Paper & Ink
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on February 25, 2021.
David Brown took a marbling workshop in New York City just in time, just before the pandemic hit. In late January 2020, he and his daughter Brea attended a class at The Textile Art Center, which led to the development of his new small business, Paper & Ink.
Brown explains the art of marbling as “a decorative technique for textiles and paper that originated in Turkey in the 15th century. It involves floating paints on a water bath, creating a pattern, then applying the paper or textile to the bath, transferring the pattern.”
Recently, Brown hosted a pop-up Valentine’s Day sale at his studio at The Outpost, a complex of rental units and the home of OmniBuild construction contractors at 4243 Floyd Highway. The sale featured Brown’s marbled silk scarves, framed marbled monoprints, marbled greeting cards, hand crafted books and more. It followed a series of outdoor Holiday sales and gave Brown an opportunity to design the prototype for his indoor gallery shop, which is set up in the front of his unit (Bay D) with his workspace in the back.
“It’s a former fertilizer store,” Brown noted, and one that he helped renovate as an OmniBuild carpenter. Brown, who has been a home builder for more than 30 years, was hit by a car in 2019, which brought retirement from full-time physical work quicker than he had anticipated. He had already been making handmade books and journals and was working with screen printing on clothing, so it was a natural progression for him to build on his creative skills. Creative arts run in the family. Brown’s wife Mary is a yoga instructor and one time basket weaver. Daughter Brea is an art therapist and son Sage a photographer.
In his studio, Brown further explained the marbling process. “When you apply the paint, it hits the water and spreads. The second application pushes the first one and there’s a cascading effect,” he said. A mordant solution is applied to the paper or silk before it is set in the water that liquid acrylic paints have been added to. Sometimes a comb is used to move the paint.
Brown gives credit to Floyd’s Community and Economic Development Director Lydeana Martin for help in navigating his fledgling business. He attended a free C4 class on business planning and marketing (on Zoom this year) that Martin heads up. “I owe Lydeana and the C4 a lot in helping to refine my business image,” Brown said.
How has the pandemic played into Brown’s retail business? “It’s slowed me down but has also given me more time to do research and development,” Brown said, noting that some of his research came from watching instructional videos on the internet. He also had time to work out the kinks in the marbleizing process, related to place and climate, humidity and temperature. He discovered that marbleizing didn’t take well with Floyd’s hard water so switched to using distilled water.
Taking it one step at a time, Brown says he can envision how he wants to expand, “as we are hopefully coming out of the pandemic.” He reported that he was scheduled for his first vaccine appointment and felt some relief about that.
The studio shop will soon be open at more regular hours, maybe Thursday – Saturday, Brown says. He plans to give demonstrations and eventually workshops, which he envisions as community building, where individuals, couples or groups can enjoy refreshments, practice marbling and create a scarf or paper design that they can take home.
The richly colorful patterns of Brown’s marbled work are the Paper & Ink’s best selling point. One customer posted on his Etsy shop page (etsy.com/shop/davidbrownstudio), “These are incredibly lovely cards that bring to mind standing on a sandy beach and watching the transition from sunset to twilight over the ocean. There are subtle hints of iridescence that are hard to capture in photos.”
Recently, Brown posted a photo on his Facebook page of a design that he created called “Spanish Wave.” “Sumptuous” and “gorgeous” were some of the words that readers used to describe the work.
_______Colleen Redman
