Thursday Thoughts...

“A photograph isn’t necessarily a lie, but nor is it the truth”. 

Martine Franck

I like the ambiguity of this one and I imagine photographers ponder upon these notions a lot.

Photographs capture a moment in among many moments, with rarely much reference to what went before and what happened straight after. For example a friend's child was recently snapped in a big family event photograph looking glum and as if he wished he was anywhere else on earth.

As I chatted with his mum I said I realised he may have transformed into a huge smile seconds later; or that this face, which to me suggested a sense of not enjoying large gatherings (projection Fiona???), may have been because he felt really poorly or had just stubbed his toe or...and yet this is the moment that was caught and that is the sense I took from it all. Lie or Truth?

Most photographs don't set out to set up a lie I think, yet we all know that they aren't, and can't be, the full story. I kind of love that about them.

These days of course the line between truth and fiction (or fake) is sometimes very hard to discern; and certainly some folk do set out to play with photos to deceive. Photoshop seems almost benign in its efforts to show no wrinkles or slim down a waist compared to some of the deliberately faked and forged images we are shown by AI on a daily basis.

With this quote I was certainly thinking more about the photos we snap; that we take; how we frame a shot to show what we want, not the mess to the side...those little moments along the spectrum of truth to lie. And how with my friend's son, I made up my own story about his expression... so much to ponder!

Moments after this shot, Alan Cumming roared onto the stage and enterained us.

Furthering the conversations

 I have enjoyed my work around Conversations with Women Friends a lot.  It keeps rolling around in my head in different ways, as I  think of new and differing expressions for it.

I keep adding new conversations.

Here is my book and notes from our Biblio sessions at the Store at Bettyhill our nearby village. We head over on Tuesdays and Thursdays (the same pattern we have in Maleny) and have breakfast and coffee and sit quietly writing, reading, pondering our art. One difference is that breakfast in Maleny starts at 7am; here we begin at 9am.

A couple of new ones took form without needing to edit or re-write. They simply appeared. Others have plenty of gaps and strike throughs and reorganising marks! Also notes to self to remind me that I am doing the writing work in this book; and the thoughts about what to do with the words are over in my Art Journal number 12.

In a weird turn of events, having written more, I set about reducing the first ten to a single word each.  All of this thinking happened over in AJ12. Grin.

I thought of another expression, which was to work with the single word, and then possibly two images to support it, or to create a sense of it. I daresay this will not be an easy task in terms of finding photographs, doing the layout and printing etc etc, but my first challenge was to see if I could make a book with the fold outs I was imagining.

So I set to work with some sheets of used A4 paper. Along the way I changed the working title from short to brief conversations.

I liked the notion of a wrapper to enclose and envelope them. With a band apparently, in case I forget.

I mentioned it won't be easy to get the layout right (for the likes of me) and sure enough here I have added more text on the first unfold of the wrapper. We shall see down the track if any of this becomes possible!

I have determined it will need to be a coptic bound book; with separate hard covers. I think. I am not a fan of the accordion format too much, which would have offered another way of reading this book, but I will test it this way first.

Along the side view the different sections to rebound. Pondering five versus ten of the first conversations. Five is more intimate; ten has more gravitas. Ten also has a sense of completeness given the first round has ten conversations. Maybe this becomes volume I?

How I envisage (at this stage) one of the brief conversations looking. The single word appears as you turn a page; then you unfurl the page to the right and two images appear.

The first conversation reads:

caring for

caring about

chicken soup

So I have selected the main word for me from the conversation which is caring. I now need to go through each of the conversations, selecting their key word and then listing thoughts about possible images that might support or represent the word/conversation. 

My first instinct here is to have a photo of a bowl of steaming soup on the right hand and a photo of one hand holding another on the left. Another image could be the knocker on a door and then the soup. I can see I could spend a lot of time working my way through this, but I kind of like the idea and think it has value.

Of course it could mean trawling through my existing images for hours looking for possible photos; or it might mean taking specific photos with purpose. In amongst all of this is the fun! I have a project to keep in mind as I do things.

Playing with those cotton reels

 I have managed to take some steps into making - at least the initial play and explore phase, which is at least something.

I had been pondering what to wrap around the cotton reels that could unfurl. I searched online for Vintage muslin, for vintage linen, for vintage table cloths and runners. I hummed and I hahed.

