Beans, Pinecones, Umbrellas

Beans, Pinecones, Umbrellas is my expression of joy through mobiles whose wonky colorful dots sway and giggle as we walk and stir the air around them. Since there is no audience to invite in the time of COVID-19, I made an imagined tea party and around a large wooden dining table, there sprouting imaginary conversations and thoughts. In this image the mobiles look to be flying out of me, like butterflies.

These airy mobiles, in colors that remind me of wool yarn samples, are made with paper pulp clay which I formulated by recycling used packages, my design sketches and old diaries. These paper cookies are connected to metal arms with loops and hooks so that they can be unassembled and recycled back into paper clay again. 

I mixed paper pulp the same way I would mix paints. I blended blue paper pulp and red paper pulp, and a bit of yellow paper pulp to make a muted purple paper clay. I combined them at their different blended stages too to make varying textures and color effects. Mushy pulps would make homogeneous colors, while crumbly pulps would have a stippled effect. Finely blended pulps would become a smoother surface when dry, while coarser pulps would become bumpier like oatmeal cookies. 

Before any of these mobiles were materialized, I made an acrylic painting on paper to visualize the colors and the feeling these mobiles would project. This image became a reminder of my initial abstract idea for the mobiles while I was building them. Now looking back to this painting and, especially with how the texture and the forms turned out, I’m quite happy. These mobiles look like the painting came alive.

2020
Paper pulp clay and galvanized steel wire

Photography by Henry Hargreaves