Why I like to play with paper.

I can’t draw. Really, I’m remarkably bad at it. I tried painting in high school, and basically ended up smearing color around in vaguely interesting ways without regard to form or composition - I love color. But painting, without that drawing foundation, didn’t stick. I seem to have found my medium now, though: playing with paper lets me experiment with color, texture, pattern, and space in a way that’s incredibly satisfying and yields strong results.

Despite the swirling world of developing communication technologies, I feel paper in all contexts is inextricably tied to the richness of books, the power of the written word. On a different level, my pleasure in paper has much to do with the aesthetic beauty of a blank page. A piece of paper promises everything – anything – to me in a way that a blank canvas never did. And now that I’ve stopped trying to draw on it, the paper and I have much more interesting conversations.

I make collages, cards, stationery, invitations, coasters, and sometimes books. I also really love turning gift wrapping into an art form. A couple of old examples of my wrapping, from Christmas ’06, are included with this post. I am happy to take commissions for artwork or gift presentation, and to field inquiries of all kinds. Please feel free to contact me via a comment here; Bell Buoy’s email: bellbuoypress@gmail.com; or via my Etsy site: bellbuoypress.etsy.com.

A fair warning: Musings on dance and choreography will creep their way into this blog. Since I am also – and perhaps primarily – a performance artist, thoughts on my artistic process will definitely include input from that genre.