Thursday Thoughts...

“When you lose yourself in a book, the hours grow wings and fly.” 

 Chloe Thurlow

So true!

I always try to check who is who that I am quoting, given that I find the words all over the place in books or on random pages or searches. Apparently Chloe is a writer of erotic fiction who mother doesn't speak to her. Or she could be a knitting designer, but I think I'm going with the author here.

Books, reading and time make for a fascinating investigation of the relativity o time i think. Time is such a fluid concept and just as she says here, when you are deep in a book, utterly committed to it, using every spare moment, delaying and postponing other things just to get the time to read it, you do honestly lose yourself.

It is wondrous that words on a page can have that much power. That they can virtually warp time. Somehow their effect is as if to place you in a form of vacuum where there is no sense of time, that you exist somehow beyond the notion of it.

Just fabulous.

And yes, the hours grow wings and fly...

Small steps

 As we begin to find our way back to making here in Maleny, I have been prepping and printing a few bits here and there. Always trying to push a few things forward at a time, just to make sure nothing gets left too far behind.

I know International Day of Peace isn't until September, but there is a process of choosing words, and selecting type, then setting type and sorting through the brown paper cutlery holders, and inking and printing, and making holes and threading cord and sorting and packing and posting.... so I figured I might start now in my spare moments!

This year I have returned to John Lennon, and am simply asking that we give peace a chance...

On return, it also became clear that I had run out of grief cards. That is not my preferred way of being so I spent time finding if I had any blanks already prepped, and cutting paper to make new cards.

And then I wanted to check which type I might have used to print the name of the press on the back of the cards...

My first guess was close, but no cigar as they say.

My second was the very essence of Goldilocks - just right!

And so I printed some backs, some fronts and some middles...

I do love a deckled edge.

Now to let them dry and do some illustrating, find some envelopes and cello bags and add them back into the inventory once more.

And in other spare moments I have been doing the very last transfer of type from a small and difficult to use (that is, to get your fingers in to pick up the type) set of drawers into a small drawer that will complete the job.

I am almost there, and then we will have our final collection of type. Next job is to re-make the type reference books and create some new paper inventory sample books.

I keep saying to myself that future me will thank present me for doing these small tasks of sorting and re-organising.

And then to the ongoing beauty and gift of flowers. My dad's orchids are doing him proud, even in the cold and windy and sometimes wet weather we are having for winter this year. I love both the purity of this white one and the buoyant joy of the orange one.

And another gift of flowers, this time from my cousin, and these kangaroo paws are now on the kitchen bench being beautiful.

Teaching and Presenting

 I am excited to be presenting at a Conference in NZ in September - "Bind25". Hosted by ABCNZ it brings together fine binders and artists book makers and all associated variations in between.  Whilst they have prepared an extensive week-long program I will only be dashing over for a long weekend kind of thing...life.

I am presenting on my work and thinking about how to build narrative in artists' books. The presentation is coming along and taking shape as I ponder and meander and crystallise and clarify.

Before I head off I have also been offered the opportunity to run a workshop on Building Narrative - an opportunity for folk to take their artists' book making deeper; to think their way through story telling via the medium of artists' books and to take the reader on a full and satisfying journey.

Through the week I knuckled down and grabbed hold of a heap of artists' books from my collection to start finessing and updating the course.

I brought them home and spread them out.

And sorted through the opportunity moments in the workshop where participants will sit down together and discuss what different stories different styles of artists' book tell...

And I reached a point where I knew which books would work with which books, and in which groupings and why.

Sometimes I joke that there might be two things written on my gravestone:

1. She had neat handwriting; and 

2. She was organised.

The organised thing is always a bit amusing as I am the only person who ever really experiences my head space. My head is filled with thoughts that need connecting or jotting down; or which create new jumping off points for other ideas and... it can be quite the jumble. My sense has always been that my organisational side is just about trying to make sense of all this bubbling excitement!

And so as I kept having a multitude of thoughts and ideas about where to take the workshop and presentation next; I decided each thought could go on a sticky note and get stuck down. That way I wouldn't lose it, and I could watch them all come together.

It got pretty wild by the end of the morning!

Yet the sense of satisfaction as enormous. Despite how it might look here, I knew where to head next, and what needed doing. So good!

And then just to some lovely colourful, jewel-like details of an artwork we recently purchased from our friend Ken Munsie. These delightful moments make me smile each time I pass by, or glimpse over at it...

Thursday Thoughts...

“Some women are lost in the fire. Some women are built from it.” 

Michelle K.

A quick search makes me think I could be quoting a poet called Michelle K; a musician from regional Australia also called Michelle K; or perhaps K. Michelle an American singer. Apologies all round for not being sure who the words may belong to.

Fire is an interesting element to reference I think as it holds so many associations and connotations. It is easier for me to understand how a woman (or other) could be lost in fire. Fire can consume and destroy. It can leave nothing behind; it can remove all trace.

Trying to consider how a woman (or other) could be built from it is a tad harder. In some circumstances perhaps people can be burnt and recover and a new way of being is forged, and possibly built. I don't really think women rise from the ashes like phoenixes purportedly do. And now I think about it how DO phoenixes rise from the ashes??? Maybe I am just being too literal.

I can grasp how if a person's home and effects have been destroyed by, or lost to, fire that they may then re-build and build a life anew. And maybe that the fire event makes them stronger.

I imagine the main message is supposed to be that difficulties and challenges can either overwhelm you or you can emerge from them stronger and more resilient. 

Perhaps it's best not to be too literal about it all!

Our beach bonfire, Summer Solstice, Scotland 2025.

Off to a new home, and visiting

 I showed these three small Grief is a Stone book-ets at the Narrative Exhibition here in Maleny in May. Whilst we were in Scotland I got the lovely new that the State Library of Queensland had purchased a set. 

