2009 — Canopy Remnants, Michelle Forsyth

Michelle Forsyth
2009
University of Southern Maine

Michelle Forsyth (2009)

Screen-print on hand-cut paper, ink on hand-cut paper, Color-aid paper, sandpaper, watercolor, gouache, yarn, beads, sequins, foam, felt, pins, wire, aluminum-coated fabric, and scoreboard on framed table.

For a period of ten weeks during the spring 2009 semester, Visiting Artist-in-Residence Michelle Forsyth and her class of seven USM students created an elaborate cut-paper installation for USM Art Gallery entitled Canopy.  The students were Aimée Chaput, Rachel Church, Mary Cloutier, Patricia Flynn, Tonya Meikle, Carmen Menjivar, and Nicholas W. Reddy.

Inspired by the Great Fires of ’47 that ravished much of southern Maine, including the town of Waterboro, the artist photographed the re-grown forest canopy in Waterboro. She then created an installation that replicated the colors depicted in one of the photographs. Canopy consisted of several hundred thousand hand-screened, hand-cut, and wire-mounted, leaf-shaped pieces of paper suspended from monofilament. This table, used by the artist and students to make the individual components for the installation, was then covered with the remnants from the installation using the pinholes left behind by the process.