Community pitches in to create paper art installation

The Weight of Paper can be interpreted many ways. It could refer to the physical weight, the lightness of one sheet compared to the heaviness of a box of books, but it could also refer to the burden of what is written on the paper and the importance of the message.

Through her latest art project, Liz Eakins invites people to think about the different ways paper impacts our lives.

During the Creemore Festival of the Arts, Eakins is mounting several paper elements at Station on the Green in an immersive installation created with the help of the community.

The elements of the show will include papier maché rocks, a quilt made from Japanese paper, a mountain of shredded paper and suspended paper garlands in the form of a tunnel.

Eakins chose to make the rocks out of back issues of The Creemore Echo, symbolizing the rocks of the community, being the stories of the people in the community, and the newspaper itself.

She has been welcoming people to contribute, by attending papier maché and sewing workshops and by the time the show is hung, many hands will have contributed to the work.

The sewers have been stitching together clippings from old books, making them into long garlands. When a thousand of them are placed in formation in the centre of the room, they will form a tunnel that people can walk through.

“Some people may find it oppressive and claustrophobic, and some people may find it warm and playful, others may find they want to read everything,” said Eakins.

The books are unsellable discards from the Station’s book sale and the Clearview Public Library; novels, poetry, medical texts, dictionaries, quotations, plays and foreign language books, some with handwritten notations and underlined passages.

Eakins said the idea is to be enveloped in words but it will mean different things to different people.

“To me, art is your own experience, your own reaction to something,” she said.

Eakins has also been collecting shredded paper, both personal and professionals documents, which will be piled in the exhibition space.

Eakins also enlisted the stitching expertise of members of the Mad and Noisy Quilters. Some quilters have sewn many, many squares into larger squares, which will eventually be pieced together to make a 12- by 25-foot paper quilt

“It has been great to meet new people and work with so many people,” she said adding she is grateful for their participation, knowing that people have their own projects on the go.

Eakins is still looking for people to sew the garlands, which simply entails sewing a straight line through paper, and is still collecting shredded paper. Call 705-466-2680.

Get a sneak peek of the installation at a champagne reception, sponsored by Chestnut Park real estate agents Cheryl MacLaurin and Rob McAleer, which will take place at Station on the Green on Friday, Sept. 30 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Selections from the Artists on Location show will also be on display and there is a good chance many of the artists will be in attendance.