ON Mick Fredrickson: A Sense of Place

Winter 2007

Winter 2007

:

Volume

22

, Number

2

Article starts on page

New Mexico is indeed the land of enchantment. It is also a place of timelessness, sharp contrasts, and rugged honesty—both of landscape and human temperament. The ever-present Southwestern geology looks as if it happened yesterday instead of millions of years ago. This ancient land, the enormous ever-changing day and night sky, the prevalence of indigenous peoples and their cultures, and the time-honored earth-based architecture add further to the sense that one has dropped back to another century, even to another era. The demographics of New Mexico are also different from the rest of the country. All newcomers—whether they came in the 1700s, the 1970s, or yesterday—suddenly have more in common than they would anywhere else in the United States. Anyone who is not an Indian or a Hispanic joins, by definition, the remaining group, "the Anglos." Many newcomers to New Mexico have come in part out of a desire to make great personal changes, to live in a less material-centered, less political, less society-oriented world, to a place more in tune with the bigger picture of natural existence. For some of the newer Anglos here, this shift is not on their conscious horizon, but manifests itself after arrival. The very features and atmosphere that set New Mexico apart are what have attracted and drawn visual artists, writers, and other creative types to live and work there for over a century. Artists have in turn contributed to New Mexico's unique character while at the same time reinventing themselves here in the valley of the Rio Grande. Mick Fredrickson migrated to Santa Fe from Colorado where he had lived for many years.

Other Articles in this Issue

Review of Pulp Function

Review of A Tribute to Dard Hunter

Make Paper, Create Art, Will Travel

Fujiwara Yuki's Silent Incursion

ON Mick Fredrickson: A Sense of Place

Desert Journey: A Collaboration of Art and Advocacy

"...And Nature Will Work With You"

Understanding the Scientific Mind

Research as a Path in Papermaking

Thirty-One Years of Field Research in Traditional Hand Papermaking

Artist's Notes on Dongba Paper

The Vatman's Shake and the Lure of Papermaking History

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Fredrickson graduated with a fine arts degree from Denver University and worked as an oil painter. Other occupations that have fed his family and his imagery include jobs as an exhibition designer, set designer, illustrator, graphic designer, carpenter, teacher, and horse wrangler. In 1978 Fredrickson traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area where he met John Babcock, Chuck Hilger, and Joe Zirker, all artists active in hand papermaking early on, using paper as a medium rather than a surface. Fredrickson ON Mick Fredrickson: A Sense of Place jane m. farmer Red Oxide Open, 2005, 29 x 29 inches, pigmented flax pulp on canvas. Hold That Thought, 2005, 44 x 48 inches, pigmented flax pulp on canvas. All photos courtesy of the artist. winter 2007 - 33 was intrigued by their use of paper pulp to form three-dimensional sculptures and installations. Fredrickson worked with these artists and came away with a desire to do his own work in handmade paper. Over the years in Colorado, Oregon, and in Santa Fe, Fredrickson experimented with a wide range of papermaking techniques and processes. He laminated materials within paper sheets, cast body parts in pulp, worked sculpturally in relief and in the round, and created two-dimensional wall pieces—sometimes exclusively with paper, sometimes in combination with other media. He was looking for his own unique style; yet nothing seemed right. When asked why he continued to work in handmade paper pulp, his response was "I haven't yet done all I want to do with paper." After years of seeking his own handmade paper style and trying for commercial success, Fredrickson felt a strong desire to satisfy an inner need to bring handmade paper closer to the way he had been painting many years ago. Fredrickson's most recent works demonstrate his successful shift toward a painterly approach to paper. He is working with a finely beaten flax pulp to which he adds pigments and formation aid. He applies the resulting paste-like medium to stretched canvas using brushes and trowel-like broad blades, as if he were using oil paints and a palette knife. The results are sweeping areas of natural pigments that reflect those that prevail in both the landscape and architecture of New Mexico. To these broad areas of color, he has added some precise lines and angles. These act as a freeze-frame for the floating masses of pigments that echo the local adobe walls and structures. For example, in Red Oxide Open, one of the first of this series done in early 2005, muted reds and adobe colors are framed and accented by animated and delicate lines of black pulp that capture the light of a moment. Red Oxide Open previews two directions the most recent works have taken. Portrait locks the frame into a fixed, mysterious portal; whereas the most recent, Cañon Speaks, enlarges on the more evanescent, ephemeral possibilities seen in Red Oxide Open. Fredrickson's new works are unique in process and classic in appearance. The shapes are reminiscent of the pigments and impastos of Hartley, of the intensity of Rothkos, of the simplicity of O'Keefes; yet they are unique to Mick Fredrickson. The quiet success of these works is another of the mysterious lessons that are taught by patience, learning to listen, letting go of the struggle—all lessons delivered by the landscape and mindscape of New Mexico. Portrait, 2006, 48 x 48 inches, pigmented flax pulp on canvas. Cañon Speaks, 2006, 41 x 48 inches, pigmented flax pulp on canvas. Portrait of Mick Fredrickson. Photo: Sarah Hewitt.