Crush (cut and shredded love letters)

Rejection Letters

Undergrowth (cut and shredded portfolio of drawings)

1997 Tax File

I first saw this last image of Nava Lubelski's intricate paper sculpture of her 1997 tax documents over at Dude craft about this time last year, and recently revisited her site to see several sculptures in the series.

In her artist statement Lubelshi talks about the reminiscence of tree like cross sections in these works, where the concentric circles reveal the age of the tree and the climate changes through years of it's life. The act of sculpting these pieces becomes, in part, a desperate response to overwhelming waste, an attempt to "repair" the original tree.

I'm drawn to these pieces on so many levels, but I think one of the most exciting aspects about them to me is the way they make tangible a kind of spiritual digestion....the practice of patiently sitting with life, processing it/piecing it apart, and then letting the outcome of that time become the building blocks for new energy, new forms of creativity, the conscientious use of all of life's resources, making something good from what might have begun as "waste."