Thursday Thoughts...

“There is only so much we can know via direct experience. Reading gives us more time. More lives to live.” 

 Jeanette Winterson

The first part of this quote is actually a really important argument in defence of reading and books I think.  Whilst I am a strong supporter of listening to folk with lived experience of something - they know best what it means for them - I also believe your own personal experience is not the whole story.

One simply can't say I know all about this because this is what happened to me; or this is what I see; or this is where I live; or this is my life and that is the end of that. For me the world has any number of angles, facets, and perspectives and we all experience it differently and the more we can understand other folks' positions and views and experience the fuller picture we can see.

We can't get out and travel everywhere and talk to everybody in the world and so we read. Reading takes us to places, inside people's minds and thoughts and all sorts of ways of being and thinning that are outside our own experience and that helps us understand the world better.

In some cases it does allow us to live another life in the sense of experiencing somewhat vicariously, what it might have been like to be a dancer in Paris in the 1800s or a soldier in Flanders Fields, or a wealthy woman in The UK or a teenager in the 50s...

The same can possibly be said for watching movies or plays, but for me, reading is the way I go about it.

From the rainbow stack of books in our home in Maleny. I collected the books for their cover colours, not for their content, and have to admit to never having read any of the books in the stack...

Prepping for the Pop Up!

 We are holding a Pop Up Art Show at the Armadale Village Hall this Saturday and Sunday. We are excited at the same time as uncertain about what might happen and how it might go, but looking forward to it and to chatting with folk and talking about art!

The show is mostly about Barry's small watercolours of buildings and boats along the North Coast of Scotland; and my sterling silver pebble and stone-inspired jewellery; but we decided to also add in a few more pieces that we have made (and are making!).

I have been testing out my jewellery-making capacity in our shed and this week completed three pairs of earrings. I was able to texture them and oxidise parts oft them, so I feel right at home now!

Different display options are available...

My inside art-making space is quite the clutter!

At a lunch a few weeks ago I chatted with a woman who had previously seen our work at markets here and she said" I love your cards, I hope you have some more". So I thought, right I had better make some more! This one became Welcome to the World when I completed the Letraset.

One of the birds was coloured in on these ones

The latest stash of cards. I bought the envelopes in Bergen!

I also have a few of my black and white photographs. This one is called Safe Harbour.

I have matted up the 6 collages working from the imagery of the fishing sheds here.

Our kitchen table is multi-functional that is for sure - currently typing on the laptop here, but we also do art finishing here as well. Oh and we eat at it too!

I have called these pieces Moments of Memory I-VI.

And last but not least, in line with my love of the house/cottage form that I always seem to end up playing with as I travel back and forth, the form that keeps me pondering what home means, and the form that just makes me feel good when I look at it, I have worked with B to to create these wee hoosies. I selected the timber and the size and the shape and B cut them for me and did an initial sand; but I have done the finishing sanding and the wire brushing and will add the varnish once we have bought it! They just make me smile. 

It feels like we are almost ready for whatever happens, and we look forward to hopefully sharing time with folks we know and people we will meet...

Art from our travels

 A quick follow up to Tuesday's travel post, to show some of the art we experienced whilst we were away.

In Norway we saw a fair bit of street art which brought smiles to our faces. We didn't get to any museums or galleries (May Day public holiday in Bergen) but we saw some lovely pieces on the streets.

And this was street art to me! We paused as we dragged suitcases to the train station and turned and saw this massive stretch of board which had been home to many many posters over time.

In between flight arrivals and departures in Aberdeen, we made it to the Gallery there. There was a wonderful exhibition of embroidery samplers which was a joy to spend time with.

I like that these artworks have survived the centuries and they tell us about the women and young women who worked them. Their names are stitched into them. They are foregrounded, not backgrounded.

I also like the layers of symbolism in some of them - peace wreaths, forget-me-nots, doves and more. Here are a few of my favourites.

The oldest sampler there - by Hannah Bosvile, age 13, 1755

Mary Margaret Payne, 1827. 

Eliza Luke, 1799.

Mary Helen McMahon, 1885. I like the length of this scroll-like sampler, and of course the white on white of parts of it. It demonstrates a number of embroidery stitches, but also various dressmaking techniques.

And the local embroidery guild has also put together some modern samplers which are bright and beautiful!

Overall, it was simply a delight to see women's work displayed so prominently. The gallery also had an exhibition of women's works on paper; and one room full of Suffragette artworks and items - all excellent!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Muteness is cessation; silence isn’t. Silence is generative. Something happens in silence”. 

