Center of attraction: paper art

The Iditarod Art Exhibit at the Dorothy Page Museum has an undeclared main attraction this year; and when you visit the show you will see for yourself.

Each year the Valley Arts Alliance organizes this event and on the second Saturday there is a reception from 2 to 4 p.m. This event is free and open to the public.

The idea is to display local talent showing the theme of the Iditarod dogs and the trail scenery. There are always a wide variety of art pieces, including two-dimensional and three-dimensional art, and this year is no exception. The work is quite varied for such a small venue, but you can expect the unexpected.

“Timberwolves in Winter,” is a framed piece by Jacki Cabo of Palmer. This is not a painting, but at first it appears to be. It is three-dimensional, but at first appearance it looks two-dimensional. The two wolves in the picture, with their noticeable texture, captivate you into a world of the arctic and you forget they are not real. This piece is the showstopper of this year’s exhibit.

Fifty-six students took a field trip to the museum as part of an art appreciation class with myself, their professor Suzanne Bach, at Matanuska-Susitna College. The majority of students selected the wolf painting on which to elaborate for their required written assignment.

Why is this piece of work so intriguing? The white snow glistens, literally, with glitter and the little frozen stream makes a path up to the wolves, where staring faces seem to invite you to stare back. The three-dimensional effect is fascinating, especially when told by the curator at the museum that this is not a painting, that the entire piece is made of paper carefully cut and glued into place.

Knowing a little about the technique of the artisan adds to the mystery and charm. Students gathered around this piece to discuss what they were seeing.

When the Palmer artist was contacted for more information, Cabo’s first comment about her craft was, “I don’t need any publicity. I don’t call myself an artist.”

It turns out that this longtime Valley resident who came to Palmer with her parents in the 1930s as Colonists, never really dabbled with arts and crafts until her husband retired from his North Slope work and they went to Arizona to “get out of the cold.” This was some years back before her husband passed away.

The 80-something-year-old Jacki says, “While my husband was golfing, I had to find something to do. So, I learned how to make porcelain dolls, weave baskets and do Canadian toile from various people who were sharing skills in a retirement community in Yuma, Ariz.”

So it was here that she learned the craft of paper cutting from a Canadian lady named Irene.

“I had a good teacher,” she says. “She was a perfectionist and I had other teachers not half as particular as she was, and it shows. (It) took me months to learn to do this Canadian style paper toile. Lots of people don’t believe it is all paper.”

With practice, she has become very much the expert, yet even now says, “I throw many away because I am not happy with them. If I don’t like it, I shred it.”

She says she had one she “worked on a full day and then started over. Once I start getting bad cuts and it won’t curl, I stop. It’s not worth it, because you have to start all over again — or I do; a lot of people don’t.”

Cabo went on to explain that she purchased a kit from Canada of the “Timberwolves in Winter.” There were seven sheets of flat paper with the same image on each. “The color comes from the prints you start with. There is no painting,” explains Cabo.

The kit is clearly laid out on how to do the required layering, but learning to do the specific cuts takes skill. Each different style of cutting results in an extraordinary texture that is unique to the object.

So cutting the fur of a timberwolf, where the cuts look like eyelashes, is different from cutting leaves on a tree where there is a rounder shape, or the feathers of a blue jay that are airy and fluffy.

The basic tools used for paper cutting, besides a cutting board, are tiny curved manicure scissors, craft knives, silicon for building depth from underneath and glue for making the various layers stay together and in their proper places.

Research shows that paper crafting and paper cutting is an ancient form of folk art that has been passed down for generations. There is Chinese and Japanese, German and Pennsylvania Dutch, Polish, Mexican paper cutting, and perhaps other origins.

Cabo is not aware of anyone else locally who knows how to do this Canadian-style crafting the way she learned, with building up “for the relief effect.” When asked if she could teach others, her reply was she “doesn’t have the patience to teach it.”

“I’ve never seen any (thing like it) in Alaska, except I taught my girlfriend how, and she (has since then) passed away,” she says. “As far as I know I am the only one doing it and won a first-place ribbon at the Alaska State Fair.

“My mother was very talented. She did anything she wanted to do, painting, tatting,” she continues about her background. About her own skills, she says, “To me, I just take it for granted. If someone asks me, I will do it for someone. I do enjoy crafts and decorations.”

When asked if the intricate cutting makes her hands hurt, she says, “Yes, I have arthritis, so I am not doing as much as I used to.”

It would take a long time to complete a piece as a beginner, but she says she has now done “a couple of dozen, I suppose, (starting) maybe 15 years ago. This year I haven’t done any. I have not been in the mood. I can whip one out in a day if I had too, but I would rather not.”

It makes you wonder if you will have the chance to see her lovely work on display again anytime soon. It also makes you appreciate a work of art that can attract so much attention in an exhibit without even trying.

Suzanne Bach is the fine arts coordinator at Mat-Su College and can be reached at creative@alaska.com.