Edges

All papers have edges and edges mean things. This post will try and unpick some of the issues surrounding edges as well as introducing a few technical pointers to think about when working with flat surfaces that have boundaries.

The concept of the edge is a complex one involving, psychology, (concerning the degree of separateness or connection that we perceive between things, or simply a divide between one thing and another), aesthetics and visual metaphor. Edges are the boundaries within which you work and how you physically control and conceptualise these, shapes the way your practice is read.

Aesthetics is a domain of philosophy and the edge can be conceptualised as being part of the discourse surrounding the frame. You could think of a drawing on a sheet of paper as a world within a world. (The same is true of a painting or screen based image) It is separate from the world and yet part of it. The edge, boundary or frame then becomes the space between the ‘real’ world and the world of the image. Jaques Derrida has written extensively about this space and uses the term ‘the parergon’ which he describes as coming “against, beside, the work done,…it touches and cooperates within the operation, from a certain outside, but neither simply outside nor simply inside”. (Derrida, 1978) The edge or frame being the boundary between the way we think about art and the way we act within the world. One way to think about this is that the ‘real’ world is reflected upon within art by bringing it inside the frame, however the world inside the frame is of course still existing in the real world. What is different though is that we ‘read’ this inside world ‘aesthetically’, it being the space of Kant’s ‘disinterested interest’. The edge or frame signifies that we are to read this special object differently to other objects in the world. This allows the artist to deal with Metonymy, a concept that can be applied to something that is visibly present but which represents another object or subject to which it is related but absent. (The original use of metonymy was as a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is called not by its own name but rather by the name of something associated in meaning with that thing or concept. In the visual arts it is often used as a type of replacement, paper substitutes for skin etc.) Earlier posts on mimesis open out other ideas associated with this.

You can also simply see the edge of your paper as the edge of the world, to go any further you simply drop off the edge and fall into oblivion. Therefore the closer you get to the edge, the closer you are to a metaphorical death. The black edge of the mourning card being a symbol that uses this concept.

An undertaker's card with black edge.

Borders, edges and frames are of course physical essentials and can be controlled in several ways. Each approach will affect our understanding of the relationship between a sheet of paper and the world.

The sharp guillotined edge. 

Sharp cut edges suggest not only the machined nature of the process, but the drama of a sudden ending. The paper is literally cut off. This may be cut off from a roll or cut out of a sheet, in either case, it will have been cut out of a larger context. The cut edges suggest an isolation from its previous existance, its edges give no clue to its previous life, which has been cut clean away. The eye meets this type of edge suddenly and there is no information to be gained beyond the sharpness of the cut. This may of course be at times not fully completed, half-cut, the surface not quite cut through, this of course suggesting an uncompleted act of violence. Because there is no mediation between the paper and the coming of this type of edge into our field of vision, our looking simply stops at the edge, we drop off a sheer cliff face of looking and when drawing have to either completely avoid or ignore the paper’s dead ends.

A good book binder will be able to tell if a paper has been guillotined or cut with shears.

Compare the cut edge to a deckle edge. A deckle edge is created by the mould making process. When the wet paper is drawn from the vat, the frame allows excess water to drain away through the mesh. However as the water streams away it also pulls some of the paper fibres over the edge of the frame, these create the unique look of mould made paper, the edge being a clear reminder of the process of making, the paper’s history embedded within its appearance. When we look at the surface of mould made papers the first thing we are aware of is how they are made, the mesh structure that was attached to the frame is embedded into the texture of the paper surface and as we look across the paper surface, our eyes come to the edge and there is a change in appearance, the paper is slightly thinner and its fibres are revealed as part of the deckle structure. This edge tells us about the paper, it signifies its history and above all the paper is understood as a whole sheet, it was made to be the size and shape it is, not cut down from a larger entity. It looks hand made and suggests a richer interior life.

A deckle edge. 

So how might you work with these issues? Sometimes you have to cut papers to size. If you want to be in control of the dynamics of a rectangle sometimes sheets of paper have to be much thinner or closer to a square. If you are using paper with a natural deckle edge a cut side looks wrong. Therefore you can tear the paper in order to achieve a much softer edge, one that is much more in character with the deckles. You can tear off an edge using a ruler or metal straight edge. Fold the paper over and use a bone folder to firm it down (the college shop sells bone folders for creasing and folding papers, they are made of hard white plastic) then holdiing the paper down with the flat of your hand, work the straight edge through the fold and it will tear away an edge gently enough to appear like a deckle. 

A large metal ruler is an essential part of an artist's kit. 

For an edge slightly sharper but not too sharp, again use the bone folder but use it to burnish the fold slightly and then use a blunt knife rather than a straight edge to break the fold’s fibres. Other ways of roughening up the edges can be to clamp a pile of guillotined papers to the edge of a table and roughen the edges with a file. (You need two clamps and a bar of wood to do this properly) ‘Feathering’, drawing the blade of a very sharp knife or razor over the edge of a paper on the underside and then scraping away part of the surface at an angle is also sometimes done. You can of course be very inventive with this, wetting edges, rubbing them, beating them, applying colour (think of old books when they colour the edges of pages), there are lots of possibilities all of which change the appearance of the edge and direct the viewer’s attention to this very particular but often overlooked aspect of all sheets of paper. If you were a painter the edge of the canvas would be vital to you, it is exactly the same with a drawing.

At the core of this edge business is the difference between using the paper as a window into another world, as opposed to using it as an object. This is the key issue in relation to the frame and different types of mounting that can be done when presenting the work.

A frame or border can be placed around an image (this includes leaving a clean border around a print), the border can then act as a separator from the ‘real’ world or window into a world within a world. This is Derrida’s parergon issue. By doing this we single out the image as belonging to a separate reality. However it is of course impossible to separate anything from the real world, all things are by definition part of it. Therefore by suggesting that we can, this can be read as a type of lie. (See the posts on mimesis and Plato’s concerns about this) In order to overcome this issue we can instead present the artwork as an object. An object that has a reality of its own, but not a reality separate from the one we experience everyday. The paper should then be presented as paper, not window mounted, edges clearly seen and hung in such a way that the reality of the situation is clear.

In order to work with these issues my advice is to photograph how artists are hanging work.

A recent addition to hanging methods is the small strong magnet. This means you don't have to put holes in the paper. 

Before you can use magnets you need to put screws into the wall in the exact place you need them. The iron of the screw head provides the magnet with something to bond with, so don't use brass screws.

Some artists use elaborate clips and wire frameworks to hang heavy pieces. Again this requires a lot of preparation beforehand. 

Sometimes the hanging method takes over, in this case bulldog clips are being used to join papers and create an elaborate structure that moves the thinking process into wider sculptural concerns. These edges between disciplines are often fascinating. 

There are of course lots of variations between the two extremes of framing and hanging, my own work always causes me problems as to where I want the read to start and I often use a half-way house, floating the paper off a backboard (to emphasise its reality) and yet putting the whole lot behind a frame, suggesting its separate nature as a narrative.

The point as always is that there is plenty to think about and that you as artists need to be in control of what you are doing, and control usually leads to invention because you have to make more refined decisions.

See also:

Drawings as exhibition proposals
Trapping and framing
Framing a large drawing
The frame and the banner
Fixings and fittings
Hanging large drawings
More on framing
From drawing to installation

Paper: A material conversation