 Anne Michaels

The comparison here between silence and muteness is interesting to me. I am a little bit fascinated with silence at the moment - and the many ways we can interpret it. I think this comparison feels like the one between loneliness and solitude. From an external perspective they can appear the same; yet the experience of them is so very different.

Muteness to me implies cessation as she suggests; but perhaps also an external input. Something from the outside which acts.

Silence can be either external or internal I think; and I think she is describing that quiet space, that well of offering that enables things to come forth, to begin.

Almost as if silence is an opportunity. I think I shall be pondering the notion that 'something happens in silence'  for a little while yet...

Some of my favourite pieces about silence Sentinels (2010).

Norway...

 B and I are just back from a quick trip across to Norway!  My brother and his wife were travelling there and it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up - to hang out together on the other side of the world to usual.

We arrived in Bergen and it was beautiful, especially the old town of Bryggen. We wandered around and poked our heads up alleyway and side streets, admiring the weathered and worn timbers and buildings.

Before we left, we saw some most beautiful cherry blossoms.

The weather was not as kind in Voss - and it shows!

Luckily the next day dawned bright(ish) and we went for a magnificent ferry cruise through a fjord; and then an alpine train trip amongst the snow tops. Stunning. 

And then back to Bergen in the sunshine!

It was a glorious few days and we would love to go back. 

Thursday Thoughts...

“Each act of creativity becomes a form of prayer, if the heart is centred in the making” 

 Jackie Morris

Not being a religious person, but nevertheless a person who holds to many of the teachings and ways of being, I sometimes struggle with the word prayer having an overtly religious link. 

If however I think about prayer as I think it is used here, as a quiet moment, a gathering of energy, mediation, and connection I can find my way through things much better.

For each act of creativity to be a form of prayer in this way is beautiful. For me it suggests that as we make, if we make with our hearts engaged, the very act of making is a gathering of energy, is a quiet meditation and is seeking connection.

Which I honestly think is true.

This quote is from Jackie Morris' book Feather Leaf, Bark and Stone.  A gift from a friend it is one of the most beautiful books on our bookshelf. To be savoured, returned to and dreamt about...

Narratives - an artists' book exhibition

 Whilst we are away, another beautiful artists' book exhibition is occurring in Maleny. As part of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland Writer's Festival some good people are once again showcasing artists' books at The Little Red Cottage in Coral St Maleny. Details below.

I am sad to be away, but so grateful to be included.

The theme this year is Narrative - Connecting hearts, minds and nature

I have two entries in the show. This will be the very first showing of my book Simply Being.

The nature of the book, about slowing down and taking time to be, and to be present, resonates with the theme I think - connecting your own mind and your own heart; and particularly connecting with nature.  

The words in this book emerged from time spent here in Scotland where I do look slowly, and try to listen softly, and of course, go gently...

I have also contributed my three Grief is a Stone book-ets.

It felt to me that these book-ets also tell a tale of connection with our hearts and our minds. They speak of how we try to make sense of loss and grieving and how it shifts and moves and changes over time...

It often intrigues me when I look back over a year of making say; or like this when I put two books together that are unrelated in theme and thinking and realise how closely they seem to be related.  These books feel very 'me' and I hope that a few folk I know might get to see them and enjoy them, on my behalf whilst I am away.

Some collage art

I discovered a large folder of imagery waiting for me when we returned. It contained images that I had printed when I was doing my Fibre Arts Take Two course last time with Sally Tyrie.

They were all about the fishing sheds and the fishing net drying poles at the end of our road near the cove, and they didn't belong back in Australia. It was nice to reacquaint myself with them and I began to play with them back here.

I really liked their softness and their tonal togetherness and went on to make more collages. My little studio space was somewhat cramped on Thursday as I had taken the laptop upstairs so I could watch an online sketching course, whilst Barry did his watercolours on the kitchen table.

Nevertheless, after watching for a bit I was able to continue with the collages and have ended up with six that I like.

They measure 12cm x 12cm and I originally had been thinking about them as art-cards, to be sold with their own envelope. The kind of thing where you could write on the back in pencil; then send to somebody, and the recipient could frame them or pop them on a wee easel or some such.

But now I'm not so sure. Barry has ordered some square black mats and I am wondering if they might actually look better as matted artworks? Who knows, these things evolve and become what they will become.

There are two other postcard sized ones too. A nice dilemma to have.

And just because Spring flowers are cheery and beautiful, here is a tub we planted at our front door.