Enough Pie collaborated with artist Kris Westerson, assisted by volunteers from the community, to present four individual Street Pulp events, each at a different location in the Upper Peninsula. Working outside in parking lots and playgrounds, community members of all ages made and decorated paper from pulp containing recycled clothing and paper collected from the community before the event.
Using these community-made sheets of paper, the artist created a long accordion book. The book resides at Enough Pie HQ now, given back to the community after traveling to different locations around the Upper Peninsula for display. The book serves as a tangible reminder of learning, creativity, collaboration and transformation.
What a wonderful celebrate the culmination of a true creative placemaking collaboration with artist Kris Westerson! Street Pulp was an idea Kris brought to Enough Pie in early 2014 and we were honored to help fund her project and collaborate with her for 2 public events during the fall of last year.
“The project and exhibition explore the idea of creative placemaking in the upper peninsula. The transformative process from fiber to pulp to paper and then to the object of artists’ book is an apt analogy for creative placemaking. Fiber does not change its nature, only its form, just as creative placemaking will change the form, but not the nature of the upper peninsula.
The three artists’ books in the exhibition are comprised of the handmade sheets pulled by the participants during the Street Pulp events. I selected the accordion book structure for the books that include individual sheets made by makers and the artist. I chose this book structure because it evokes the connectivity of community. Similar to each member of the community, each sheet is individual and connected to another in a variety of ways – in the book and in the flesh.”
Read more about the process of turning fiber or plant material into paper on Kris’s blog where she describes the genesis and purpose of Street Pulp.