Together again

 I managed to get some time to print some Together cards and am looking forward to bundling them up and sending them out into the world. Do let me know in comments if you are interested in receiving some; and/or email me: infoATfionadempster.com.

I chose a deep sapphire blue to print with and three different type faces, as discussed in my earlier blog post.  I am working hard to use up supplies and spares in the studio so some were printed on the back of previously printed cards; and others were printed on some cards I have had lying around for quite another purpose which will no longer happen so they were just waiting to be used!

I also used up a few spare sheets of khaki paper that were lurking in a drawer - it felt good to gradually use things up.

I decided to use both variations of together. Together and Together...

So there are A6 postcard sizes; and business card sized cards.

I will wrap them in 3s so folk will receive one of each type face. They will be  random selections of paper types and I will pop them in the post over the next wee while. Just send me your name and address and if you would like Together, Together... or both. I have twenty sets available.

I quite liked the look of this one - proofing Together in duplicate here - well and truly together!

Beyond beginning again

 Well I got back into the groove with the silversmithing the other day and was chuffed with how my large pendant worked out. During the week, my mind kept turning to oxidising and trying to work out if I could oxidise some silver.

So I looked up books, and watched You Tubes and read blog posts and thought I think we could do this, and on Friday we did. We had purchased a couple of glasses bowls at the Op Shop for $5 and they will become our oxidising-only bowls.

I took my pendant apart, separating it into the three components.

And then we set about making up a mixture of Liver of Sulphur - which as one can imagine, smells like rotten eggs. Apparently you can also oxidise silver by leaving it in a plastic bag with some hard boiled eggs, but that is an experiment for another time.

You dip quickly, then drop into cold water, then dip again, and cool, and then dip again .... until you get the required depth of colour.

I was pretty happy with this colour. Then you brush it with a soft brass brush to remove some of it, and start again. This way, the oxidisation layers sort of grow into each other and bond; rather than simply layer themselves and then flake off. Apparently. 

Barry thought it would also be a good opportunity to re-oxidise the ring he made years ago with Lindsey in Thurso, so in it went as well.

And out it came.

And here is where we got to.

And here is the pendant put back together.  I really like the contrast between dark and shiny.

I like where this could be going...

Thursday Thoughts...

“A good artist has less time than ideas.” 

Martin Kippenberger

I'm not sure it's only good artists who have more ideas than time; I certainly do!

I imagine what he is trying to get at is that a good artist (maybe successful? maybe full time? maybe committed? maybe professional? maybe..?) has a brain teeming with ideas and creativity, and is one who sees the world in terms of art they could create, and whose mind is always turned to artistic opportunities.

Or as is the case for many, there are definitely more ideas than time permits or allows one to fulfil...

I oftentimes think I need about three lifetimes to do all the things I want to do, to make all the work, to do all the things. Perhaps he feels a lesser artist can't think of things to do; doesn't have a huge creative urge; doesn't make their way through the world thinking about art?

I'm not sure good is the best word, but I am happy to say that I am an artist who has less time than ideas!

Ideas...

Together

I have been pondering how to respond to world events. They are big. Bigger than me. They are hard. Hard to face. They are scary. Too much for my head. But they are.

What can I do. I keep trying to work out how to care for others, and be kind in as many ways as I can. I am trying to look after myself as it seems overwhelming. I am reading small bits of hopefulness. Of gathering. Of solidarity. 

And of togetherness.

Hopefully in the next wee while I'll get to print some postcards, and send them out into the world. I will simply re-use some of the cards that didn't get written on at the exhibition in Scotland and print on the other side. There might be other postcards to re-use; or I might also cut new ones. I have been pondering what to print. Which word comforts me, or helps me, or says what I am hoping for.

And I have landed on together.

I had 20 minutes at the studio earlier today and I grabbed some type and a card to see how it might work.

Together in a couple of typefaces.

The same typefaces but with the ellipse. How do the dots change the meaning I wonder? Am I better off with simply a statement of together - bold and firm? Or do the dots leave us with a sense of together into something?

Any advice and/or thoughts welcomed before I start to print!

Here is how they might take up space on the postcard (with the ellipses).

And then I looked over and saw a heap of business card sized pieces of heavy duty paper already cut and thought I could do some pocket sized ones as well. But would the type fit on the smaller pieces?

So far so good if I remove the ellipses.

And even tho this one look like it is overhanging the edges, 

it does actually fit!

I think I will get printing soon and then send out a call to folk who might like some and send them on out into the world...

It seems like we can make it through if we are in it together. 

Together.

Beginning again

 I oftentimes feel like a beginner whenever I go back over to the workshop and try to do some jewellery making.

On Friday morning I just wanted to make a large pebble, the beginnings of a new pendant for myself.

I had realised that I would like a longer hanging pendant like a number of the pendants I wear that B has made over the years; as well as others I have purchased at that mid tummy length.

And it was not to be. I got the larger silver wire I wanted, I sawed a  length off, I filed the edges, I gathered some solder, I set up the new borax in its dish and I turned the stone over so there were no holes for my solder to fall down. And off I went. 

