Terada Mokei - Architectural Model Series

Terada Mokei- 1/100 Architectural Model Series No.11 Cherry Blossom

When I was a kid I couldn't afford furniture for my dolls house so I made my own from paper, especially graph paper from old school jotters. For a few years I was obsessed with designing paper flat pack house contents and folding and slotting them together into bits of furniture. I'd colour them with felt tips, and add details cut from magazines to give them some style, like furniture facades, lamps, kitchenwear etc. from my Mum's old Habitat catalogues (RIP) and cut out clothes from magazines for the wardrobe, though that then eveolved into making little clothes from fabric scraps. It was fun, and I loved having a chance to create fantasy homes, landscapes and wardrobes where anything goes, slides, swings, secret compartments, mountains, spaceships,undersea themes. Clearly that it was the beginning of a lifelong passion for creating them in real, full scale life for living with or for themed parties.

The Architectural model series by Designer, Architect and Modeller Naoki Terada would have totally enthralled me. The scale is far smaller than a dolls house, but all the more captivating because of it. He was tired of late nights making the tiny paper models that were needed to bring alive his Architectural models and decided to mass produce them so that he could get a bit more sleep, and also share the pleasure of working (playing) with the paper models themselves. As a kid I'd have spent hours making them outfits, though for people with less creative urges (or time) there are Dress-Up Stickers to add to your tiny models.

Here are a few of the many models you can buy as kits to self assemble from Terada Mokei.
Photography by Kenji Masunaga.


Terada Mokei- 1/100 Architectural Model Series No.12 Construction Site


No.6 New York and No.8 Christmas


Paper Tweezers from the 1/100 Architectural Model Accessories Series.

My work + olympic pool

2008 Olympic Swimming Pool designed by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation jointly with Australia's PTW Architects and Ove Arup Pty Ltd (more images)


3 layered papercuts 1991 based on The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991

The roof and walls of the new Olympic pool reminds me of much of my work, and made me realise I haven't posted any of my old work since the 1st of May. So let's remedy that right now...


Drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991


A print (recent) of a drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991


Papercut (1992) based on a drawing from The 4 Day Sketchbook, 1991



Several papercuts, 1991-'92, layered together

If you are new to my blog you can see more of my work in this style such as this felt brooch, this & this papercut, this book, this crochet. Or see more work in general by clicking the My Work tag at the end of this post.

Interesting cuts and links

Here's a treat, an entirely new post, not one that's been sitting in my drafts for over a year! I was doing my usual search for new and lovely papercuts to show you (even though I have a backlog of them still un-shown, but I never let that stop me looking for more) and came across the blog All Things Bright And Beautiful which among has enough links to keep me busy for years! The one that I beamed at most was this post showing intricate red Chinese papercutting in a new context (which she found via Wooow...yk.celine)...


Vogue China: Oct 2006 featuring Model Mo Wan Dan
Photographer: Juan Zi. See article pages on Asian Models


That same post also showed (on recommendation by Celine) the papercuts of Wu Geng Zhen (I've written his name as he writes on flickr and his website). She included this link to read more about him and a link to Taishin Bank where his work is exhibited . His Flickr site lived up to the hype showing really incredible images of huge cuts and a stunning exhibition. A really nice place to explore showing several different types of work. I did some more searching and found him here on db-db.com which seems to be a bit like myspace.


Wu Geng Zhen working on a large papercut 2007


Exhibition shot taken Feb 2008 on Wu Geng Zhen's Flickr


Exhibition shot taken Jan 2008 on Wu Geng Zhen's Flickr

When I followed the link to Celine's original post about the Vogue photo's she was showing more delights in the form of amazing cut leather work by Ginta Siceva ...


Ginta Siceva: Necklace 1, Spring/Summer 2008 Collection


Ginta Siceva: Necklace 12, Spring/Summer 2008 Collection


Ginta Siceva: Brooch

Phew, that was hard work for my addled brain to get all the links right (I hope they are right). I used to find it so easy but M.E. makes even the simplest tasks much more of a challenge. I think it was worth taking a whole day to do (I kid you not). I'm really pleased that these new (to me) blogs have given me some lovely things to show you plus lots more links and posts for me to discover on sleepless nights, thanks ladies!

