Creative Work Is A Pulpy Process

By Kendra Bobowick

Anita “Nita” Liebeskind spoke about her recent trip to Africa and the country’s beauty, wildlife, and the impressions left in her mind.

“I would love to have brought back the foliage, but you can’t,” she said. “Whatever I see I have to photograph and remember or leave it.” Once she returned from the trip on which she took seven of her grandchildren she developed some of her film and went to work on the vistas she encountered. Her work is now on display at the C.H. Booth Library through November 1.

Last week the retired paper-making teacher, artist and exhibitor began carefully placing her framed artwork on free-standing dividers at the library just beyond the main desk in the fiction and young adult section. The display includes both the developed photographs and her version of the trip’s images.

She completed her “Safari Sunrise in Botswana” series following her six-week trip and explained the results of her pulp art.

“The pictures in paper are my interpretations,” she said, pointing to the photo images of a giraffe, a sunset, the veldt, and its animal inhabitants. Her artistic process churns out a blend of paper pulp she later settles onto embossed surfaces, and includes swirls of natural dyes, and her creative touch. Using a blender and lint, fiber or cotton, the process prompts her creativity. She then pours a puree into a large container and stirs the pulp. A screened frame drops into the basin and is followed by a second and larger deckle, or wooden frame.

Ms Liebeskind shakes the two frames together and captures the fibers. She then lifts the deckle and frame from the bath to reveal the pulp that remains on the molding. The paper is transferred to a cloth and pressed to rid the material of water. At this stage while the substance is still moist, Ms Liebeskind often opts to press in found items such as grasses, silk, or twigs.

Explaining the enjoyment that has fueled her artistic motivations for the past 12 years, she said, “The pattern and design forms as you’re moving. You can twist and turn and ad what you want … as water and pulp are turning.”

Since her paper making days in the classroom to her workshops and exhibits in museums including the Mattatuck Museum, Brookfield Craft Center, Fine Line Art Gallery in Woodbury, and other local universities and town libraries, she revealed one secret that has kept her hands in the pulpy water.

“I was a Colonial craft teacher … and settled into paper making; it was the most exciting.” Ms Liebeskind said, “Paper-making is my thing. It’s immediate gratification and if you don’t like what you’ve made you just throw it back in the blender.”

Since she began the craft her flair has increased.

“As time goes on it gets more and more embellished,” she said. “It’s really a lot of fun.”

She spent her afternoon on September 28 hauling in framed work carefully draped in cloth, and one by one unveiling her pieces with Caroline Stokes, the library’s curator. Among the series now hanging are the “Safari Sunrise at Botswana,” “The China Series,” and “Island Spirits.”