Plane | Hidden Money

Hidden Money | Paper Plane Series

NOTE THE SIZE - Size including stand: X-SMALL 4.0h x 4.75w x 5.5d inches 

PAPER PLANES: Upon close inspection, these planes are folded from extremely thin sheets of clay. The surfaces of the planes are covered in graphics from vintage newspapers, advertisements, currency, comics, or any variety of paper ephemera. Some planes are glazed in black or red or multiple colors.  The plane shapes are similar to the dart-style paper airplanes we made as children — folded from coloring book pages or last week’s math assignment.

All the planes show subtle wear, maybe even a minor tear or torn edge. The planes look used - as if they had been on a journey. Maybe the planes are a metaphor for life and our travels through life.

HOW ARE THE PLANES MADE? These planes are made from very thin sheets of rolled paper clay. The graphics are impressed with my newly made, or vintage salvaged, printing press plates. The impressed clay sheets are formed into the iconic paper plane dart shape. Trompe l’oeil additions of labels or price stickers or coins or light switches are added. After firing, the impressed text and graphics on the wings and fuselage are washed in underglazes. The underglaze is scrubbed away from the high points, revealing the impressed graphics. Details are also applied with a brush. The clay plane is fired to cone 5 and mounted to a handmade wood stand for display.

INSPIRATION: Like many boys, I played with plastic toy soldiers. There were the green army men, the plastic tanks and jeeps, and even a miniature flagpole. But no planes. I folded my own planes from paper. I decorated them with crayons drawing camouflage, insignia, and a pilot on the fuselage. Decades later, my brother Robert Fisher mentioned his series of paper hats in a New York gallery show. My mind shifted back to my childhood paper planes. This flashback began my exploration of the iconic paper plane.

My planes appear right-side-up as a toy, but upside-down as an aeronautical dart. I am interested in my childhood aesthetic of a homemade toy and not the engineered flight of a folded sheet of paper.

Slab-Built Paper Clay with wood display stand, Cone 5 oxidation fired

For display only.