Featured artist Patricia Larenas presents a stunning new show on First Friday.
Join us Friday 11/1 from 6-9 pm for an intimate reflection on the tools we use to make art. Making use of the materials around her, Larenas utilizes local soils, charcoal from wildfires, and handmade paper to create her work. On Paper is a breathtaking textural delight featuring an array of interconnected disciplines that beg the question: In this time of planetary crisis, what is the most important thing you can create?
The practice of making paper dates to more than two thousand years ago, originating in China. Many cultures all over the planet have hand papermaking traditions using various renewable plant fibers and/or tree bark (the process doesn’t kill the trees).
It was only in more recent times (1800s) that papermaking shifted from being made by hand from renewable resources (cotton and linen rags, and renewable plant fibers) to being mass produced by machine using chipped wood from felled trees. Currently, artisans that are preserving ancestral and cultural methods of making paper are dwindling, but can still be found, for example in China, Japan, Korea, Nepal, India, and papers from beaten bark in Mexico, Hawaii, and Africa, to name a few that I know about. It is hoped that a renewed interest in making paper by hand will help preserve these culturally important traditions that offer us a way forward to more sustainable practices for art-making.