Many a dead end...

I am fortunate to have been selected to to participate in a fairly prestigious exhibition alongside 25 Australian printmakers and 40professional artist members of the Kyoto Hanga Executive from western Japan. (for details see works on show here)

There is no theme, no size restriction and either 2D or 3D work is possible.

It sounds wonderfully freeing and all things are possible doesn't it?  Instead I have observed how challenging it is to work into a void.

I think perhaps the challenge has been added to by the fact that I had factored in needing to do have done the work by August (the show is in September) BUT because it is a joint show with Japanese printmakers, and the catalogue is going to be printed in both English and Japanese, and the printing is a complicated affair of high gloss stuff, we actually need to provide some words including a title by 15 April, and then hi res images all need to be provided by 1 June.

So this kind of mucked with how my brain had set this one aside for some pondering, back of mind perusal and perambulation - and brought it up front and centre and forced me to come up with something!

It has become clear that this is not my favourite way of doing things.

But still.

Under pressure I tried a myriad of ideas and ways to produce something the would be worthy, and I present for you my many rabbit holes and dead ends along the way.  That is not to say that I have a resolution now - but I am headed in a completely different direction and am quietly hopeful...

In an effort to be technical, I pondered ripples of peace...and faffed about trying to see if I could print lead type in semi circles without much support other than by dipping the type in candle wax and attaching it to the base of the proofing press.

The answer is clear...

I was so busy trying to do clever technical things I ended up writing myself a note...

 I thought I could then go simple - just piling up some wood type.

The idea behind this one was hugs and kisses, but it ended up feeling bit trite for a serious show, so I let that one go as well.

Although it will go somewhere sometime as I kind of like it!

I returned to the notion of here and there - a book about the cottage in Scotland and our home here in Maleny.

Having designed and worked out the layout, I realised it would turn out to be a tiny book coming out of a single sheet of paper - only about 14cm high by about 5 cm wide; and I felt that it would look a bit inconsequential amongst other works (the maximum is 60cm x 60cm which is a good size piece of paper).

For some reason I then thought of cubes.  Printing the information on two cubes that you could turn around and see the different elements of the two places.

I started with wood type tests - the postcode in Scotland.

But then tried a few templates of cubes and where and how to print, this time using a consistent lead typeface.

One element is the peace dove - we have seven at the cottage and around 21 in Maleny, so I was planning to emboss them on one panel after all the other printing.

See how tricky I kept getting?  Clearly still failing to pay attention to my own earlier advice of working out what and then how. I was stuck on being clever and complex.  I guess I was feeling I had to do something pretty special when I was amongst so many talented and real printmakers.

I looked at this cube made up and thought it was very dull - and perhaps a constant theme on each panel might help, so I went and printed squares on the etching press; then back to print letter press on the proofing press.

Wootha is the actual name of the locality where we live.

These are our latitude and longitude.

Our Maleny/Wootha postcode.

And still it just wasn't working - not me; trying too hard, why was I trying to say this? why did I choose this form? Honestly!

And so I dropped this idea as well.

And then early one morning when I couldn't sleep a little idea popped into my head and I thought - ahhh, now that might be it...

Stay tuned to see if we have a solution or just another dead end.