Ken Polinskie holds a watercolor up to light.

The technique of making pulp-paper paintings is tough to describe. When you look at Ken Polinskie's work, it seems as if there are two distinct processes at play—papermaking and painting. But as Polinskie, a master papermaker, is at pains to point out, he paints with fiber, not on fiber. Using turkey basters and syringes of various gauges, Polinskie adds pigmented pulp—literal fibers—to a wet base sheet to create his often impressively detailed images. The exhibition currently at the Modo Gallery, "Ken Polinskie: Then and Now," is a 30-year survey of his work, including watercolors and drawings (many of which are based on Aesop's Fables), as well as pulp-paper paintings. Polinskie's work was recently chosen for inclusion in The Art of Pulp Painting, a limited-edition portfolio printed by Hand Papermaking magazine. His work has been exhibited in New York and across the country since 1979, and he is an adjunct professor at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center. "Ken Polinskie: Then and Now" will be exhibited through December 31 at Modo Gallery, 506 Warren St., Hudson. (518) 828-5090; www.modogallery.com.

Ken Polinskie talks about his work:

Dress Up, pressed-paper pulp; 2005.

I was an easel painter for a very brief period of time, but I felt that the size of the brush alone kept me back from the surface. So when I started to draw [again], it took me back to my childhood when I really loved laying down on the carpet and I felt safe with a pen in my hand and a piece of cardboard and the intimacy and contact with the materials made me feel safe and happy. When I got to be more advanced as an artist, I found myself going back to the floor, to having a sheet underneath me; even at the drawing table I'm almost hunched on top of the paper. I love to draw. Even my most painterly paintings are about draftsmanship.

The fly paintings came about because of a story my aunt Helen told me from when she was a child. There was a contest to get a free admission to see Charlie Chaplin at the North Adams Theater. The contest consisted of collecting the most houseflies. Aunt Helen must have been around 10 years old and she won the contest and got to meet Charlie Chaplin.

When she passed away, I decided to turn the fly series into a lesson about perseverance and regeneration. Her spirit, of taking nothing and turning it into a free meeting with Charlie Chaplin, was a spirit of resource and inventiveness similar to papermaking, the spirit of recycling and regenerating materials.

I really come out of an expressionistic tradition. I'm sort of a conflicted surrealist—I love things with imagination but I also like to get a lot of expression in my work. Paper pulp allows that fluidity. Not only did I learn how to control it, I also learned how to let go. Because I'm so specific with my drawings, when I make paper-pulp paintings, I go nutso.

There's a fresco aspect to papermaking. The pigment impregnates the material rather than sits on top of it. Paper-pulp painting is not a work on paper, it is a work of paper.

Like A Wolf, pressed-paper pulp, 2005.

Someone recently asked me, "How does a career work?" "Very slowly," I said. I was told years ago that I wouldn't come into my own as an artist until I was in my 30s, 40s, or 50s. At 53, I now understand that. I understand that the challenge of taking technique and point of view and idea and having something legitimate to say takes time. And [in the '80s] I got very restless with my own art career; and I'd like to tell you how convicted I was about being an artist, but in fact, I also say that life is very exciting. And I don't think that pretending to be an artist who just has to work all night is true. I'm somebody who loves to be out there in the world and live and then I feel I have something legitimate to put down on paper later.

Aesop's Fables connect so much to my own predicaments, like the story of the old hound, for instance. My painting of the old hound is about a dog who is no longer of use. The hound is beaten by his master for losing his teeth in the haunches of a deer. That master says, "You are no longer of any use to me." The dog stops him and says, "Wasn't I a great hunter for you all those years? Have you forgotten?" And the master stops beating the dog. The fable is about remembering that old age does not make us useless, and remembering what you've accomplished. The fable became a symbol for this show—to remind myself that I'm the old hound who can stop the stick from beating him; that there's still life in the old dog yet.

Carnival Girl & Co., ink on leaves on amp, 1996.

The moment I started drawing as a child I really never stopped. I say that art saved my life, but art is my life. There are times when I want to give up and not do it, and times when I've hated being an artist because it just didn't seem to make any sense, but it's the only thing that has gotten me this far and kept me sane. All of my work is about the need to exist, the need to feel safe in the world and the need to feel understood. They say the worst thing you can ask for is to be understood, but really it's not that bad.