(top left) Georgia Deal, PULSE, 2022, monotype & gum transfer on handmade paper, 11" x 26" | (bottom left) Rosa Dargan-Powers, On a Forest Path with A Bear and Mountain Lions, 2017, cut paper, 16” x 8 ½” x 4 ½” | (right) Lela Arruza, Peony Vase, 9,279, 2023, paper dimensions, 12’’ x 23’’ x 12’’
Pulp & Bind Artist Roundtable
Join us for a roundtable discussion with three artists featured in our exhibition, Pulp & Bind: Paper & Book in Southern Appalachia.
Lela Arruza, Rosa Dargon-Powers, and Georgia Deal will share their artistic practice with us and explore their approach to the medium of paper.
About the Speakers
Lela Arruza
Lela Arruza
My identity as an adopted Asian American artist has greatly impacted my artistic inspirations and worldview when creating art. Existing in a culture full of stereotypes and prejudice challenged me to ignore preconceptions of what it looks like to be Asian American and encouraged me to shape my identity. My current body of work contrasts the longevity of ceramics and the ephemerality of paper as a medium.
Each of the vessel forms produced are composed of thousands of individual origami pieces created through a technique called Golden Venture folding and put together without any adhesives. I find myself drawn to repetition and utilize this art form to discuss concepts of comfort and community.
The method of Golden Venture folding was popularized in 1993 when a ship called the Golden Venture ran aground in New York. Many of the migrants onboard were from China’s Fujian Province, and due to strict immigration policies, they were imprisoned. During imprisonment, many folded and assembled various paper sculptures which were sold or donated to the community. The rich history behind Golden Venture folding contains aspects of craft and community evident in my own work. Each piece I make displays my interest in intricate and clean design, but also focuses on exploring my own identity and place within my community.
Rosa Dargan-Powers
Rosa Dargan-Powers
I long have been fascinated by and explored the world of night dreams––my own and those of family and friends. Dreams, like poetry, myth and fairy tales, speak to us in the language of image, symbol, archetype, and metaphor––and often come as nonlinear narratives to puzzle, mystify, and challenge. The practice of transposing dream narratives into artforms––while leaning into their metaphoric language, creative imagery, and archetypal symbols––can be affective, clarifying, and instructive––or, perhaps, even more powerfully, can help dreamers creatively “just be with” and/or be open to the nonlinear, irrational, mysterious, and magical.
For many years, a fascinating theme has recurred in my dreams that involves encounters with wild animals while walking on a forest path. Inspired by the silhouette illustrations from fairy tale books of my childhood, I have adopted the medium of paper-cutting as a way to bring my dreams to form. As a way to illustrate the dream-story and to dialogue with its metaphors and archetypes, I have aimed to create a fairytale atmosphere with cut black paper to amplify the dreams’ magical qualities.
Georgia Deal
Georgia Deal
My work explores the visual recollections and impressions of memory, breaking down the narrative to a more refined or skeletal state. These images hum with the intent of a story, but contrary to the rules of storytelling, I have let go of the narrative controls. Travel continues to influence my work, as a metaphor for escape in its various forms, both mental and physical. Other concepts of home and shelter, fear and isolation are recurring themes. Humor and irony creep in as well. The visual vocabulary suggests sets of binaries; local vs. global, innocence vs. conspiracy, and tranquility vs. anxiety.
The tactility and the transparency of the processes I employ reinforce these recurring themes. The layers of printing mirror the layers of meaning the images evoke and I continue to work with handmade paper, as I find its inherent richness and tactility matche the phenomenon of memory, with its own vivid and textural impressions. As in a museum, where one discovers artifacts that, pieced together suggest and reveal information, these works are similarly evocative. They are part of a personal archeology of time and place, summoning up a history.
About the moderator:
Bella Sollosi
Bella Sollosi
Before earning her Bachelor’s in Art Management at Appalachian State University, Bella interned for several arts institutions in the High Country, including the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum. She now works part-time as BRAHM’s Curatorial Associate, assisting in the creation of exhibitions such as Pulp & Bind: Paper & Book in Southern Appalachia and an upcoming retrospective of Maud Gatewood’s paintings.