Lynn Sures Nariokotome Boy, 2017. Colored pencil on handmade kenaf paper, 16″ × 24″. (Lynn Sures )

Saturday, October 27. “The Nexus of Being and Place: Interpreting Human Origins in Handmade Paper,” Lynn Sures ✧ “The Driving Force of the Universe Made Visible,” Heather Peters ✧ “Printmaking with Dirca Bark Paper,” Zachary Hudson and Andrew Zandt

Lynn Sures reported on her work funded by the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship into early human and animal origins, beginning with drawings of fossils on her own handmade abaca, flax and hemp paper. After research in museum collections in Washington DC, she traveled to Kenya with her handmade kenaf paper to document archeological sites where early human remains had been found along with evidence of tools and tool making, or “the development of the ‘maker’ in a species that directly preceded ours.” All of these drawings were then reinterpreted in pulp paintings. On the process she says, “These drawings are very literal. I’m trying to understand who I am looking at.”  [Read more]