“Paper, Knife, Glue”: An Artistic Exploration”

Jackie Gardener has been using paper in all its forms to explore her artistic inclinations for nearly 40 years. Numerous wonderful examples of that exploration will be on display at Gualala Arts’ Elaine Jacob Foyer during the holidays. Opening Friday, November 4, 2022 is “Paper, Knife, Glue: An Artistic Exploration”. A reception is planned from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Jackie Gardener creates many of her own papers with paint and solvent through techniques learned from bookmaking, like paste papers and marbling.  She coaxes and coerces them into tight collages that tell her stories through color and embellishment, often incorporating wordplay into the design. Her interest in letterforms and wordplay led to a new interest in letterpress printing, resulting in handmade cards and artist books.

Her schooling brought her degrees in art as well as interior design, which gave her a long and varied career before moving to the coast more than twenty years ago. Here, Gardener’s focus has expanded into assemblage with found materials gathered in thrift stores and yard sales. She incorporates origami, weaving, bookmaking and wrapping into new forms through gluing: to walls, floors and even doors, bread boxes and tables, but primarily on redwood slabs. 

In recent years, Gardener has explored house forms, which have been a recurring and continuing interest, as well as working on wooden panels and found wooden boxes. She wraps and glues with her vision in mind using a family of paste papers, hand marbled specimens and manipulated magazine photos as well as commercial papers from the far reaches of the world, including Japan and Nepal. Each one communicates a mood or contemplative concept with words and color intended to provoke thought and humor.

In the beginning, Gardener explored handmade artist’s books and then made dozens of different ones utilizing almost every technique she read about or saw. She took a three year class in book exploration from the renowned Shereen LaPlantz in Arcata many years ago, and used that as a launching pad for her own experiments and constructions.

As Gardener puts it, “part of making books was having access to wonderful papers, so marbling and paste paper classes followed, and techniques using solvent to create textured papers were embraced. Origami and all things folded held my attention, especially if words could be hidden and later revealed through folds or hidden compartments. Making books that were more architectural was another exploration, using wood and mat board to build my structures.”

Poetry is often featured in Jackie’s work, sometimes written by others, but mostly of her own creation, such as the Word Monument that features the poem Black, about her favorite color. Word Monuments cut from redwood slabs remain a long standing form of expression for Gardener’s design ideas, color palettes and word play. Scrabble tile, Jenga game pieces, and scrap wood from the projects of friends are a valuable resource, giving shape to her visions.  More recently, a letterpress partnership opened doors she had not ventured through before, and has invigorated her interest in type and letters of all kinds. The only thing that brings all these disparate artistic endeavors together is the use of paper, glue and a knife, preferably using her much loved scalpel. This show is truly an exploration of the artistic rambles Gardener has taken over many years.