Prototype transparency people inside unpapered cages
Cages covered over with paper
Cages un-nested
I found these rickety-looking cages at SCRAP a few weeks ago. They come in a nested set of 5, with the largest one being perhaps 12 inches or so, the others sized progressively smaller. I couldn't decide what to do with them - perhaps Christmas-themed objects for sale at the Art Explosion holiday show?
Without knowing where I was going with them, I dyed the cages with walnut ink, then coated them with glitter. That was a dead-end.
Then I had the idea of covering the cages with paper. I have a stash of thin Japanese rice paper bought at a Flax warehouse sale a few years ago. I also used sewing pattern paper and old Japanese copybooks, anything that was thin and pliable enough to cover these cages. I traced templates for each size birdcase, cut various types of paper and glued them with gluestick. Turns out gluestick is not the best adhesive for these things.
Sleeping over these disappointing results, I realized that gel medium might work better. Sure enough. The gel adhered the paper seamlessly and turned it into a second skin around the cage's skeleton. The afternoon sun in my studio created a lantern effect that led to the next step.
There needed to be something to illuminate these lanterns and something inside to be illuminated. I used transparency sheets and traced around photographs of people, which I filled in with black. The first batch was made with acrylic paint, which was too dry a medium. The side of the transparency sheet that has texture to absorb inkjet ink sucked the paint dry before a smooth layer could be applied. I started over using India ink and got much better results.
Right now I am researching ways to illuminate these lanterns. There are many options available in battery-operated lights - anything from tiny tea candles to neon-like lights to fanciful fiberoptics. I am still in the thinking process over how much light I want inside the lanterns and how much outside. Also being investigated are sound effects. I just downloaded an app that plays Japanese summer sounds.
