Thursday Thoughts...

"Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves". 

Jeremy Collier

Ahh, the comfort of books. I think this quote suggests that books enable us to disappear momentarily from  our life and our strife. That they can let us forget the troubles of the moment and simply be within another world, with other concerns and stories that engage us.

Books offer respite from our worries.

I also often ponder the difference between loneliness and solitude. How two circumstances may be physically the same - one is by oneself - but the experience is so subjectively different. I like that he references solitude here; it is one of my favourite places.

Solitude.

Making cards of art...

 In preparation for the Scottish exhibition I have decided to print some cards that folk may or may not want to buy as a memento of the show.

The last ones arrived today so I have four different images/details of works that will be displayed.

There are two 'landscape' cards. First up a detail of Travelling Home, and those lovely lovely pegs.

And secondly, a close up of Bundled and Burnt.

There are two 'portrait' cards as well. The first is a close up of the wrapper of The Emigrants.

And the second is a detail of some of the scrolls that make up All That was Lost.

And even funnier, here are some close-ups of the close-ups on the cards!

They are all now wrapped and packed and ready to head off to Scotland. I on the other hand, still have a way to go to be packed and ready to head off...

A good few days

In the week where I tested negative to Covid and could venture out into the world again, there were some small and lovely moments of art and books.

The first one was as we walked down the main street and stopped to look in the window of a shop, thinking about gifts for Scotland. Barry was about to say that jewellery looks like yours - when he realised it was! Very exciting to be on display in the front window on the main street.

Available at Maleny Additions, 3/25 Maple St Maleny.

It took us both a while to realise that Barry's work was directly underneath as well!

Further down the street we looked at the fully weathered log again.

I have never been asked to refresh it or renew it so I figure the owner must be happy, like I am, that the words simply weather...

I received these postcards in the mail - small advertising bits for the exhibition Scotland. I  am quite happy with them but of course the critical eye goes over them and wishes I had done this or that differently; but the bottom line is they show the artwork and the information is there. Tick!

And we finished the week with Our Big Book Club. It was a great success, full of lively   enthusiastic discussions with folk who are passionate about books and reading. Such a joy to share time and space with like minds. Barry took this photo of me interviewing Kate Evans. Hand talking as ever...

And to a lovely night celebrating the fruits of our labour and enjoying each other's company with a marvellous sunset backdrop.

The countdown is on to Scotland, and I still have a bit to do, so it will be head down for the next wee while.

Thursday Thoughts...

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. 

 Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles

I imagine this quote has sat in amongst my quotes document for a decade or more. It sprang forth and caught my attention today because on my first walk of freedom (that is I tested negative to Covid) we walked to the Post Office and along the way we passed the place where I had written these words on timber many moons ago (2009).

I stopped to read what was left of the wording and some beautiful parts caught my eye. As ever the part that asks who are we to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? A good question of course, but it is the answer that we need to pay attention to - Who are we NOT to be?

I love that swift turn-around. The reversal of the premise and I have sat many times and pondered how powerful those words are; how much encouragement they offer. How much like a cheer squad for us they are.

We are all meant to shine... 

It's also in the part that says when we let our light shine, we unconsciously give permission for others to do the same - such a beautiful way of thinking about it. It takes away the me-me-me focus and suggests that yes you will do yourself a favour; but in doing so you will also help others.

There is so much in this; I should probably use it as a Thursday Thought more often.

This post from 2023 has all the links to the process, the installation and the weathering of the piece. 

Celebrating Books Maleny - Big Book Club

 This is a week of many things. Given my quietude and time at home there hasn't been much action.

I have been busy preparing (I hope) for an interview with Kate Evans at our Big Book Club discussion on Saturday. This year around we have explored the notion "Is Irish writing have a moment?". We asked folk to read two books by Irish writers and we will discuss these in small groups. 

the queen of dirt island by Donal Ryan and the 2023 Booker Prize winner Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Both are remarkable books and contain so much richness for thought and discussion.

After our small group discussions we gather together for a plenary session and this year we have invited back our favourite book person - Kate Evans, who co-hosts the ABC's weekly radio show The Bookshelf. Kate is a marvellous interviewer, but we really enjoyed turning things around last year and interviewing her - this time to mine her rich wealth of knowledge, understandings, and insights into Irish authors and writing.

The plan is that I do the interview, but of course we wait to make sure that I will be safe to do so.

I have read a heap of Irish writers in preparation for this event and highly recommend both of these books; and so many others...

In between times it has been about getting lot of joy from the garden - making small bunches of delight here and there to make me happy.

And watching the beautiful light...

Isolated stitching

 It has been a quietish week here as I tested positive to Covid on Wednesday. No real symptoms, but we knew there was a fair bit about and we were about to have dinner with my Dad so we did a precautionary test and I was gobsmacked! Dad delivered dinner to us that night.

I am tired and a bit achy and feeling not quite 'me' but otherwise am not feeling too badly. Isolating at home as best I can - getting outside in the fresh air for a few walks but keeping a very wide berth if we meet anybody along the way.

So I have been stitching.

It would be nice to report that I have finished the seventh scroll - and I have! So that was good news. 

I had started scroll 7 thinking of the pink of the heather...

I thought this pink would be deep enough to hold its own; but when I looked at the first word I tried, it was clear that you could see that there was something pink there; but that you couldn't quite read it. Given the scrolls will be displayed at a bit of a distance, I knew this one wouldn't work either, so I unpicked the word and began again in this deep forest green.

To think I was nearly done! It then brought me to re-consider the second scroll I stitched which I knew was really too pale to work well.  I had figured I could get away with it if needed; but deep down I knew it should be re-done, if I possibly could.

