Artist Jennfier Winters finds her interest in papier mache last year, now on exhibit.
A giraffe at Pier 1 Imports turned Jennifer Winters into papier mache. Its $800 price tag turned her into an artist.
The 30-year-old Plattsburgh resident was in Burlington last July when she spotted the giraffe. Her home was decked out in safari decor, and the giraffe would have made the perfect addition.
The fact that a goraffe made out of old newpapers cost as much as some high quality bedroom sets didn't dampen Winters' interest, "I thought, 'well, I could do that.' So I went home and I did it," she said.
Winters culled much of her papier mache knopwledge from the Internet, surfing the Web for information on everything from homemade glue to glass eyes. Two month 70 hour,and about 30 bottles of Elmer's glue later, she finished the giraffe.
It could have ended there. But this May, Winters' son had a school project on animal habitats. Soon, in addition to the giraffe, Winters had crafted a lion, two cubs, and a zebra. What began as a simple element of interio design was swiftly becoming an artistic endevor.
"Everything hapened so quick," Winters said. Earlier this year, Winters' joined some papier mache Internet group and also started her own. "It's been a real support, and it kind of gets you really wanting to do it," she said.
The groups helped her take the plubge into exhibition. Winters called the Council on the Srts for Clinton County (COACC) and set up a meeting. The next she knew, her mini zoo had shifted loactions from her crowded trailer to prime
Not too shabby for a woman who, although always into crafts, had never considered herself an artist. "I've never been good at drawing regular pictures and painting regualr things,"she said. "But for this - I kind of was surprised that I can do that."
For an art form that can sell for close to £1,000 in high-brow retailers, papier mache is a surprisly simple and cheap form of self-expression. " It's really an inexpensive way of decorating a home, because you're using recycled materials, basically," Winters said. Many of the products she uses - chicken wire, garbage bags, soda bottles - are either household items and easily available. And even novelty items - such as hair and glass eyeballs - can be purchased economically either over the Internet or at a discount supply store. Winter purchased the glass eyeballs for her animals from an online taxidermist. And, of course the main ingredient is most readily available of the all : newspaper.
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But throw out those outdated memories from your third grade arts and crafts projects. Papier mache, at least the way Winters does it, it not just stuffing some garbage bags with newsprint and then covering them sloppily with gummy pieces of glue dipped paper. Winters' artwork is just that - art - and she infuses each piece with a tremendous amount of dedication and diligence. Before she starts anything, she downloads images of what she is recreating from the Internet, trying to get as many different shots of as many different angles as possible. After that, she begins making the armature, or skeleton.
Each piece takes Winters an average of 70 to complete. "It's a long process," she said.
Adding to the length of the process is the fragility of the medium. "The giraffe's taken a beating," she said. In transit to the COACC, it fell and the whole of the face cracked. "I had to come over here and repair it - emergency repair," Winters said, smiling. But she also added that, unlike most art forms, papier mache is very easily repairable. "Just add a little more paper, then paint back over it," she said.
But the benefits of Winters' newfound artistry far outweigh the inconveniences. Every day,she receives e-amils from her Web site, each full of praise and congratulations. Several people have spoken to her about purchasing pieces - including a zoo in Rochester. And Winters now is looking forward to starting her own business, and hopefully setting up an online art gallery that would show the work of several artists.
Perhaps the biggest benefit Winters is reaping, howewver, is the knowledge that she has found what she wants to do with the rest of her life. "I've always been interested in crafts," she said. "And I've always been crafty."
But there is a difference between craft and art, and Winters has most certainly stepped to the other side of the line. Her upcoming works are very different - including a more comceptual sculture of a flower with the face of a woman (based on a drawing from her 11 year old daughter) - and she would love to create a papier mache Harley-Davidson, using a stretched out bicycle for the armature. Winters has also started to dabble in painting, entering her first piece, a very serenly abstract of her family into a painting contest.
But Winter realizes, sadly, that making a living for oneself as a Champlain Valley artist is just as fragile and tenuous as the paper art she creates. "This area," she said, looking out the COACC display window toward Margaret St,. "it's really hard to sell art."
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