*This post will be the first in a series of photo essays on artists' studios in Vancouver [and hopefully beyond] that I plan to have published in book form one day.
As my home has always been an ever (r)evolving studio for my varied projects, I am also intrigued by the environs where other artists' creative lives are manifest, and I feel that their milieux should be documented somewhat more as "art installations" in their own right and not just as functioning work spaces where tangible art is birthed. And as such, they may reflect the artistic personalities of the occupants more profoundly than even their own art can.
This idea is inspired in part by a book that I had found in France many years ago titled Entrails, Heads & Tails by Paola Igliori [colour photography by Paola Igliori and black and white photographs by Alastair Thain] published by Rizzoli, 1992.
"In a world where everything is analyzed, fragmented, crucified, we seem at times to lose ourselves in the process. Artists, like children, are the most absolute in creating, materializing their own world. The small everyday things that cover the space between the person and his work chart at times in the simplest way the ground of inspiration."
[from Paola Igliori's introduction to her book]
+++
Jan MacLeod is the first artist to have kindly let me into her studio and given me permission to shoot what I wanted. She has been making paper and artwork from plant materials that she gathers herself for over 30 years now in these two adjoining rooms in a heritage office building in downtown Vancouver.
Jan's dedication to her artform has seen her prodigious creations grace many homes, offices and luxury hotels. She is a long time member of the Circle Craft Co-operative on Granville Island.
Jan MacLeod
I would like to thank Jan for her gracious welcome into her plantpapersphere.
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