Tara Donovan - Of Paper Plates and Straws

 

     Tara Donovan is a world-renowned artist that innovates with everyday materials to create extraordinary sculptures. Donovan broke onto the art scene in the early 2000’s. Her work deals with space and light, with industrial materials that appear organic when assembled together. She mostly creates site-specific installations that are either wall-based or free standing. While her works use found objects and mass-produced materials, they are never ready-mades. Also, Donovan’s pieces are never outsourced - she and her assistants undertake the development of every project. 

     Each project begins with a singular material. It could be a cup, or a button, or a straw. Donovan starts by experimenting with the material and seeing what physical elements she can exploit. She follows predetermined rules to make modules, or units of what the piece will eventually become. Because of this process, of modules becoming modules and growing into bigger things, her pieces mimic the process of growth and nature, in that order and structure can give way to the unpredictable. Her sculptures gain a life of their own in this process, as they move away from a singular element to an unified armada. The original material is disguised by the sheer amount of units and the method of construction. 

     Many of the materials Donovan chooses have neutral or transparent qualities. This allows her to bring out the inherent qualities and aspects of the materials. As a whole, her work lacks a specific narrative and Donovan does not have a personal attachment to the materials she uses. Instead, her work is more an exploration of what the material could become, from something ordinary into something extraordinary.

Note: This was an assignment for an Art History class studying Modern Sculpture at school.
 

Adventures in Bookmaking (Part 3)

     This book was made using a fabric cover and a bound using the longstitch method. As seen in the image above, the stitches that bind the signature together form a decorative pattern on the outside of the spine.

     For the inside, I chose a vibrant color that related to the blues and greens on the cover. I also sewed in a ribbon into the cover that wrapped around to hold the book together in a nice package.

Adventures in Bookmaking (Part 2)

   
     This book was made using a traditional binding method - sewing on tapes (shown below). Out of all the books I made this was the one that I went the most in depth with. At one point I had to redo the cover because of a structural issue.

     Inside the book required even more work because I also created content for the book. Using the topic of modern fashion icons I curated a selection of women in the last century that have been looked up to for their style, either in being timeless or in pushing the boundaries of fashion. I fashioned a paper doll model using the help of my teacher who is well practiced at drawing the human figure. For the book I wanted to focus on diversity and beauty across different times, ethnicities, and body types. To help illustrate this I made my figure to be a plus size model. 

     The paper doll pattern I cut out of the pages of an old book I found at the thrift store. I liked the neutral color of the paper and the way the text interacted with the rest of the image. I also think it related well to the paper I used to make the cover of the book. After researching the fashions of my icons, I recreated some of their most famous pieces. These I pasted onto my paper doll model in layers to add depth to the illustrations and finally placed them in the pages of the book. I also included several facts and timelines regarding such things as how long each person lived and when, and how many times they had been married.

Adventures in Bookmaking (Part 1)

     It has recently occurred to me that while I have had this blog for several years and have named it "Taking Life a Page at a Time" because of my love for books, I have never shared the handmade books I learned how to make when I took a bookmaking class over a year ago! Well, that is going to change starting today! I won't share everything all at once. I will instead do several installments where I share one or two books and then talk about them individually.

     The first book I wanted to talk about is a flip book made using vintage patterns and a Japanese stab binding method. In retrospect, the stab binding isn't the most user friendly in flipping through the pages. But it still gets the job done! You can alter the girl's outfit on the top, bottom, and middle sections of her body (shown below).

   
     If I could do this book again I would probably use a different binding method. However, I am really pleased with the overall look of the book and how the different patterns line up to create the effect I was looking for.

     Since the book doesn't have a cover, I created a more heavy-duty backing for the book using some heavier card stock and layering pattern papers to allude to the vintage patterns used inside of the book.