And then, another set! A bit like their purchase of my book about domestic abuses W?W?W?W? earlier in the year the Library has bought another set for use in their Education Kit. I love the thought that visitors and student will get to examine these and think bout grief in different ways.

So I packaged up two sets last week, and popped them in the post.

So those books have a new home; and a couple of my other books are visiting new places!

Its a busy time with my work in a few different localities across the country...

My book Red Card is a Finalist in the Libris Awards in Mackay, and the show looks marvellous from afar. Here are some photos from the installation that the Gallery has shared with me.

The catalogues of works is here and I have heard tell you might be able to do a 3D walk through of the exhibition sometime soon.

I have also sent two books across the country to Perth, to be shown in the exhibition Between The Sheets. Simply Being and Red Card have made their way over the Nullarbor Plain, and are looking good alongside some other great looking artists' books.

Building a new alphabet and the sale

Early in the time of our last visit to Scotland, I made some marks and made some books.  

At the heart of these books  was mark-making, building on an old calligraphic challenge of creating an alphabet from within a square.

I am sure on investigation, that this exercise has it genesis in the Berber alphabet, but I remember it as an exploration and a creative exercise.

This is how I went about it.

I recalled the notion of a square, with an X within it.

And so I went about trying to see what shapes you could pull out of these two marks.

I took the nextstep and added circle and a vertical cross which offered way more character type options.

I also recalled we could add dots.

I selected some favourites, and drafted a bit of an alphabet from those.

I came up with what I thought was my final alphabet and wrote a couple of  words using it at the bottom the page. And I thought I was done.

Through the week I looked back at it and wondered if it could be refined/improved in any way. I wondered why I had made all the vowels based on the circle, and then done the same for the S? I also decided I didn't like the dot in the middle of the circle for A - looked a bit too much like a cartoon boob. For both K and W I decided I didn't want them to look like a recognisable E, even tho they were upside down or backwards, to me they still referenced an E too much.

Don't ask me why, but the V shape started to annoy me, so it had to go! Replacing K and W, I went for complete rectangles with bits in them; but after a while decided no, all the other letters were 'open' except for the vowels, so I had to have another look and find a form/shape that would work better.

And then the Z looked too easily mistaken for the R, so it was off to find another shape for that as well.

Sometimes my decision making process is a mystery to me; but this is where I landed.

It's all pretty funny really, given that I mainly intend to use the letters in ways that are illegible, so all of this consideration may mean nothing; but at least I will know that the forms to begin with had been well-considered and had some sense of purpose and reason behind them.

My next job is to find some time to write with them and see how they work...

We hosted our BIG studio-grade sale on Saturday and it was an amazing success. It was such a joy to see so many artists finding things that meant something to them; that they could use; or could afford to experiment with. it was such a delight and we were left with not too many things by the end of it, for which we are grateful.

The great down-sizing has begun in earnest! Here are some before shots that B took; I failed to take any and certainly by the end of the day I had no energy to take any after shots...

I think half the books went.

Every single frame, mat and perspex stand went!!!

Not much is left from this table - the marbling kit is still there as is the paint mixer and the small packet of coloured inks.

Some paralles pens remain, as do some lino cutting tools and some paper embossing tools. Otherwise, all gone!

Such a good day. With gratitude to all who came and visited and who bought things.

Thursday Thoughts...

"All my early memories are of forms and shapes and textures. Moving through and over the West Riding landscape with my father in his car, the hills were sculptures; the roads defined the form. Above all, there was the sensation of moving physically over the contours of fullnessess and concavities, through hollows and over peaks - feeling, touching, seeing, through mind and hand and eye. This sensation has never left me. I, the sculptor, am the landscape. I am the form and the hollow, the thrust and the contour". 

Barbara Hepworth

Reading these words after seeing Hepworth's work, they make so much sense. Her work is full of hollows and concavities; gentle rises, curves and peaks.

The manner in which she describes her body's place in the landscape and how that translates to her sculptures (and clearly also her drawings) made me wonder about how it was to live in her body that way.

The amazing experience it must have been to feel all of the landscape and then have that feeling and movement move through her and be re-created in stone, with string, or on paper. You look at her work, and you can see and feel her landscape.

I love gazing at her work and it is really special that the Pier Arts Centre in Stromness on Orkney has a lot of it. Each time we visit we spend time with her work. It is both settling and soothing. 

Curved Stone (detail), 1946

Paper, paper, everywhere...

 Life is full and fast at the moment, and I am feeling like I am constantly running to keep up; but never quite getting everything done that I need to get done. Sigh

But flowers help make everything better...

We are moving some things on from the studio space and are having a BIG garage sale on the weekend.  B has been busy moving paper from the studio to the office/studio at home and once here, it has been my job to sort it. 

Yesterday a friend and I spent a couple of hours cutting and tearing paper and this is the lovely pile we made.

And this is the box of paper I just ordered!  We need some of our favourite grey for book covers that we both have planned, and we only have two sheets left. It felt odd to be opening packets of new paper as I was trying to sort out which papers went where, and if in fact I could move some of them on!

There was paper all over the sewing room/studio space.

But some excellent new paper drawers to put it all in!

After two hours of sorting, B came home and found me like this!

There is method of sorts in my madness - there are piles for sale; scraps for sale, papers free to a good home and some good papers to sell in their packs. It really was one of those jobs best done by oneself - I had a vague plan and understanding of what differentiated this paper from that paper and why, and it all worked out OK in the end.

All I have to do now is do some labels for the new drawers - numbers and descriptors of what they hold -then that job is done. Phew.

And here is a lovely photo of eucalyptus leaves in the sunlight on our kitchen bench, which we have purloined to be the backdrop for some promotion of our Studio Garage Sale.