We don't protect our planet because we don't see its exquisite value. If we did, it would be inconceivable for us to cause harm to what we love. Too often nature is presented to us in extremes: either as a purified, unrealistic, ideal or as an impending catastrophe, like global warming. Artists can bring to us a vision of nature as it is, neither ideal or terrifying: the paper forest, is one artist’s vision.
The forest is constructed from forest debris, with pulp from Philippine Abaca - a kind of banana leaf - beaten in a Hollander for eight hours to obtain optimal translucency and strength, then sprayed on to armatures or formed intosheets. The shrinkage of this paper, when restrained, is so high that it dries tight as a drum and translucent as skin, or else shrivels into some miraculous compression of itself.
Image: sculpture from "the paper forest ", an ongoing installation presently evolving in Grand Isle, Vermont