One part of the Pro Helvetia Residency at Rote Fabrik was about steering towards materials. It was the connection between working with a tool and its connection with how it effected my thinking.

The tools of working were a pen, a paper cutter and paper. And this shift for me in these three months was to a fine craft paper carving tool, a wood . carving tool and craft paper to make hand cut cut outs.

I used Pfeil Swiss carving tool on a block of soft wood and Japan D-400 NT art knife pen for cutting with precision on paper. The shift was to experience the movement of creating depth while creating a line and exploring the nature of precision and pressure.

The pressure is a different measurement when done through exertion of the hand on wood as to chisel into the wood surface.

The precision of the paper cutting knife allows very minute cutting as compared to the traditional multi purpose cutter.

The papers bought from different stores. Jumbo all purpose store, Zumstein art supplies store and Bosener Art warehouse in zurich gave me options of having craft paper with soft foam like surface, with varying thickness. For me a discovery was of a German manufactured paper meant for three dimensional cut outs. It was somewhere between paper for writing and cardboard paper. My routine wandering in the city led me to find a gift shop under the HB Zurich main station. So a lot of time was consumed in searching for materials.

In this process, as i placed cut outs in my studio space at Rote Fabrik. I realised its important to create this variations of tools and materials.

Polystyrene Foam blocks allowed me to make a transition from paper cut outs to the wood block. The light blue blocks challenged new possibilities of being able to draw with a fine SAW, a precision paper cutting knife using a wood carving tool to any fine blade tool.

I felt that when i shifted to working in wood, the soft wood block had a sense of what it means to work with something SOLID. i attuned myself to the sounds and the feeling one derives to chiseling a wood block and a foam block. It became all about the calculations one ends up doing mentally in what chiselling tool to work with. So i bought more wood carving tools to work with.