrylic sheet “pages” to wood “covers” using stiff-leaf technique. Traditional archival book cloth and PVA adhesive won’t stick to acrylic sheeting. I tried acrylic solvent cement, matte medium, 3M 77, carpenter’s glue, and in all cases, if it stuck at all , the coating on the inside of the book cloth just pulled away from the fibers. I finally resorted to packing tape and Gorilla® duct tape. The latter is less fibrous and more matte than the usual duct tape. I don’t know what the longevity of those adhesives is.
• A whetstone makes a great quick-and-dirty de-burr and polishing tool for glass tiles. I was able to use Weld’s all-purpose solvent cement to attach them to heavy board for one cover.

Burn Book I: pop-up digital prints of 8 burnscape paintings in an accordion-fold book, ribbon, 11” x 40” open, 11” x 5” closed

Burn Book II: cut-out digital prints of 8 burnscape paintings on acrylic sheets with smoked wood covers, 12” x 14” open, 12” x 6” closed

Peaks & Valleys closed in its clam shell case, ~2.5″ x 2.5″ x 1.5″

Peaks & Valleys opened out: digital prints backed on non-woven viscose, acrylic paint, board, recycled glass tile