The Witches' Pop-up Party

For my new series and artist book Atlas, I explore time, lineage, and culture, while also delving into spirituality, religion, and art. 

For the first few pages, I revisit the adventures of my younger self, searching for meaning and engaging in a number of inspiring and enlivening communities such as New Age and Wicca, and attempt to depict a fanciful vision of these pursuits. 

​I envisioned a pop-up page. 

​Pop-up books are a whole artform in itself, and I am just beginning my first attempts at integrating them. 

​First, I needed to make a pop-up mock-up to see how it works.

When I got that down, I created a mandala-like shape using a stencil. I utilized a number of iridescent and interference acrylic paints to make the sparkly effect. Then I cut out bits of it to make it lacey.

Solving the Witch Problem

I really struggled with how to paint my fanciful witchy-women! It seemed the more I worked on it, the worse it got!!!

So I started looking online for examples and kept running into these adorable pictures of women's circles from the early 1900's- the height of the Spiritualism Movement! So I thought, "Screw it! Why not just trace it?" And I did, and I love it.

Unfortunately, I was so involved with my project, I neglected to take many work in progress pictures. So here is my finished result. 

I cut out the dancing witchy-women, and all the trees. I painted the trees a bluish black and glued them down. Then I applied my mandala. 

But of course, in order to appreciate a pop-up page, you have to see it move! Below is a video of me turning the page. 

You may notice that after the pop-up page, I turn to another page with a similar image. This page is a work in progress, and I am still developing the concept- it is inspired by the left-overs from this finished pop-up page. 
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