And then in a spark in my head came a couple of old teatowels we have here.  I oftentimes take the linen sheets we are finished with for sleeping, and cut them down into tea towels, and further down into serviettes.  I also have this old wheat coloured tea towel that has some stains on it, but which is made of firmer linen and I thought I could re-use it possibly. 

So it got washed, I sat quietly and unpicked the hems and then measured the cotton reels. The strips ended up being quite thin - maximum of 3cm with the narrowest being 1.5cm. I pull a thread at the measured mark and then used snips to cut along that line. I thought I would simply tear it; but it was too tough for that!

I wrapped the length (the width of the tea towel about 53cm) around one cotton reel and played with it.

And then I wrapped all the cotton reels with their bits and thought maybe I have something, maybe.

These three show the 3cm, the 2cm and the 1.5cm widths.

The play continued as I thought about hanging them, and one of the things I had to hand was a coat hanger, so here are a few iterations with the reels at different distances from each other.

I am not sure how you would describe this part of this process. It is definitely in the exploration and testing phase. It is almost a proof of concept and it is definitely about pursuing ideas and not deciding too early what they will be or how they will be.

I oftentimes can rush to a conclusion - my brain sees the whole thing finished before I have even sorted out if any of it is possible; so I am trying to slow down and follow this path and that, keeping an open mind.

Must admit I like the look of the reels on the coat hangers! They would of course need to be threaded on somehow and held apart by something if I didn't want them slip sliding all over the place, but visually I am quite happy with this beginning.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read” 

Joyce Carol Oates

Great advice! I like to read, and I like to read widely. I like to read literature, and I like to read crime novels. I like to read biographies and I like to read some Romance. A lot depends on my mood and what I am seeking from a book - challenge or solace? Laughter or thoughtfulness? Brain food or empty headedness?

I certainly grew up feeling that one should read pretty much everything; but there was a definite bias towards sensible and serious books. Although thank goodness I was never pressured to read anything at all.

I read Georgette Heyer Regency Romances when I am feeling low or poorly or can't concentrate on much. I read literary fiction as often as I can; but I intersperse it with spy or crime novels for a quick hit. I stop reading crime novels when the darkness gets too much. And so on.

There must be nothing worse than feeling you can't read what you want to read, because folk will think poorly of you for it; or because they laugh at your choices; or pass judgement in some other way. It's good for all of us to be challenged to expand our reading circles (I am yet to make it into sci fi although I did read Project Hail Mary), but it is also good to be comfortable and read for enjoyment.

Should is definitely a word I am trying to eject from my vocabulary. It brings no good with it whatsoever. Reading something because somebody says you SHOULD read it almost sets me up for failure before I begin.

Just enjoy reading.

My Georgette Heyer books were my mum's and this is about the era of them!

Skittery and scattered

It is always of interest to me how the jet lag plays out. I am utterly functional and can do pretty much everything, but I get tired at odd hours, and occasionally wake at inopportune times, but one of the things I notice most is how hard it is for me to settle into making.

And so it has proven once again. My mind has been turning over lots of new ideas and plans, but the sitting down and starting takes time. I have happily researched and investigated, purchased some things like Letraset, been on the hunt for old wooden cotton reels and the like, but the actual doing? Not so much.

These cotton reels have got me thinking...and I would love to find some more of the taller ones so am having a happy time sticking my nose into every charity shop or collectable shops and sorting through the haberdashery. As an aside, before we left a friend told me about a friend of hers, who volunteers at a haberdashery op shop. An op shop/charity shop just for haberdashery and sewing notions! What a splendid idea. 

Out our bedroom window each night, the sky is always worth a look, especially this portion of the hill with the fence line.  I keep looking at it and wondering what it is trying to tell me. The best I have done so far is it feels like the fence is stitching the land to the sky. As if it is joining the celestial to the corporeal. There is something in there I want to explore... just not sure exactly what it might be.

I have been thinking about containing small amounts of text in 5cm x 5cm squares. I started out with just my handwriting in capitals, and then turned the square around and over wrote it. It makes an interesting texture. Very dense. Completely illegible. Looks a bit scary. Not sure it is saying what I want it to say just yet.

This is pretty typical of this time. Things are saying something, but I am not yet grasping them. Or I am not yet able to get them to say the right things! This too shall pass.

I have drawn some lines in the next square for my next thought...

