POEMS

The Collection


Walking upon Summer sand
Searching with eye and hand
For a shell that mimes "it is I"
Sentiment found in brine's reprise

Stepping across the shifting line
Of ocean sand and spray
A shell called pick me up now
Before the tide carries me away

Chase me as I gently tumble
In that lazy receding wave
I will go with you
For we both have much to say

copyright Jonathan Jay Babcock 

 The Collection- Signed -  Unique collaborative  art work for sea and shell lovers. Removable from wrapping, suitable for framing.
Handmade abaca fiber paper embedded with shells by May Babcock. Poem by artist's father, Jonathan Jay Babcock.
maybabcock.wordpress.com         maybabcock.com          Paperslurry.com
May Babcock is an interdisciplinary artist based in Providence, Rhode Island. Her studio techniques combine hand papermaking, printmaking, sculpture, alternative process photography, and book-arts techniques, creating artwork that addresses contemporary landscapes. She gathers sketches and materials from each site to create innovative installations and works of paper.
She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and printmaking in 2008. Directly after, she joined the graduate printmaking program at the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, earning her Masters of Fine Arts degree in 2011.
Babcock exhibits nationally and internationally, and most recently has shown at The National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute, Brown University's Granoff Center for the Arts, The Center for Book Arts and Sofia, Bulgaria in Responsive Paper, an exhibition of the IAPMA Congress 2018.  She has taught courses in printmaking, papermaking, drawing, and two-dimensional design across the country, including Rhode Island School of Design, Women's Studio Workshop, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. In 2017, Babcock was awarded a RISCA Project Grant, the Carelink public art commission, and an artist residency with Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. Additionally, she is the founder of Paperslurry.com, a blog dedicated to promoting the art and craft of hand papermaking. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Hand Papermaking Magazine.
Artist Statement
Landscapes are not just something to observe or depict. They are complex motifs that can offer clues to a culture.
I begin with a specific site, where I collect fibers, materials, and drawings to gain a psychological impression of a place, and poignant evidence of human activity. As a hand papermaker and printmaker, I see my work as an adventurous hybrid between the two processes. Experimentation in the studio invigorates my artistic process. Collected fibers turn into paper pulp, pulp used to cast carved woodcuts, create sculpture, form irregular sheets for book-forms and large pulp painting prints.