“Paper and Presence”
I’m a paper sculptor based in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. For those who don’t know where Wisconsin is located, it’s a midwestern state in the central US, north of Chicago. We are famed for our brutal winters! In addition to making my artwork I am also an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I’ve been working with paper as an art medium for more than 20 years. Early in my art practice I was making large-scale installations and often used paper as a component in those works. Later I started making sculptural paper collages and became enamored with paper as a material unto itself.
We think of paper as a flat substrate, and it primarily functions as a surface on which we record information like text, numbers and images. In these instances, the paper isn’t as important as much as the information it carries. But paper as a material can be manipulated into three dimensional forms in actual space, to create objects which exist physically in the world. Here the paper is foregrounded and is itself the focus of the experience. It’s this process that I am primarily interested in with my work.
I’m known for making elaborate sculptures out of paper. At first glance they appear to be fortress-like constructions, tiered mandalas, or complex mechanical gears. They are made entirely by hand; I don’t digitally fabricate any of the elements. I use simple tools and materials like scissors, knives, paper, and glue.
They are very labor intensive. I only make about 2-3 pieces per year and each piece takes on average 300-500 hours to make. It’s very slow and deliberate work—it’s about concentration, awareness and presence. I like the act of making them, it’s where my sense of “self” disappears and I’m wholly in the experience. They are contemplative objects in the sense I intend for viewers to also lose themselves in the experience of looking at them.
I’m very invested in the processes and techniques for making the work. I utilize traditional paper-crafting techniques such as folding, quilling, scoring, and cutting to create my forms, and I have also invented my own techniques, custom to my own work.
I don’t set out for them to look like anything specifically, but I’ve described them as being akin to three-dimensional mandalas, abstract machines, or models for imaginary architecture. Though my works sometimes reference the language of architectural models I am not myself an architect, and I haven’t formally studied the field. I’m more of a hobbyist when it comes to the built form on an architectural scale. From a young age I was interested in fantastic structures like castles, palaces, labyrinths, cathedrals, and temples. I had a very active imagination as a child and though it wasn’t apparent to me at the time, I think these kinds of magnificent places symbolized outwardly my rich interior world.
For me the most rewarding aspects of being an artist is having something constructive for my mind to be working on. I might be having a tough day or feeling lousy about something that’s happening in the world, but I can shift my thinking towards how to make a paper sculpture—what might happen if I fold the paper one way or another, or how to glue shapes together in a certain way, and suddenly my mind feels lighter. My mind is always generating thoughts about how to manipulate paper, and I love being able to retreat there and be wholly absorbed in it. It helps me respond to other non-art related events in my life more evenly and skillfully.
For us humans doing something creative is a special experience. I see it all the time when I teach my workshops—people crave letting their minds sink into something like simple cutting and folding paper. People recognize that making things is nurturing to their minds. It’s pleasurable, but also a healthy and enriching exercise, physically and emotionally. It keeps our minds malleable and sharp. For most artists I know this is the point. The joy of making arises equally from the objects they create as it does from the mind state in which they dwell during its creation.
Insta: @michaelvelliquette
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