And so, instead, I continue to look at the landscape, soak in the softness and the light and get inspired in so many different ways.

The cottage with the hillside of crocosmia/montbretia we have planted dazzling and bright.

Sunlight on the hay and the crofts. More fence lines...

Looking out along a headland.

The mist was in.

The late evening sun caught this line of cloud above the hill line. It was like a bright torn edge of some paper. Or worse - like a fire pouring over the hill.

And bringing some of the garden into the cottage.

Softly, softly. Gently, gently. The making will return.

A day of shining...

 A week at the cottage and we are sorting and sifting and settling. There is always lots other do on return and then the excitement of all the things we plan to do as well all the wonderful catch ups here and there. There has not dear reader, been a lot of making happening. But there will be I am sure.

Today I spent the morning getting my jewellery ready for the Pop up Art Show which is in two weekends' time.

We started sharing the postcard promotions this week and will start letter box drops and posters here and there as well as some social media promotions things. I wish I knew how to do promotion better - but we do what we do and we hope some of it works.

I was very happy to catchup with Lindsey Gallacher the fabulous silver smith we have had lessons with, yesterday, and she gave us some good advice about a silver polish that we could use. And today I put it to good use.

Very happy with the shiny results! Here follows quite a few of the pieces I will be showing, all looking their best (tho not always photographing at their best which is very much down to me).

A pair of my driftwood and pebble earrings.

Some pebble stacks - one finer than the other.

This pair are quite tiny and sit on small ear wires for folk who don't like statements!

This pair are quite tiny, but sit on long hoops which is a bit of fun.

I like the texture in these ones. They are simply but also sit on the long hook.

Again quite small and a little bit textured.

This pair are a bit quirky - the large pebbles are different thicknesses as are the small pebbles - like each earring is the inverse of the other or something.

It's nice to see how the older work sits so happily alongside the new work - they work like an extended family of sorts I think.

I am looking forward to setting up and showing the work and chatting with folk in a few weeks time.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Critical thinking without hope is cynicism, but hope without critical thinking is naivete” 

Maria Popova

I sometimes head off down the rabbit holes of hope - searching and trying to understand what hope is all about. How we conceive of it, what it is based on, and what it means for us.

I came across these thoughts in one of those rambling searches and found that they made me want to think about them more, and so here I am, as I turn to pondering Life this week (Art last week; Books next week!).

I am not sure her words get to the essence of hope itself; but I think they really help shape your thinking by placing hope alongside things, which then clarify those things, and thereby enable you to understand hope a bit more as an agent or a modifier. Its a bit like when you look at a bright light in a dark sky you can't really see it (because of the rods and cones in your eyes) but if you look a little bit to the side, you can see the light. Hmmm.

The more I read these words, the less sure I am that I am describing things well! If you don't add hope to the mix your critical thinking is just cynical. Add hope and it is critical thinking? This part of the quote gives you a sense I think of the leavening action of action of hope. 

The second part helps describe hope itself a bit I think. If you don't bring some thoughtful and critical thinking to the table; then just having hope is being naive. So does she suggest that hope isn itself is naive?

Perhaps hope without thoughtfulness and purpose is not going to achieve anything; and thinking critically about something isn't necessarily going to lead you anywhere without hope. I may have just tied myself up in some more knots, but I still enjoy these words.

Safe arrivals

We are back at the cottage safely, after a smooth travel experience - not something you can bank on these days. We had several fall back strategies should the air space over the Gulf be closed...

We spent our first night in Scotland at Pitlochry - a favourite spot to wander around. It is a sight to behold with its many baskets of hanging flowers; and this time we also got to visit the Book Shop at the Pitlochry Railway Station. What a brilliant idea this is - who hasn't sat at a train station wishing they could buy a book for the journey?

All books are donated and all sales go to the six charities they support. We got a couple of goodies and a cook book!

I think I need to find me a railway station with a vacancy....

And so to the cottage where the summer of rain has meant we have loads of growth - we have apples, potatoes, flowers and plenty of weeds!

We have since weeded the apple and hydrangea garden and it looks much better now! Before we left in May we planted out several containers with potatoes. They look utterly straggly, but we have harvested one pot and eaten them all!

Flowers are still going strong and I have brought some into the house just to keep the smiles going.

Out in the rockery.

Some of the wee heather remains on the hillsides.

And the cove looked majestic on our first morning here...

'Tis good to be back.