Sheryl Jaffe

"Good Morning"

Jaffe's 6" Paper-Tree-Book-Installation at the

Cahoon Museum of American Art

Cotuit MA.

Featured in Print and Book Arts:

Conversations in Art and Words

September 25-December 22, 2024

Opening Reception Oct 5

Papermaking Workshop November 2, 1-4 PM

This Tree-Book-Sculpture is inspired by my loving relationship with trees and the poem “On The Pulse of Morning” by Maya Angelou. Angelou’s poem resonates with the profound process of reconciliation, acceptance of the past and hope for the future. The trees in my life have personality and spirit, they give generously of shade, oxygen and habitat and they emanate profound beauty. The installation is meant to honor the dignity and express the oneness of all people, plants, trees and the earth.

In Japan, the word Kami is used for paper and also for Shinto deities (2 distinct characters, same pronunciation), The primordial Kami reside in the celestial world of sky, the lesser Kami live in the humble world among us. The transpiration of trees echoes the Kami, bringing water and nutrients up from mother earth to the upper branches and into the sky to then return back to earth as life giving rainwater to complete the cycle. Trees are integral to this spiritual and necessary process.

Diane Beresford-Kroeger has noted “To maintain life on this planet we have to have a Green Cover. We, as many other beings, have to breathe. Plant more trees, forests because we have taken so much.

Here's a great article on Sheryl's work

Made With Water

Sculptures, prints and installation with

local, exotic and invasive plant fiber and handmade paper

Wellfleet's Preservation Hall

October 4-29, 2024

Opening Reception October 10, 4-6 PM

Artist's Talk October 16, 6PM

Sheryl Jaffe Explores Life’s Interconnectedness - The Pr

Latest Show at the Provincetown Commons

Washashores, Natives and Invasives

Some of my best friends are plants, and now I learn that genetically speaking we are more than 60% identical to bananas and fruit flies. LUCA, our Last Universal Common Ancestor lived about 3 or 4 billion years ago. Our great, great…. Grandmother. NO wonder plant fibers resemble muscle, skin, bones and branches. Tree limbs and human limbs need to be refreshed daily with food and water. Luckily for us the trees also provide us with oxygen. What do we give them?

Fibers connect us (by “us” I’m including all living things) across time and space, throughout one lifetime or several generations. What gets passed on genetically? Whether a bean or a human? How does it compare to what lived before? Can genetic traits be coaxed into transforming in the next generation, by JOY?, trauma?, music, art, love?

Some of these plants are Native, some washashore and some invasive; to North America, to Cape Cod. Plants with cellulose fiber and humans have been collaborating for centuries to make cordage, textiles and paper. For my work, they are cooked, usually beaten and then formed in a variety of ways. Each plant has their own personality: color, texture, strength and spirit. Most were found around the Outer Cape, some were imported.

I hope you enjoy looking, and contemplating whatever resonates.

The artworks are 100% plant material, and we humans are about 60% plant material.

Thanks,

Sheryl

The plants included here in this exhibit, in no particular order:

Privet

English Ivy

Codium Tomentosum

Flax

Yellow Flag iris

Cedar

Wisteria vine, inner bark and outer bark

Seaweed, Rockweed

Cotton rag

Mulberry/Kozo

Yucca

Walnut

Miscanthus

Poppy

Lichen

Some of this work shown is still for sale. Check the shop page.

Share the light.

paper made from plants

I mostly work with paper that I make from fibers grown locally, corn stalks, lilies, ginko leaves, horsetail, onionskins.

Immersed in the process, the tactile experiences, the weather and light all effect my work.

My current work explores the moment in the movement.

Color, light, fibers, paper, connections: these are all the things that keep us connected.