Thinking about the next Shape of Things

Sometimes I plan too much; I overthink things and get way too organised, and it's all a waste because I just end up doing something completely different.

Not so in this case and on return from Scotland I was really pleased with my earlier-in-March self as I had sorted some papers and written some thoughts about them which now reminded and helped me.

I had sorted through some of the papers Annwyn had sent me for our collaboration and had grouped them in different ways.

Which I found all very helpful as I turned my mind to book 4 in the series.

So I could sit and play with this and that, knowing that I had all the pieces of paper in a certain 'set' that I needed and could simply work within that set.

I didn't waste time re-sorting, trying to figure out what might go with what and why. I simply scanned through the different sets, decided which way I would head with this book, and off I went.

I made a lot of progress on the day and can clearly see the next steps.

Thank you earlier-in-March me!

Thursday Thoughts...

I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way – things I had no words for. 

Georgia O’Keeffe

Some things aren't easily put into words. Words can feel clumsy or brutal or too bare or too strong or too fanciful or too weak or too blunt or too sharp or too scary or ...

And that is why I think artists are fortunate. No matter what we make or how we make we have a chance to say something without words. To find ways to express ourselves, our thoughts, our hopes our fears in way that are beyond words, that operate at levels that aren't vocal or legible.  

Some of us use colour, some use shapes; others use materials; some use time; some use scale; some use structure.  So many ways to speak and tell stories without words.

If we are lucky, our work speaks directly to people's hearts, without the need for translation or explanation or expression verbally. It speaks and expresses our kinship without words...

A sweet commission

 Just before we headed away, I took a call from somebody asking for a commission. I had only a week or so before leaving, so wasn't planning on doing any complicated work. But because it turned out to be a memorial card following the death of this person's dear friend, I found my way to get it done.

The initial brief was to simply letterpress set and print her name and dates. The card was to accompany the person's ashes which were to be scattered by friends in different places.

She also wanted a heart, and she wanted it in red. This is impossible to do on the best option for fine type, the Adana, so I thought I would try it on the proofing press, where you ink up by hand, allowing for two or more colours. The proofing press involves having a cylinder roll over the type. Fine for chunky wood type; but oftentimes with metal type, and in particular small, fine, metal type the cylinder hits the type bock and judders.

Which is exactly what happened.

I tried a few times, but one of the tricks was, I had offered to use some cards I had printed previously, with John O'Donohue's words On the Death of the Beloved on them which were perfect. But... I had a limited supply and not much room for error, so I really felt I couldn't keep trying and making a mess. So, it was over to the Adana and working out some way to get the red heart.

With my limited supplies off I went, and my brain must have melted, because I went and printed over the top of the words!!!

I was now down to NO spares.

But the rest of them printed beautifully and they looked lovely. I did a few extra with just the name and date and included them as well.

Those deckled edges just look so beautiful all together.

I printed the heart by hand, using the heart piece of metal type like a stamp; and where necessary going back in and touching it up with a bit of the same red ink.

And then of course I went to town with my lovely red hearts all over some lovely scraps and that was a happy way to finish the day.

Website update - it's been a while

 Well, we have returned back to Maleny, a bit earlier than planned, but we are all safe and well.

Jet lag often leaves me hazy - and slower than usual, yet for some reason over the weekend it made sense to me to try and update my website. I think it began when I was googling somebody and then wondered what they would find if they googled me. I wandered through my website as an observer, then realised there were things to update.

I don't go in and update often enough so it's often a case of re-learning the process with a few hiccups as you go. 

I realised I needed to update my gallery page (where I show some of my favourite pieces) and also my collections/CV bit.

My jotted notes. Firstly what needed to happen; and the green bits is what I needed to do for the gallery bit.

So off I went.

This is what the Gallery page looked like before I began. If you hover over an image you get the title and a bit about it; and if you click on the image you go to another page which has two more photos and links to process stories about the work (i.e. my blog posts) so I needed to find three images, think of some words and find two blog posts for each piece.

And after, with an example of the hover thing on Fragile Gains II.

I had forgotten so much. Here I had cut and pasted text and couldn't turn the colour into black; also the pictures were twice as large as the others on the page; and the titles were underneath the photos not on above them. I finally worked out I needed to simply duplicate a previous entry, and then replace the photos, words, titles etc.

So much simpler when one duplicated and replaced!

So now, if you hover over Validating you see this:

If you click on Validating you go here...

And if you click on Process stories, you go here...

The collections part involved updating the text on my About page to include the two new institutions, and then updating a Word document, converting it to a PDF and uploading it, then making a link to the Collection details button. It took a few goes...

New collections: Mackay and Sunshine Coast.

An updated Word document, ready to convert and load and link.

The screen after I did that the first few times!

And then the screen after it worked.

And I remembered to update the hover on Turning Point as well!

It took a few hours but it is nice to be up to date. As Barry and I often say to each other - an art life is never about just making art...

Thursday Thoughts...

"I think books are like people, in the sense that they’ll turn up in your life when you most need them." 

Emma Thompson

This is a lovely thought and I think so often it can be proven true.  

Sometimes books turn up in your life and they are wasted. The timing is wrong and for whatever reason you are not ready, you are not open, you are distracted, you are not engaged by the themes, or you are simply not interested.

And then...down the track they may re-appear in your life and suddenly they are full of meaning and you are full of understanding!

At other times books can show up in the most unusual of ways, and yet they are just. what. you. need. right at that moment.

I think I come down on the side of sometimes timing is everything.

And just because. I was looking thru my photos and came across this one which made me smile when we saw it at the Innerpeffray library last year. 

Charred I

 I have so enjoyed travelling alongside this art work as it evolved.

