Looking Good On Paper

Artworks A Cut Above At Fuller Craft

by Don Wilkinson

Paper may be the most ubiquitous man-made material on the planet. Even in an increasingly digital world in which cash, books and handwritten letters are slowly being supplanted by debit cards, Kindle and Facebook, it endures. There is something about the tactility, about the crispness of a page turning or the sound of an envelope being crumpled, about its faint wood pulp aroma, that deeply engages us.

As an art material, it is generally considered the substrate, the tabula rasa, the open possibility on which the art occurs by the deployment of pencil, crayon or other tool. But the artists in a new exhibition at the Fuller Craft Museum prove that the paper itself, when elevated by thoughtful and careful effort and craft, is worthy of consideration and contemplation.

“Paper and Blade: Modern Paper Cutting” is a visually engaging display featuring the work of 10 “paper cutters” who are terrifically diverse in their approaches and results, given that they work with nothing but a range of papers and blades — and a very few auxiliary materials: glue, glass or transparent acrylic and risers that provide three-dimensionality and lighting.

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