Playing with Leaves and Octopodes

(For those of you who are wondering, octopodes is the most accurate, though not most common, plural of octopus.)

Back in September, I got invited to teach encaustic techniques to an organization I had never heard of before - the Nature Printing Society. It is a group of scientists, educators, artists, and other geeks and misfits who love making art prints from any sort of natural ephemera that will hold still long enough - plants, fish, and yes, even octopus.

nature prints by Bridget Benton made by placing feathers
and plants on light-sensitive etching plates; plates are then inked and printed

Making impressions of natural objects is one of the oldest - and most accurate - ways of recording the essential characteristics of natural objects: this is why the scientists love it. It also opens up whole new worlds of creative possibilities: this is why the artists love it. And as for the geeks and misfits, hey - who wouldn't love rolling ink on an octopus or tramping through the woods looking for nifty leaves and branches to print?

nature prints on fabric by Bridget Benton using an inked gelatin plate for mono-printing; shown here collaged with some mass-produced fabrics

Yup - you guessed it: artist, educator, and nature-loving nerd that I am - these are my people. I eagerly accepted the invitation to teach - it seemed like a great opportunity to learn some new things! In fact, doing the work to prepare to teach an encaustic class for nature printers opened up some new possibilities in my own work - I played with pressing leaves and other natural objects into the wax, and using oil paint to pick up the impressions. This led to a whole new series of work that I showed (and demostrated) during Portland Open Studios in October and at Guardino Gallery in December.

encaustic with oak leaf impressions

And I had a great time teaching at their annual conference at the Oregon coast. The whole group is so open to learning and sharing techniques that I felt completely at home. I took several classes while I was there, too, but there was one that had me giddy with excitement: Octopus Printing. Now, fish printing or gyotaku, is pretty well known in the U.S. as a Japanese import: you ink up a dead fish and then gently press paper onto the inky fish surface to pick up an impression. Using octopus as a giant rubber stamp, however, is not as well known.

gyotaku, or fish print, made by Nature Printing Society member

But I am deeply drawn to octopus. Octopodes. Octopusses. However you say it, I love their sensuous shape and suckerness. And to get a chance to print them? How could I resist? We started out with small ones, sold for food at local Asian markets. Thawed, cleaned, and dried, they are remarkably easy to position and print. They can also be re-frozen and then re-thawed and used again for printing. I admit, this is not for the squeamish.

me with my first octopus print!

several of my wee octopus prints!

I would have been happy just to make little prints. However, some local fisherman had caught a large octopus in their nets: knowing that we were in town and looking for non-commercially viable catch to print, they saved it for us. Several brave souls from the Nature Printing Society, including our intrepid Octopus Printing Instructor, Sharron Huffman, cleaned and gutted the octopus so that we could do giant octopus prints.

Sharron inking the large octopus

Sharron after the first print was pulled from the octopus

Now, Sharron has been printing octopodes for many years - she's as drawn to them as I am. She had one specimen, purchased at a Seattle fish market, that she carefully conserved and used for years to print from. She even has a detailed how-to on her website. Now, if you're lucky enough to live in the Portland area, and want to do some hands-on octopus printing, she's having a workshop in her home studio in February! Oh yeah - you can bet I'll be there!

print of large octopus tentacles by Bridget Benton

large octopus print on silk by Bridget Benton

If you're interested, here's the info: Sharron Huffman will teach Beginning Octopus Printing February 12, 1:00–4:00 p.m. at her home studio in Milwaukie, Oregon. $65 plus $15 materials fee. Limited to 5 participants. Contact Sharron at slhuffman@mac.com for more information and registration. I hope you'll join us!

participants in the octopus printing classroom, Nature Printing Society workshop, 2010

Art and Healing: Part Two

Lately, I've been so busy doing things that there hasn't been a whole lot of time to blog about them - or time to absorb what's happened. *

It's been a wonderful whirlwind, and now I'm ready for a little reflection and a little quiet artmaking time. Sometimes things don't make sense until we write them down or until we share them - either through words or through our artwork or both.

And a good place to start reflecting is the amazing women I had the opportunity to work with at the Quest Center for Integrative Health's Healing Empowerment Project. The Project, led by Jo Brody, provides an expressive outlet for those living with breast cancer and its consequences. With a different art class led by a different art teacher each month, the women have the opportunity to create, explore, and take an active role in their own healing process.

The participants, diving in!

Opportunities to teach in an environment like this are few and far between, and I was honored to be invited to teach an all-day shrine making class earlier this year. As is often the case, it seemed like all I did was unload materials from the truck, offer a little bit of information about structure and adhesives, and then get out of the way.

The women were fearless. They took risks, told personal stories, and were absolutely willing to work intuitively. It was a joyous and inspiring thing to witness. And there is such a lesson there. Perhaps once you have faced your own mortality, the blank canvas just doesn't seem as scary as it used to.

Starting with Egyptian deities . . .

and completing with feather and sea.

Dress patterns, Botticelli, and Mother Mary . . .

United by spirals.

A collecting of materials . . .

and a lid of riotous color.

This piece, assembled by a particpant, features an image of singers originally created by Deborah Koff-Chapin.

And this is what art is about - at least for me. Expressing and exploring, and maybe getting lucky enough to tap into something utterly beyond ourselves.


