Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following was published in the spring issue of All About Her, a regional newspaper insert publication.

Gibby Waitzkin comes from a family of gardeners, so it’s not surprising that she grew-up to be an artist with a passion for handcrafting paper made from plants she has grown.   Waitzkin, a member of Virginia’s Round the Mountain artisan network, describes her art as “a personal exploration that blends artist-made paper with photographs, scanned imagery, and dried and encaustic-preserved flowers from my gardens to evoke memories of family, friends and places.”

As a child with a hearing disability that was eventually corrected by surgeries, Waitzkin showed an early interest in drawing.  She was raised in Greensboro, North Carolina, and went to art school for photography and printmaking at the University of Georgia.  In the 1960’s, when Waitzkin was in high school, her parents bought land in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Floyd County.   “I always wanted to have a place here.  All my journeys have been about coming back,” she said.

Looking out from her Floyd home to a pond where an old sarvisberry tree (the namesake of her home-based studio and gallery) sits prominently on the bank, Waitzkin said with a sweeping gesture, “Most everything you see, we planted.  We’re trying to bring back the natural eco-system.”

Twelve years ago Waitzkin and her husband Buz bought their 30 acre Floyd home site from her parents. Living in Washington D.C., they commuted to Floyd regularly, building their home, Waitzkin’s art studio, and an office studio for her husband.   It wasn’t until March 1^st of this year that the couple moved in permanently.  Waitzkin explained how she started making paper soon after they purchased their Floyd property and how her immersion into it was prompted by a rare nerve disease – the result of a series of foot surgeries for bunions that began when she was 18.

“I had gotten so handicapped that I couldn’t walk more than a block,” she related.  “My husband said ‘there’s no more excuses.’ He encouraged me to focus on my art.”

Although Waitzkin’s disability forced her to give up her successful 25-year design communication business in D.C., the life changes she made because of it have not only led to a flourishing of art but have been instrumental in her healing.

“Every time I came to Floyd my pain syndrome was less.  I realized that the plants I was growing had healing powers and that working with them helped to heal me.  When I was making my paper, I found I could spend hours on my feet,” she said, adding that the peaceful beauty of the countryside also contributed to her improved health.

Making paper is a time intensive activity that, in Waitzkin’s case, involves growing, harvesting, shredding, cooking, rinsing, beating, pouring, and drying before plants or digital photo images are added.

“I spent several years only cooking and beating fibers before I made a single sheet of paper.  I was just learning everything I could,” she said.  Because of the steps and care it takes to make paper, Waitzkin – who has worked with author Helen Hiebert and other master papermakers– has a hard time estimating how much time her pieces take to create.

A visit to Waitzkin’s Sarvisberry Gallery & Studio is like going on a Green Living tour.  The energy efficient space was built with sustainable technologies, has a cistern that collects rain water for paper making, and blown in insulation of recycled paper.  Waitzkin personally knew many of the trees that were used in the building’s construction and in picture frames that hold her works.  She enthusiastically pointed out frames that were custom-made from blighted Hemlocks that were harvested and milled on the property.

Waitzkin’s gallery and studio also reflect her years of artistic study and experience.  Grasses, ferns, milkweed, cat tails, bamboo, lavender, iris, and other botanicals are used either as the pulp base of her paper or are embedded into it.  The plants are chosen for their healing properties, the history of their names, and the different shades of earthy color they produce.

“Every piece has many levels of meaning for me and I love sharing that. Iris means “a message.” The Scottish meaning of thistle is “hard work.”  I’m probably the only person who actually grows thistle,” she joked.

While showing her papermaking beater and press and a freezer full of fiber pulp, Waitzkin noted that acid free paper and inks give her work an archival longevity, which is particularly important for pieces that showcase family history, such as the three panel piece that hangs over her studio desk.  It features old photographs and postcards sent by her grandfather to her grandmother when he retraced his father’s journey out west during the Gold Rush.

Honoring family is also evident in a composition displayed in Waitzkin’s gallery in which botanicals have been embedded on patchwork shapes replicated from a quilt her grandmother made.   A work in progress that incorporates a friend’s wedding flowers onto long sheets of handmade paper will be used in the construction of a screen room divider and shows Waitzkin’s varied range as an artist and her interest in marking life passages.

Another piece made by Waitzkin that’s been getting a lot of attention hangs in the Troika Gallery, the new contemporary craft gallery in downtown Floyd that Waitzkin co-owns with potter Silvie Granatelli and Susan Icove, a lighting designer.   The 44’ x 33’ image, titled “To Sustaining our Future,” (pictured above) features an image of Buffalo Mountain, Floyd’s highest peak.  Re-designed from a photograph by Fred First, the image is the logo for Floyd’s SplitRail Eco-fair, an annual event that Waitzkin helped to launch in the fall of 2009.   The image is bordered with an arrangement of flowers and plants symbolizing simplicity, justice, strength, unity, and more.   Proceeds from its sale are slated to go to SustainFloyd, the grassroots group that hosted the eco-fair and recently built a community farmers market in the center of downtown Floyd in an effort to foster sustainable local economy.

Always active in the community, whether she starting a community garden (as Waitzkin did when she lived in New York), participating in climate change action, serving on non-profit boards, fundraising, or hosting papermaking workshops at her Sarvisberry studio, Waitzkin brings passion to her life’s work and all her activities have an underlying theme.  “Everything I do has grown out of my love of nature and my connection to it,” she said.            Colleen Redman

Photos: 1. Gibby points out some of her pieces on display at Troika Gallery. 2. Gibby with the room screen divider she is working on for a friend’s wedding gift.  3. To Sustaining our Future.   Visit Gibby’s website HERE.