And here I am with plenty of time at home and no reason not to, so I have begun. You can see how pale the lilac thread was and hard it is to read. I thought about the steely blue seas near us in the Highlands and found two that might work. In the end I selected the slightly lighter one as the dark one ended up looking too much like dark grey.

This shows how much stronger the blue is. I decided I would unpick each word, then re-write it and re-stitch it s a way of breaking up the task into varied pieces.

So the piece is emerging anew one word at a time.

There are quite a few words to go...

Thursday Thoughts...

“It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.” 

Dani Shapiro

Oftentimes I come across quotes that I have tucked under the heading of Art for my Thursday Thoughts; and in fact when I read them I wonder if they are also not about Life?  This is one such one, and as I sat and played around with it i t struck me that one of the answers to the question is probably that my life is a lot about art. Hence the intermingling and overlaps.

I am reflecting on Art this week and this really speaks to me about the process of trying to make and create.  Of trying and failing; of sitting and thinking; of resisting the direction it seems to be going in; of dreaming about where to next and of course the unravelling.. I am not sure I have ever ravelled but part of me would like to explore it!

I think the final words of the sentence are in particular where I make my life and art overlapping insight - for me when I am in my art, and in the making and in the pondering and in the solving I am for sure at my most engaged, alert and alive in my life.

Playing around with ideas and techniques, wondering how the stories might emerge...

More pebble jewellery

 I have been asked to make a few pieces of jewellery of late, and there has been some interest in a shop stocking some, so I thought I had better get down to it and get some done.  It had been a while since I played in the workshop, so it took a bit of time to get back into the groove of things, but fortunately it all came back and I managed to get some bits done.

I brought a bunch of pieces I had made back from the workshop in small packages, trying to keep the pieces I thought might work best together, together.

I thought these pieces might go together like this for earrings.

And with a nice beaten jump ring they became earrings.

This pair uses some smaller pebble forms I had made and not quite known what to do with, but they helped add some movement and swish to this pair.

I made three pebble pendant trios. They are each about 4cm long and about 3.5cm wide, each has a different combination of beaten and brushed silver.

I had made this larger pebble form a while ago and it kept worrying me that it looked it too much like a triangle, rather than a pebble. It sat there for ages, until the other night, as I lay awake, I wondered about the beaten square jump ring I had purchased and whether or not I could create a trio of shapes, rather than pebbles...

So I had a good weekend soldering, rolling and beating silver, and then putting it all together for jewellery. Hopefully some of it will be what folk are after...

And yes, it will be back to stitching for me now! I have begun scroll 6, and still have to do scroll 7 as well before we head off...

Some of the words on the scrolls and dismantling

 I did a fair bit of research from the museum, from archives and books trying to work out some of the things that folk may have had in their homes in the Highlands around the 1820s.

The idea of the scrolls is that they form a kind of household inventory; lists of all the things that might have been in a home, that needed to be gathered, collected and packed up when folk were forced to leave.  There is a lot when you think about it.

I have included on the inventories some old Scots words which are unfamiliar to us today. I thought it might be important to also have a list of them to help people interpret the work more fully.

Some of these include:

Simmons - a rope

Flate - a straw partition

Rantle Tree - a pivoting iron bar above a fire

Creepy - a stool for children

Caff-seck - mattress ticking filled with chaff

Bosom - a brush or a broom

Kist - a chest

And yes, the stitching goes on...

Part 2...

As part of our recent photography Pop-Up show Exposed, Sheila and I chose to re-furbish and re-purpose the frames. Barry painted a number of them black, we removed old artworks, cleaned up the tape and glue residues, replaced the foam core and put in hangers.

And thus some artworks have been dismantled. I quite like what this one is becoming - lots of interesting moments appearing.

I can't find a decent photo of it anywhere - here is its sibling back in 2011...

Here it is out of the frame (which got used for one of the Exposed images). I began lifting the rusted paper which had drawing marks on it - travel lines and such - but some of it remained, which I quite liked.

And then I chopped the work up into 4 page-sized pieces, and played around with arrangements.

But also thought they might provide the beginnings of 4 new mini artworks

And that somehow the centre could be used on one of them; or become the beginnings of another piece entirely.

I love the process of re-imagining something; creating new possibilities out of old and worn work. 

we shall see where this goes, but for now it shows promise!

Thursday Thoughts...

"One always sees the soul through words". 

Virginia Woolf

I always enjoy the first moment of contemplation with my Thursday Thoughts quotes. I read a few and one grabs me, and I wonder why, and then I ponder it briefly. In those moments, heaps of things can run through my head.

With this one it went a bit along the lines of "oh yes, I can see that, but then of course she would say that,  she is a writer, and I think you can sometimes see the soul in the trees and the sky and in beautiful art as well.."

So I figured there was something there to ponder!

As ever I find myself a bit unsure and uncertain when I read words like always. They are so definitive. So certain. So directive.  I am never sure I want to sign up to 'always' for pretty much anything.  So I start asking does always really apply?

In this instance I wondered as well if it suggests that it is only through words that one sees the soul? Is there a bracket at the end of the sentence that says "and in no other way". Or does it suggest that each and every time there are words, one see the soul?

I would be more comfortable with one can see the soul through words because some words are so beautifully put together that you do feel a fleeting glimpse of the soul and wonder are revealed. At other times they are less interesting or boring, or difficult, or incomprehensible and I am not sure that necessarily reflects the soul.

Anyway I clearly haven't landed on anything succinct that gets me on top of understanding these words fully; but I have had quite the ponder!

Hope in the dark, FD 2024.