creating an artwork inspired by fossil hunting

One of the artists at the Emily Carr Grad Show had work featuring layers of torn/cut paper and this twigged me to some old work of mine that was inspired by the experience of hunting for fossils.

fossil artwork of handmade paper

I spent quite a while trying to locate the photo album where I had some photos of an artwork on this subject that didn’t quite cut it (left), and even more time trying to find the actual fossils themselves, all of which I then had to scan. Another block of time was spent looking over my old sketchbooks to locate the piece I was thinking of. Yesterday I was a bit depressed about seeing all my old work, and dismayed at all the years lost to various health problems. But today I am finding that going through my old work and blogging about it is a good way organize my thoughts and gather all the pieces I need in one spot. I have also seen that a lot of my old work is just as pathetic as the stuff I have done recently, and trying out something new and failing is a basic part of the creative process.

The fossils were in a wall of shale, and each piece that was pulled out contained some sort of fossil imprinted on it. Initially I imagined a cabinet with series of narrow specimen-type drawers that could be pulled out, each revealing a painting of a fossil. Since my woodworking skills are non-existent I changed it to a piece of foam covered with paper and the fossil paintings slotted in. The final artwork of this didn’t really convey what I wanted, and I had added a pinkish ‘granite’ skirt to the piece that actually looked a bit silly.

May 15 (one-a-day project)