What began as some random old semi-burnt posts has told me stories along the way of what it needed, where and why.

And now it is complete.

After burning, I started to think about where it might be placed in the landscape. I loved it in the daffodils - the contrast between bright colour and burned.

It looked too stark and isolated surrounded by lots of gravel/chip.

So I figured I would wait a while longer to think about a home. In fact, I decided to leave it in the shed when we leave, so that I could look at it anew next time.

I went on to add the bits I wanted to add. B helped by drilling a small hole in beautiful stone, allowing me to pop this rusty screw in.

And I balanced it on top.

I tied some old rope rescued from the cove post when it was repaired around the bottom.

And thought I was finished until my Dad suggested an addition.

And whilst I will still tuck it away in the shed whilst we are away, I think it shall make its home here, alongside the shed, nestled in some stones, with rocks and rust alongside.

And just because it is so beautiful, the rope.

I loved making this post and love its serene and gentle nature.

The Shape of Things III

 Each of the three books I have made thus far for my collaboration and exchange with Annwyn Dean, have been about Covid, lockdowns and the impact of it all.. 

Part of me remains intrigued that we aren't really seeing much reference to those times (? these times) in art. I am yet to see too many movies that include references to the pandemic isolation and lockdown; nor any tv series. Some books are emerging and some artwork is being made. Perhaps it is all still too fresh.

Nevertheless, the bizarre manner in which we have basically decided as a nation that we won't talk about it, we won't give regular updates or statistics and we shall carry on as if nothing happened seriously does my head in at times.

It was this nagging notion that sat behind the making of this book, which I have framed in my head as Collective Amnesia.

Here is some of what I have written about it:

The Shape of Things III continues the theme of experiencing changes through the different phases of the Covid pandemic. 

 

Book I considered how fluid time felt; and how unfocussed. Book II identified that things were beginning to take shape in my mind. In Book III I reflect on the shape of things behind us, the years since Australia first went into lockdown and where we find ourselves now.

 

The inspiration for this book comes from my sense that so many of us, as communities and even as nations, are suffering from some sort of collective amnesia, in the sense that we seem to be in denial about what happened, and what is still happening.  We don’t talk about it, we don’t report on it, and we don’t want to know how many deaths there have been this week, month or year.  

 

It feels to me like if we don’t talk about it, we don’t have to deal with it and its ongoing impacts.

 

The Shape of Things III is a reflection on how we really don’t want to acknowledge the true impact of the pandemic, speak about it, or consider what it means for the future.

 

Lest we remember.

 

The first 10 blue pages you see as you begin the book relate to the now - the months from July 2022 (when Australia re-opened international borders without restrictions) to April 2023. We have returned to a variation on 'a new normal'. The 28 white pages in the middle relate to the months from March 2020 to June 2022 - a time when travel and movement were restricted. These were hard, harsh and difficult times and full of fear with lockdowns, border restrictions, masks everywhere, limited contact with people, supplies short, business closed, distances kept. The final 2 pages, again in blue, refer to January and February 2020 - the times before everything changed.

On 17 of the white pages I have included the words collective amnesia. I have used one letter in white Letraset, on a single page, so as you turn the pages slowly, the meaning is revealed.

This is the toughest time, of which we have somehow agreed not to speak.

Each blue page holds a smattering of tiny circles cut from Annwyn's papers, representing that we can remember things we did last week, last month. That we recall events and happenings, with far more clarity than we recall the time of the white amnesic pages...

Yet somehow in the here and now, we find it hard to speak of things like case numbers, deaths, intensive care bed occupied by folk with Covid; as if we never spoke of those things and they just tick along in the background - nothing to see here.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Nothing makes me more nervous than people who say, ‘It can’t happen here.’ Anything can happen anywhere, given the right circumstances.” 

Margaret Atwood

Not exactly the chirpiest of Thursday Thoughts about Life, but an apt and evergreen one. Ms Atwood is a thinker, an analyst and a person who can get to the heart of things.

I think she is also a person who will sometimes say out loud the things we don't say. She will put in print, things we think shouldn't really be recorded. She is a brave and bold voice.

This is I think, a terrible yet timely reminder.  As we sit and watch all sorts of rights be undermined. As we see individuals and groups targeted for who they are, and often for merely existing. As we watch books being deemed so dangerous they need to be destroyed. As we observe no punishments for the most treacherous of actions. As we watch liars take power and turn invasion to liberation? As our media promotes lies for clicks. So many moments.

Small moments? Inconsequential on their own moments? 

Collectively immense moments.

Clearly, it can all happen. And is happening. We need to keep paying attention.

The end of the line, Auschwitz (2017).

The Shape of Things III arrive!

 Annwyn and I decided that we would post our books to each other a bit earlier than planned, as I would be in the UK and it would simpler and easier to work within a mail system, rather than to navigate two mail systems doing things overseas. And it worked.

I returned from a 5 day trip to Orkney to find her book number 3 waiting in the post. She too has received my book 3 so all is well. 

I don't have mine with me to show them together, but here are some photos of my book for her before I left; and of her book with me here in Scotland.

The story of the making of my book 3 will come later.

Here is Annwyn's - it called The Shape of Pamphlet Stitch and she has blogged on it here.

I really love how she has so beautifully brought our two papers together in such a complementary way.

It is such an elegant design.

And I absolutely adore these tiny masterpieces with their pamphlet stitches...

And here is mine. It is quite a traditional book with a fair bit of stitching, and lots of pages. 

The pages are beautifully soft, and they fan ever so well.

Whilst they are not physically together this time; here they are on the screen together. I continue to enjoy how we are each pushed by using the other's papers, and yet we each create books that are quintessentially 'us'.

I will show my book 3 in a bit more detail soon I hope.