Participatory Projects: Paper Boats Flotilla 2022

Gallery of Scuola Internazionale di Grafica, Venice, Italy

Yet another inspiring collaborative project from the Los Angeles Print Society that I had the opportunity to participate in during the winter of 2022. This is an ongoing project that will grow at each installation.

Artists explored the symbolic theme of water, which was to be presented both as 3-D folded paper boats, and as flat, double-sided prints (verso/recto). The installation of these unique prints was organized by Mary Sherwood Brock, curator, and archivist for the Los Angeles Printmaking Society.

For my water imagery I was drawn to mermaids as an apt topic of exploration. My mermaids were drawn with my left and right hands, then carved onto woodblocks and are not from the land of Disney. Some people have described them as grotesque, but I think of them as mythic, underwater weird sisters. 

The woodblock of churning, undulating water in which they reside was inspired by paintings of water in the 16th Century Indian gouache paintings from the ADVENTURES of HAMZA, which I happened to see at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.