* If you were curious . . . In the last four months, I've attended workshops at ArtFest in Port Townsend, taught several workshops here in Portland, joined Sister Diane on a marvelous Mexican cruise with the Crafty Chica, had a feature show at 100th Monkey Studios Gallery, participated in a few charity art auctions, taken on the role of Treasurer for Portland Open Studios, celebrated my 40th birthday with friends, visited family in Texas, and now, I'm in Beverly, MA, for the Encaustic Conference at Montserrat College of Art and will then be heading off to present at the Summit of Awesome in my hometown of Portland, OR. I have a serious back-log of eye candy and insights to share, so get ready!

Chakra Collage Recap: Eye Candy!

I taught Chakra Collage for the first time last fall, and I'm getting ready to start another class February 23rd. The participants did a collage for each of the chakras, or energy centers, of the body, focusing on a different color each week. As part of preparing for the workshop, I went back and looked at some of the amazing images that came out of that class - and I wanted to share a few with you.

I'll start with a sample from the Root Chakra. If you want to see more, I did a whole post on the Root Chakra here. The color is red, and the element is earth.


Then, the Second Chakra, or Sacral Chakra. The color for this chakra is orange, the element is water.

The third chakra is the Solar Plexus Chakra. The color is yellow, and the element is fire.


The fourth chakra is the Heart Chakra. Its color is green, its element air.


Then, we move to the Throat Chakra. The color is blue, and the element is sound.


I couldn't pick just one for the Sixth Chakra, or the Brow Chakra. This one is also called the "Third Eye." Its color is indigo and its element is light.


And finally, the Crown Chakra. Its color is purple, its element is thought.



Alanna, Marta, Robyn, Patricia, and Deborah did an amazing job of working with their intuition and a collection of found images to create really unique and expressive collages! I had such a good time with this class, and I can't wait to teach it again!

Where these things lead . . .

I posted a while back about the classes I took at Art & Soul here in Portland this year, including one with Katie Kendrick. I did a bunch of little spontaneous paintings, and some of them have turned into other things . . .

LIke these two Bee ATC's for a swap on Swap-Bot. I also did a bunch of ATC's for Portland Open Studios Valentine's day cards, to be delivered to our friends at the press in February of 2010. And I forgot to scan them first.

And I just made a few collages, cutting pieces apart and recombining them. Here, I used a bit of a piece that had involved strategic use of a plastic doily dipped in liquid acrylic as a highlight (hence my search for my own plastic doilies. none at the dollar store, so after repeated trolling on-line, I am victorious! After several tries, I finally won an eBay auction for some this week!).


Here, more plastic doily goodness, and a tiny punched out bird that was in our class goody bag. Apparently, it's a Martha Stewart paper punch. I love the design, did an on-line search, and yes - won another eBay auction!

So - in answer to the implied question in the title, taking art classes leads to buying things on eBay.

Chakra Collage, Week One: The Root Chakra

Last night was week one of my new Chakra Collage class - we were working with the first chakra, or energy center, the root chakra. Its element is earth, its color red. Check out the delicious mess we made!

There are a total of five folks in the class -

here's Patricia, Marta, and Alanna all hard at work in my home studio.

And now for some bad photos of the group's wonderful collages!

Art & Soul 2009: The Eye Candy Edition

I didn't get to teach at Art & Soul in Portland this year, and considering the amazing classes I got to take and the marvelous teachers I met, I think it may have been a blessing in disguise!

Check out this amazing scarf I made under the tutelage of Lorri Scott . . . hand-dyed silk ribbons and other miscellaneous fibers stitched together into a glorious wrapping of yumminess!

I was a little nervous at first about the colors I chose, but then I just went with it, and I love the way the scarf turned out.

I also took a MacGyver Silkscreening Class with Traci Bunkers . . . I won't reveal any of her secrets here . . . but we made some shortcut silkscreen stencils and it was oodles of fun - though I don't think I got my fabric stretched tight enough! I made a few prints of scissors and tape on old book pages . . .

I had so much fun in Katie Kendrick's class . . . her spontaneous painting techniques are very liberating. Here's my painting station . . . it's a wonderful mess, isn't it?

And here are some of the painting starts I made . . .

And here's what they began to turn into. Katie encouraged us to look for images in the spontaneous pools, drips, and squiggles. Here, I saw a pregnant goddess figure:

And a little house on a hill:

And finally, the amazing hippo-dog, Harold:

I also got to take yet another resin molding class, this time with Jane and Tom Wynn. You learn something new with each teacher, and I'm getting a bit better at molding and casting each time. I'm loving the teeth (yup, the originals were mine) and the seashells. The hands are getting better, but still need a little work.

Matchbox Book: The Cabinet of Curiosities

I've been working on Matchbox Books, books with matchbox drawers inside. Here's the one I've been playing with this past week, using a Portland map that had seen better days. (When it rips while I'm trying to use it, it becomes collage fodder!)

The inside cover in process . . .

And the drawers in process.

Here's the outside of the finished product . . . I love how the
drawers really make it feel like a little Cabinet of Curiosities.

And here's the view of the completed interior.

Here's the first one I ever made - my test run of the idea.

And here's one a student, Robyn, started during Artmaking as Playful Prayer
last year, and finished up at home! I love seeing how
the ideas get translated by other people . . .
and check out that closure!

If you're feeling tempted, there's still time to sign up for the class this week, Matchbox Book at DIY Lounge here in Portland on Wednesday, September 16th. I'd love to see what you'd do with this idea!