My friend and former coworker Kyle White had a solo show at the Sycamore Public Library February 18-19th, 2022. The show was for an outdoor installation of illustrations he made to accompany his book Winter is Scissors. He invited me and another friend, Jan Clayton Bolander to show some of our winter themed work on the Saturday of the show. Leading up to the show we weren’t sure if we would just have pieces on display there, and not be in person because of covid numbers, but as the date approached and the numbers steadily dropped, we were able to set up tables and be there.
Jan enjoying Kyle’s work (it was delightful to hear her laugh while reading some of the pieces)
I’ll admit I was a wreck of nerves beforehand. I hadn’t done an in-person show since the last event he invited me to participated in in the fall of 2019. But knowing Kyle, he is very laid back and easy to talk with, so I pushed through and was so glad I did. I remembered that last show and how I have the tendency to think I need to bring a EVERYTHING. As a person who makes artwork, paper products, jewelry, mittens, and on and on, I think it can be overwhelming for customers. I channeled Kyle and decided to just focus on a few things. Since the show was winter themed, the mittens my mom, sister and I make were a perfect fit and took up half of my table. I brought a small handful of paper products/stickers, and then I created a mini winter themed series of my Robayre Stencil Stack pieces.
Every winter I feel like the one and only person on the planet that loves winter. I had no idea how much I really needed that day, to be surrounded by people who LOVE and celebrate winter. I had such a good time talking with Kyle and Jan and everyone else that came in attendance to shop.
Now onto the pieces I created for the show.
Each piece is roughly 5.25×5.25″ in a 10×10″ frame.
Mixed media, paper, acrylic, metal and adhesive.
Like winter, I tried to stick with a muted tone palette, with spots of color for impact. Normally my stencil stack pieces are representative of my overall more bright and colorful personal palette. As with my other stencil stack pieces, each piece is handcut paper, then used to make prints, with layers and patterns of color and texture. The layers I cut were made in a winter theme as well, bare trees, snow flakes and drifts, but, like with the the spots of color, there are pieces that are those spots of respite in winter, things that bring us comfort like the sun shinning through the trees, clear sky of stars, cozy layers and quilts, and slow correspondence. Theses dynamic pieces break the frame, emphasizing the layers and texture.
