Julie Rivera
"My Dad"
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| (Photos by Patrick Fraser) |
My umbrella represents my effort to be more “open” to the loss of my father. My dad tried to pass on many gardening tips to me, but when it came to gardening, I wasn’t a very good listener. Now I’m hoping that I just absorbed the knowledge. My dad enjoyed growing Iceland Poppies for over half a century. Champaign Bubbles were his favorite variety. He would say, “Look at those flowers-they look like paper!”
I was taught to always burn the stems before placing them in water. While I can’t remember why, these tidbits of knowledge stay with me, close to my heart.
My process
I started with a paper parasol. I added a layer of rice paper and then additional pieces of rice paper with the stenciled images.
The black, red, and yellow are pigments, pine soot, red iron oxide, and yellow ochre. Kakishibu, a traditional Japanese fermented tannin persimmon juice, binds with the pigments. The designs were stenciled on. The blue is dyed indigo paper. A final layer of Kakishibu was painted over all.