Tiny Buildings

Tiny Buildings: Post Office Blue, 1976

I was doing a search for stuff related to my mobile home eco-renovation, but what google showed me was a wonderful blog called Tiny Buildings. A place documenting the work of Sharon and her late husband James, who in the 70's began making "tiny buildings crafted from business cards, packaging and other nice papers." read the lovely story of how she started here. Sharon continues to make them today and they are the most delightful and personal creative recycling I have seen.


Tiny Buildings: Wedding Chapel Three, Maryland 2007


Tiny Buildings: Hiltl Cottages, Zurich 2005

White textures

I promised I'd keep showing all the posts that never made it into my month (or two) of white posts in January and February. With all the sun and colour of the last 2 weeks I thought a cooling white catch up might be in order, and might psychologically prepare me for the snow predicted to arrive this weekend. Poor little lambs nearby think every day will be sunny like today was, I wish I could take them home. Enjoy the lamb-like whites, mostly familiar names, but also a few newer ones...


Tara Donovan: Strata, glue, 2000-2001 via Ace Gallery


Element Clay Studio: Large Noni ceramic tile (detail) on Etsy


Element Clay Studio: LCeramic Micro tiles on Etsy


Georgia Russell: The Times, cut newspaper, 2003 at England & Co.


Jeanne Opgenhaffen: Dancing Shadow, porcelain


Mia Perlman: Cut Paper 'Nigh' (detail) 2007


Noriko Ambe: Lands of Emptiness A (detail), Cut paper, 2003


Jennifer Prichard: Ceramic Wall tiles, Shag


Cassander Eeftinck Schattenker: Photography, 2007


Aleksandra Gaca: Architextile 2007

paper, pills and pests

A page from my papercut sketchbook 1991

You know on films when they have those machines that shoot tennis balls at, and they always go crazy and start shooting 100's of balls really fast? Well that's what February has been like so far. I'm trying to avoid getting hit too much, but it doesn't leave much time for blogging.

Not sure if I said but my brother is taking me on a trip for my birthday next month (details to follow) so I've been trying to get myself well enough to sustain some walking, though he is renting a car. I'm eating frech herbs from teh garden every day (mostly Thyme, I love thyme). I've splashed out on Mega-doses of all manner of supplements, vitamins, herbs, minerals, and all the weird and wonderful things in between.

I finally bought some new essential oils (I still have some from 1990!, though they are only used to make the vacuum smell nice now). I'd stopped taking Nelson's homoeopathic remedies because of the lactose but several sites say the amount is so small and so little reaches the stomach, that I'm probably ok to take them in short term bursts. The alcohol in the liquid form is often made from wheat grain and though you can get water based ones online the postage makes them too costly for me.


Another detail from my papercut sketchbook 1991

And now a change of subject, garden pests. This is an alert to UK gardeners, check your plants!
I noticed my chives from last year put on a growth spurt in those 3 mild days. But then they started to collapse so yesterday I went to investigate... Greenfly!!! The wee buggers are at least 2 or 3 months early. The price we pay for not having a real winter anymore. 50% of the chives had them nestling in hard to see places. So you have been warned, if you have known hot spots for Aphids then it's worth checking now so they don't get out of hand before Spring has even arrived.

Pale papercuts

Oh dear, I blew it. I'm very disapointed that my health couldn't match my intentions as far as blogging white all month. I only realised on the way to the dentist (94 out of 100, very pleased) that this was the last day of the month and I still have over 100 white pieces to show!

I decided to cram lots of then into one last post, but I see that blogger has a planned 'outage' today so I'll just pop in 3 of my favourite papercut artists and then, if by chance I can squeeze in a few more later it'll be a wee bonus. This post is dedicated to Liz, who I visited on the way back from the dentist. My first proper social contact since early November. We have probably sent each other into a downward M.E. spiral, but it was fun to have a good bitch about incompetent Doctors :0)


Andreas Kocks: Paperworks, detail

His papercuts are very organic and he covers entire walls of gallery spaces with them. Really stunning and best seen in context on his website. Seeing his giant pieces made me want to give up completely (not that I'm making currently), he does brilliantly on a large scale what I do mediocrely (made-up use of that word?) on a smaller scale. Andreas has 3 shows on in Munich just now (visit his site for details) and will be showing at the Chicago Art Fair in April.

Chris Natrop: Into the silver see through (detail) 2006

I've always loved everything Chris does, he is a paper-cutting god as far as I'm concerned, so much intricacy on such a large scale. As with Andreas, you should visit his site to see them in all their full glory. Chris has always been good at delicacy, creating pieces that totally fill the spaces they inhabit, but which seem light as air. If you are in LA you can see his work until February 16 as part of 'Possible Impossible Dimension: Six Artists on the Brink of Abstraction' at Eagle Rock Arts Center.


