Unforgotten II - ready for prime time!

My latest mobile is now hung and ready for the Chatham Studio Tour. 

Unforgotten II

©Christie Minchew 2013

approx 36" x 36"x 18"

wire, mulberry and rice papers, beads, Joomchi

The poem that was the inspiration for this piece:

Unforgotten

I know a garden where the lilies gleam,

And one who lingers in the sunshine there;

She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,

And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream!

I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,

And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,

Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary – then

He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer.

And ah, it’s strange; for, desolate and dim,

Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;

Yet he is in the garden by her side

And she is in the garret there with him.

                                                                                Robert Service (1874-1958)

The Garden: during...

Believe it or not,

 this will be The Garden in Unforgotten.

Trust me...it will come together in the end :)

The Ocean: after

After all of that 'wet' work, here's what The Ocean looks like...wet.

Then I tore it and scrunched it and laid it out to dry.

Et Voila, two waves up close! 

 The texture and color is all in the paper.  The top wave shows one side with the darker blue paper on top, and the lower one is basically flipped with the turquoise paper on top.  But the other papers show through.

The Ocean: before, during...

The Ocean

For "Unforgotten II" I'm using a technique called Joomchi for the elements.  Joomchi is a Korean technique using layers of mulberry paper, water and hand agitation to make the layers bind, or felt, together.  

The papers in the photo, above, are layered and wet down, below.

Then I gather up the wet stack carefully

 and begin agitating it by squeezing and rolling the paper in my hands.

Stay tuned for the "after".

The Process: Unforgotten II

For a long while, I've been wanting to develop some ideas for mobiles.  I've been brainstorming on themes, forms, techniques, ways to hang...

A couple of years ago, I made a cloth and felted triptych of the poem by Robert Service titled Unforgotten. I love that poem enough to do a second telling of the story in my next mobile.

Here's the poem...

Unforgotten

I know a garden where the lilies gleam,

And one who lingers in the sunshine there;

She is than white-stoled lily far more fair,

And oh, her eyes are heaven-lit with dream!

I know a garret, cold and dark and drear,

And one who toils and toils with tireless pen,

Until his brave, sad eyes grow weary – then

He seeks the stars, pale, silent as a seer.

And ah, it’s strange; for, desolate and dim,

Between these two there rolls an ocean wide;

Yet he is in the garden by her side

And she is in the garret there with him.

                                                                                    Robert Service (1874-1958)