papercraft

Female Northern Cardinal /  by kelly heaton

Chickadee and sparrow /  by kelly heaton

I continue to model and assemble paper birds for a large sculptural rendition of my winter feeder. Here’s a chickadee and sparrow. The birds

modeled bluejay /  by kelly heaton

Bluejay for a work in progress, February 2019. Papercraft.

making nature from paper /  by kelly heaton

Details of work in progress, February 2019. I modeled the objects in CAD software, unfolded the mesh, print patterns on paper, and reassembled them. This is all an exercise to go from nature into my computer and back out again. My conclusion thus far: it is very hard to make nature with a computer.

Reconstructing tree (and me) /  by kelly heaton

Studio work in-progress, September 2018.

I’m getting ready to have arthroscopic surgery on my left hip to repair an old injury that is becoming arthritic. Meanwhile, looking at the state of my studio, it appears that I have imposed my own condition on this tree branch —a work in-progress for my latest Electrolier. Some people have commented that my approach is convoluted and I will not argue with that. However, I often find myself undertaking arduous and complex works because a big challenge yields so many little surprises, adaptations, and personal touches that don’t happen when you follow a direct path from concept to object. I am not a “special effects” artist. My art is more about the process of becoming —the struggle to achieve a difficult but worthy goal— than it is about the end result. Of course, I want the end result to be beautiful, but I strive for a beauty that is multi-layered, honest, generous, and full of stories.

Depending upon my recovery process, it may be a few weeks before I can continue with making sculpture. Meanwhile my studio is a good portrayal of my current state of being: a lot happening all at once, incomplete, in need of a good clean-up, and full of promise.

Modeling tree branches /  by kelly heaton

Using Blender to model and Pepakura to produce paper patterns for tree branches.