Hunter Stabler: Papercut, 2006, originally uploaded by Sokref1

Ok, not white, but his work sits so nicely with the other two. I first saw his work on Flickr and thought it was laser cut. Not so, apparently his pieces are hand drawn and hand cut - respect!

A few days off

Detail from a page of a papercut sketchbook, 1991

I took this photo on Monday (rain and sleet outside, that's why it's so grey).
I'm needing a mini blog break, had a really stressful time with my Doctor who seems only to want to drug me to the eyeballs with things that make me sick rather than do anything to improve my health, or at the very least support me in my desire to do it myself. I'll be back in a few days I'm sure. Before I go I'd like to thank you all for your comments this month, they have really made a difficult month a lot easier. Wishing you deep sleep and good weather.

Pierced paper - pinholes part 2

Well, you know how I said I'd lost lots of paper cut links when my internet connection kept stopping last week, well I've hunted about and re-found a few for you. Some can be seen larger if you click the picture, but as always, the best detail is on the artists sites which are worth visiting to see more of their work and to get further information about their methods and ideas.

First up a Scottish gal who went to the same art college as me (but a few years later). Eileen MacDonald now lives and teaches in the U.S. and makes very sculptural pinhole drawings...

Eileen MacDonald: Untitled, pinpricks on paper, 2005

Anna Mawby created 'Interminable' by hand piercing the phrase "I was waiting" on a 3 metre long piece of paper taking 6 hours a day for 6 weeks. 'One Day' is a piece with letters on a larger scale, each large letter made with 100's of pin pricks...

Anna Mawby: Interminable, detail. 2007

Eloise Ghioni made the next piece as part of her recent Third Skin range of work, available to buy on ETSY. She also has her work on Flickr...

Eloise Ghioni: Third Skin, paper (via Etsy)

Just me, thinking about things

Design for print and papercut 1991


Unfinished test cut from one of my papercut sketchbooks 1991
(reverse side shown)

I have mountains of white art, books, ceramics, textiles that I planned to photograph and show from my past, but my energy is at it's lowest in 17yrs, even picking up the camera seems like preparing for a mountain hike, so I'm afraid you are stuck with the things I had already taken shots of for other purposes. I do have some good pics, but it's things I'm still haven't the courage to show. You'd think I'd feel easier about it 17 years on but the fact that I made this work when I first had M.E means that all the feelings I had invested in it then are all popping up again mow, so it feels current, not old at all.

This next bit is just thoughts that needed out of my head after a particularly difficult time walking Lucy today, nothing to do with art so you may want to skip it.

Update - My post was depressing me a bit so I've moved it to the comments section, but have left the relevant photo's here and also the link to Danger: field liable to sudden collapse. Also the link for Marley, losing our jobs, and Lucy (who was called Tia then).

View from the dangerous field, December '07


Hedge on the edge of the dangerous field, December '07


Giant Hogweed in the dangerous field, December '07

Pierced paper - pinholes

Heather Smith Jones: Pinhole detail

You'll not believe it but this is the massively shortened version of this post! Shortened all the more by our loss of internet connection at the weekend which meant half my pics and links were lost. I'm afraid I can't face doing it all again so it's a bit heavy on words rather than images. I'd also hoped to show my own work too but I've not been well enough to go hunting through cold storage rooms so instead there is a long rambling attempt to describe my own ties with pin pricks in art, which you may prefer to skip and just head straight to the people I'm posting about.

My own pierced work began in the traditional way, using pin pricks to transfer the outline of a design onto paper or fabric. Ideal for repeats on a lot of my papercuts, marking the start and finish points but leaving room for the blade to vary with each separate cut so that every layer is subtly different. I like difference.


Practice cut from one of my sketchbooks 1991
A teeny tiny bit of piercing in there
(sorry, all I had available to show)

That's one off-putting thing (for me) about laser cutting - the exact sameness of it all. I also used pin pricks to mark out the designs for my thread and string works and though I loved how it looked, Iwas too focussed on the planned piece to fully appreciate that the pattern on it's own was enough (dammit, I could have saved myself a lot of time if I had, those thread and string pieces took weeks, months at times).