No way was it going to work. I tried different gas burners, I tried different types of solder. I tried solder on the top. I tried solder on the bottom. I tried different flux. I pickled and cleaned the silver and started over several times. Nope.

I retreated, and headed off for a catch up with a friend.

B said he would see if he could work out what was going on, and sure enough after attempting all the things I tried, he thought wow that stone is hot and worked out that the stone I was using was absorbing ALL of the heat of the flame so none was available for melting the solder. Good deducting!

So today, I went and played and had success.

Here is the large pebble B had managed to successfully solder/solder successfully.

Here is my smaller pebble necklet; and an example of a pendant that I wear at mid-tummy for size comparisons and checks. And the new stone B organised for me to solder on!

Here are the three pebbles together - I managed to make the smaller two with ease today; the solder ran beautifully and I was able to file and polish them with relative ease.

I headed back to the sewing/jewellery room to put the pendant together on a long cord. Here are the three pendants together with the pendant on its longer cord.

Speaking of the sewing/jewellery room we are mid-reorganisation there so it was a bit tricky. We are expecting some new storage drawers tomorrow or Tuesday so had to get in and move some things around before they arrive. Chaos reigns.

Fingers crossed we can get the new bits in and then sort the other bits around them as per the plan...

Thursday Thoughts...

“We write stories, not because we have answers, but because we have questions.” 

Katherine Paterson

It feels like it's time to write stories.

This quote demonstrates for me how artists and creatives so often are trying to find ways to understand the world around them. The stimulus for work is often about enquiry, rather than expressing certainty.

If not about the subject itself; the enquiry and questioning can often be about process.

Altho of course sometimes the work is about trying to tell truth or a fact that is unwelcome. With stories I imagine a lot of us think as we read, "oh this person knows something", but perhaps they are just like us and trying to work it out as best they can as they go along.

As I think about how a writer might approach their work, I imagine it could start with "What if...?" which is really what this quote is saying in a nutshell I guess!

Ten years ago, the answer to the question "what if I cut a bird shape out of some rust and then tried to print it/transfer it using tea?"

Words at play

 Looking back through my journals and notes it seems like I started to write these words about the way life flows when at the cottage back in 2019...

I did nothing with them, but by 2021 had thought I might add another verb into the mix.

Whilst we were away I had another think upon the words and started to draft some ideas. Here I was working with 5 sentences. 

But this is what I found in my phone and added to last month. I had found 6 in another journal somewhere and written that into my phone, but forgotten I had. So clearly my record keeping needs tidying up.

By adding the dates I tried to firm up the chronology.

This morning I sat and went through them again. I realised I have created six short sentences, and wondered to myself if they wouldn't be better as seven? Seven is a much nicer number.

Rather than revert to five, I went for seven and this is what my book looks like this afternoon after a bit of a play.

And then I tried to be ordered about things and wrote three columns - two verbs and one adverb - and wrote the different words in the columns thinking I could play with this and that - join them up this way, try them that way...

Half way through I then thought to analyse what I had written thus far - hence the bits about syllables. I figured the rhythm should be pretty much the same across the seven sentences.

Clearly nothing is resolved, but the idea of seven works. My understanding of how they are written is better. The direction is underway and soon I shall have my seventh.

Then of course to work out how to present them - but that will emerge. Given it has taken 5 years for the idea to get to this stage, I really hope this is the time to complete it.

I have written notes to myself to stop directing the work, and let it emerge. I had drafted outlines of the book, and the size, and the placement of imagery, and the where the words would go on each page and what typeface I might use, and I just said to myself STOP. 

I hope to now do some playful experimentation and see where the words and possibly the imagery from the previous post take me. Let the words and the work lead me, so often better things emerge that way...

Photographic play

I still struggle to find my way in to making when I am at the cottage; I find it hard to settle and to fix on something and follow it through. The most recent visit made it a bit harder of course with the focus on the exhibition and its associated activities; as well as the fact that one of my art 'studio' desks was used in the exhibition almost halving my space available for 7 weeks!

So I find myself thinking about making a lot, thinking about what next, writing words, playing with photographs and thinking about courses I would like to undertake. In a way, it is a time of quiet pondering rather than creating and I think I can be at peace with that.

I have written some words about the way I feel at the cottage; the ways in which I move and observe more slowly; the way I think and see more deeply. I have plans for the words!

I have also written words about some of the landscape that makes my heart sing, and some of the features that make me smile.

I have plans for them too.

And somehow in amongst it all is the idea of playing with photographic imagery and blending things that go with words. They might be collaged; they might be softened and used as backgrounds, they may yet get more done to them; but I have enjoyed playing with the Snapseed app on my phone to create some layers.

Here are some of them - it can be a bit hit and miss, but most of these I find interesting, and full of possibilities.

I love the seed heads.

I have words about power poles rolling around in my head. The way they are vertical in an utterly horizontal landscape...

Ahhh the chaffinches!

A strange combo of birds, sea  and flowers.

A sheep placed into a rushing by image.

This last one is more of a miss than a hit I think...

But I shall keep trying to work with the images and the words and see where I land.