The Paper Temple
In 2012 I was invited to bring my studio into the Pence Gallery of Davis California for the month of October. The idea was to let the public watch me work. I took the opportunity to build a Paper Temple in the gallery and to invite visitors to participate in the project by creating cut paper elements that were incorporated into one of the walls of the Paper Temple or were hung as visual wishes that swirled above it.
Hundreds of individuals, as well as school groups, contributed elements and many returned periodically throughout the month to see how the temple was changing and growing.
The completed Paper Temple was composed of six suspended panels that curved inward to form niches, each with an opening that looked into a central “Sacred Space”. The niches had different characters; Wisdom and Logic, Sorrow and Loss, Love and Devotion, Anger/Passion, Community Garden/Nature, and Stillness. These reflected five different ways that one might approach one's idea of the sacred.