Piercing as a permanent part of the piece happened accidentally at college when I had a sewing machine (still have it, a hand crank Singer) whose thread snapped a lot. Working by candlelight & streetlight with pale thread on pale papers, I didn't always notice until I had finished, but I liked the pierced lines that were left, and began using them in my mixed media work and papercuts to create texture and emphasise contour or pattern edges. Also they are great in bookmaking and paper folding for creating perforated folds, or tear offs.

My favourite use was in my lighting to bring miniature pin pricks of light to the work (light play has a big role in many of my pieces, and you know how I am about that goes double for small lights, the tinier the light the more I love it). But I never used it as the primary source of the image itself. My lighting was usually 50% was stitched, 50% pricked, but it was the light itself that was the star of the show, not the pin pricks in their own right.

That's why I am so enamoured of the pieces below where the pin prick takes front of stage. Works where skill is required to place each prick in the right place because it's place is important. When I dig out my old pieces you'll see that my placing was very free-form (like so much that I do, I hate to feel like the piece is telling me what to do). So I really admire the patience, the obsession, that goes into the making of the works shown below.


Heather Smith Jones: Formation VI

I'm especially smitten by the work of Heather Smith Jones who's talents I only came across a few months ago (big thanks to Susan at Artstream) and who, among others, I will be doing a collaboration with this year based on my stash of papercut books from the early 90's - very exciting :0)

My own pricks push into the paper leaving a crisp hole on flat paper. The beauty of Heather's (and to some degree some of the others) is that the back becomes the front so the punctured paper protrudes creating subtle but definite shadows that make the marks jump of the page. She has brought so much skill to the practice, perfectly controlling the degree of protrusion to get just the right effect, then occasionally reversing the direction of the prick to give a different look that only emphasises further the miniature 3d qualities of the protruding pricks. I love, love love it and it's as much about imagining the time and patience of making as it is about the beautiful final result.

Ok, enough rambling, let's look more at their intricate lovely works and I strongly urge you to visit all the sites to see the pieces full size as the tiny pictures I have here do not do justice to the intricacy of these pieces. Let's continue with Heather...


Heather Smith Jones: Wallpaper pinhole project (ongoing 2007-'08)

Just a taster of her lovely pieces, you should see what she does with words and how she's beginning to combine them with collage and thread (which relates perfectly to my books for the collaboration). For more check out her beautiful blog which has many links to her other work (she does beautiful drawings and watercolours, this is my current favourite), her Wallpaper Pinhole Project is a true labour of love, her work to buy at Artstream, her Flickr pages, and her new collaborative image a day project with Alicia Alferman - Noticing Project., which I love because I'm all about the little details that most people don't notice and it's great to see other people's noticings.

Moving on, Catherine Bertola is another favourite of mine who's cut found wallpaper work you may have seen before...

Catherine Bertola: If Walls Could Talk 2002
via Workplace Gallery

Perhaps you've also seen her amazing 'After The Fact' dust drawings (2006), dust has never looked so good. Shown below is one of her anatomy pieces, pinprick knickers!..

Catherine Bertola: Prickings, Anatomy #10
Via Axisweb. click here to see full size


Catherine Bertola: Prickings, Anatomy #10 (detail)

I came across Celio Braga through his bead work but it was his carved paper work that I truly loved as it was similar to my papercut explorations...

Celio Braga: Untitled 2004, cuts on paper
(listed under 'carved drawings' on his site)

Like Catherine, he has also worked with pinpricks and the piece below is again similar to mine in that he's working with the line to emphasise the image it accompanies and there is also a little embossing (oh how I love embossing)...

Celio Braga: Untitled 8 2002
(listed under 'drawings' on his site)

I'll let you do your own exploring of the links above, and here a few others if you're really getting a taste for this type of work-
• Catherine Garvey Macmahon: Mappings 2004
• Leslie Yagar does very organic perforations and drawing on rice paper.
• Siân Bowen works with both pin pricks and laser incisions such as her 'Gaze' series 2006 and she touches on some of the historical background to piercing in her V&A weblog.

Finally, this one's not piercing at all, it's acrylic on paper, but it has such a pierced look I popped in in the mix anyway cause I like it. I've always had a thing for paper towel patterns, they're like the doily's poor country cousin, not as fancy, not as pretty, but honest and sturdy with their own simple beauty...


Lisha H Bai: The Earth Friendly Paper Towel Series 2006

Part of my 'All things white and beautiful' postings, a visual snowscape of creativity and observations in shades of white through January.