Strafella’s typewritten work gives way to a hefty second draft……

I have just come from the workshops of Dieu Donné Papermill in New York City.   As an enthusiast and blogger of fine works on paper, I have always had Dieu Donné on my regular New York City beat.  Interactive and collaborative, Dieu Donné works with both prominent and emerging artists, as well as students, to produce beautiful editions and unique works on hand-made paper.  Rarely do I visit the studios without coveting their latest production.  Often experimental, the work seems to expand the language of the working artist to explore a vocabulary that he or she discovers in the process.  Given the fine quality of the various hand-made papers available, it is often this medium that gives rise to the innovation and finesse of the finished edition or individual work. My most recent visit focused on the work of Allyson Strafella.  Her original abstractions on paper have been widely exhibited and show a rather obsessive, mark making impulse.  Using a typewriter much like the Smith Corona of my father’s I used in high school, Strafella uses a single key, most often that of the colon, to tap, tap, tap her way to a composition that wears thin with her efforts.  Carbon paper is both her medium and her drawing plane, revealing two compositions when complete – that of the paper beneath and the worn carbon sheet itself.  Positive and negative.   Both compelling and worthy of exhibition.

Strafella's typewritten compositions
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Strafella’s most recent work with Dieu Donné uses shapes that are familiar to those tapped out in her carbon works, but instead of subtracting the paper mass with her efforts, the pigmented cotton she adheres to the abaca “paper” sheet gives the surface of this work an almost tangible dimension or form.  With white-gloved hands, I found myself rearranging the 10 ½ by 8 ½ inch sheets as if I were solving a puzzle or trying to piece together a complementary arrangement.  Nothing fit exactly but all of her shapes seem to posit an equilibrium that works.  A single page exhibited on its own works as well, the ethereal base sheet almost miraculously holding on to the heft of the “printed” form created in this papermaking process.

Strafella's variable edition work from Dieu Donne entitled "Spell"

Another stunning pair from Strafella's "Spell" edition