Copper 1

"Wallpaper I" is the first piece in a growing series of cathead baskets made from wallpaper. At its core, the work examines how, every day, overlooked materials can be transformed into something new: a two-dimensional, historic printed archive that is disassembled and reassembled into a contemporary, three-dimensional form. "Wallpaper I" continues my exploration of using found materials to open new pathways for color, form, and pattern. Wallpaper sample books provide a curated, uneven range of possibilities, including a combination of prints, experimental colorways, and design variations from 2020. Within these books, some pages are saturated and bold, while others are faded and restrained. When the material is assembled into a basket, these differences are not erased; they are brought into conversation. Color and pattern become more than a visual surface; they generate structure, guide transitions, and create tension. Form develops through the tension between flexibility and rigidity. Wallpaper is designed to lie flat, to be applied to walls, and to settle into seamless continuity once installed. The cathead basket form asks the material to behave differently. It must bend and hold shape. In constructing "Wallpaper I", each strip is forced into new relationships with itself: edges meet at unexpected angles, patterns shift out of perfect alignment, and some prints overlap while others break apart. The playful recognizability of the cathead basket anchors the series, while the assembled outcome leaves room for variation, discovery, and the surprising results of working with what the material offers. Pattern, too, is treated as active rather. Instead of allowing motifs to remain in the background, the work invites the viewer to notice the motifs that repeat and the near repeats that sit just close enough to suggest connection. When the printed elements are cut, layered, and reconfigured, repetition changes meaning. The piece moves away from the expectation of matched design and instead embraces collage and accumulation. In this way, the basket becomes a map of pattern relationships where one motif interrupts another, where color transitions feel sudden, and where a particular print gains importance because it repeats, contrasts, or stands out within the construction. Ultimately, "Wallpaper I" is about transformation. It takes materials meant to be temporary and gives them a second life as sculptural objects. It also treats color, form, and pattern as interconnected forces that work together to shape how the piece is read and experienced. Within the cathead basket structure, Wallpaper I functions as a vessel holding together printed histories in a way that feels intimate and deliberate. As the first work in the series, it establishes an ongoing conversation in which found materials lead the way, and the act of making reveals new possibilities within the familiar.