Imitating

Authors

Nicholas Baldwin

Abstract

I question conventional boundaries through a series of action and reaction, a safari between permanence and transience, interrogating whether paper is shaped forever. Pulp painting promises a negotiation of form while carrying abstraction. My intention is to evoke that magic certitude borne of a dedicated approach. Having caught some idea, I broaden it with weird fibers, give the thing depth, complete a cycle of reasoning by returning to the starting point in a way a sculptor might imagine the pose of a figure hidden in a lump of stone. By marrying feeling and intellect, I find a facility of control. This is what artist’s work and child’s play have in common: at their fullest they’re experiences of being lost in the present. When the pieces are dried and removed from the blotter, I’m amazed. Courting, as it were, the paper. Did I really assist in some small way this object d’art come to be? Floating on the cushioning bosom of tradition, the whimsy of tangential improvisation, how is it I have been present for such creation? How? Papermaking is a goopy chaos of an alchemical process. It is a mess. I know what I said; I don’t know what you heard.

Recommended Citation

Baldwin, Nicholas (2024) "Imitating," Floodwall Magazine: Vol. 2: Iss. 9, Article 43.
Available at: https://commons.und.edu/floodwall-magazine/vol2/iss9/43