Poetry & Literature

I love the physical process of cutting into paper with a knife. I lightly draw on the back side of the paper first. It is important to consider, as I am working, how the piece will look when it is reversed. When I begin to cut, I find my knife has a mind of its own. Pieces and scraps of paper begin flying until, at last I have released, through cutting, a stark, graphic image in negative and positive shapes. The challenge is to keep the entire image intact within the frame of the paper without the whole piece falling apart. The more I cut out of the paper, the more fragile it becomes.