Pocket Shots

 I don't know how much this happens to other people, but I occasionally put my phone back in my pocket 'open' and somehow the movement or an external pressure takes a photo - of the inside of my pocket.  At least I am not pocket-dialling folk I guess.

Whilst we were on Orkney a month or so ago I got this remarkable sequence of colour variations. I was taking a lot of photos it seems and putting my phone in and out of my pocket a fair deal.

And just this week, these two occurred.

I have no idea where these two come from, or what I was doing/wearing at the time, but they give me a bit of a smile and make me think how sometimes random art is the best kind of art.

Getting ready for peace

 For whatever reason, I am getting ahead of things a bit this year. With a return visit to Scotland planned for Barry's exhibition there in September, I feel like I am using the time in between to get ready and prepared for any number o commitments I have.

And so it is with International Day of Peace (21 September every year).

I had been pondering words for my peace flags and knew I had this year's when I landed on this. One of those middle of the night ones that I was pleased hung around long enough for me to remember in the morning!

My dad, and others, collect brown card cutlery holders for me during the year, and they become the basis for my peace flags - a bit of good recycling put to use.

Over the years I have worked out that I need to print on them with the opening at the bottom, not the top. Here in Maleny in particular, if I have the opening at the top, the rain fills them and they become quite heavy little brown bags which eventually tear away from their string!

I quite liked how the e s poked out of the drying rack.

The collection was about 75 at the time of printing, and of course I have more time to print more before I actually need them, but it is a good start.

And as ever a bit of play with whatever paper I could spy near by after I finished the main print run. These are the notebook offcuts. I can't see how they can be used but I did like looking at the words against a different type of background.

And some more offcuts. Here I simply turned the page upside down for the second run and I like the way the words seem to really convey the message when done like this.

So the preparations are underway - there are still holes to punch and string to thread and more to print as they arrive, but I've begun.

Thursday Thoughts...

“(Hope) is the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things we can know beforehand”. 

Rebecca Solnit

Hope. It is such a flighty notion (and I don't mean it's about the bird with wings quote) and quite difficult for me to grasp, pin down or define.  I love reading how others have imagined hope, and I think Rebecca Solnit does great thinking and writing about it.

There is a nebulousness in hope that she explores here, and which I like. 

Believing that what we do matters, despite not knowing how it might impact, or who it might impact. Or when.

I guess she is saying that without that belief, we may not bother to act.  That it is OK to do positive things without knowing for sure what effect they might have.

Sometimes optimism sounds like hoping for the best, being positive, or thinking positively.

Hope itself seems more linked to acting, to doing something now, with the belief that it will reap benefits down the track.

my wish for 2021 and beyond...

Notebooks done!

 Well, I had a really good run at things and managed to get all the covers printed, all the lined pages printed, all the less-than-wonderful ones cut down to mini-notebooks, all the holes pierced and all the notebooks stitched. Yay.

I had fun trying to photograph them all as you can see - a straight line was too long, so circular we went.

In the end these were the eight designs that held up best, so I have done a few doubles of some of them.

For those that looked less brilliant, and where the printer didn't do them justice, I trimmed away the worst bits and cut them down to be small notebooks - truly pocket sized. Some are portrait orientation and some are landscape.

And I enjoyed how our round woven rug played into the background as i photographed them at home.

And here is the bundle of smaller ones, all ready to go.

Pocket notebook play

 Yes, I am momentarily obsessing about making product for the markets in Scotland. Apologies.

As I have looked this way and that at what I could do, I started out thinking about postcards, with some words I had written.

Of course they were a bit to the side - words about fences; words about telegraph poles. I thought I might letterpress the words onto a faint image of fences or say telegraph poles.

And then I thought, seriously, who would want to buy words about fences?!?! Or telegraph poles?!?!

I had done some lovely play with the images though, and down in the studio it seemed to me that they might become covers for notebooks, somehow.

I had to remind myself that when I make notebooks with blank pages in them (which is what I normally do), they never sell because folk are frightened by blank pages. So maybe not such a great idea.

But then I went off to work out if I could print lined pages on the computer, and if so, could I do them on slightly nicer paper?

And I could, and we had some sort of lift off.

Here are a couple of images printed to A5 size on Fabriano Unica paper on the computer. Fences!

And then when I folded them down to be notebook covers, they became these.

Which I really liked. I liked the wrap around nature of them, and I liked the way I had knocked back the colour so much.

I continued to look for, and modify photos that I thought might work.

The trick is always if they work as folded covers, which most do. The ones with the big expanses of sky tend to pick up some stray printer marks/lines which probably means they won't make the final cut. And the spider web one just looks wrong.

Along the way I also played with ones I had stuffed up.  Mostly using the wrong paper - for covers and for the  inside pages. One learns as one goes along.

The paper inside this sweet wee one was so thick the poor book just stays wide open...

But they definitely have potential.

All the pages have been cut and trimmed...now the job is to pierce the holes and sew them!

Thursday Thoughts...

 "The idea is to balance linear thinking – which requires intense focus – with creative thinking, which is borne out of idleness. Switching between the two modes seems to be the optimal way to do good, inventive work ".

Emma Seppala

I really like this acknowledgement of the interplay between different modes of thinking as part of the creative process.

I sometimes think I spend too much time in linear mode- focused on an outcome, on the process and the details of the making.  I feel as if I don't give myself permission to spend nearly enough time in idle mode, to enable and facilitate the creative thinking mode.

Idleness has always had an association with indolence, laziness, and not so good things in my mind.  However, I also know that idleness is a time of free-flowing connections; of whimsical wanderings; and of subconscious resolutions and solutions.

I find it hard to establish time for idleness in my days; and the time I seem to most approximate idleness is trying to get to sleep in the early hours if I have woken. In that time, I allow my mind to wander to contemplate and to look at things differently. 

So at least I have that.

Just staring out to sea... Orkney, 2023.

Preparing pebbles

 I thought I might also take along some pebbles when we go to Scotland next, to be part of our market stall.  To simplify things, I thought I would simply write words that might resonate with folk and package them up (no lucky dip, no choosing your own name).

Potential...

So I started writing out words and kept trying to think of others that might work, so in the end I popped an image up onto FB and onto Insta to see what others thought.

Within two minutes I had some great extras to work with! Grace, quiet, create, and light.

The came along Be Kind.

So good!

I had suggestions of bliss and blessings, and light... and many more.

Here I was, starting out with words and working out if I have enough letters, or if I might need to write some more.

Hi tech storage system.

Writing out some extra letters. I have discovered that the blue pumpkin nib (on the blue holder here) is just about perfect for writing on pebbles. Fine lines, good ink flow. Happy days.

Extras I needed for the words I had selected at first. Ready to be sprayed with fixative so that being handled doesn't mean the lettering rubs off.

General extras I needed to keep stock up to speed.

Then the letters I needed after folk sent me more words.

The list of words I had for starters...

The list I had by Sunday afternoon...some great additions!

Prepping

Barry and I head back to Scotland later in the year for his exhibition in September. We have agreed to do a couple of markets on this next visit which means I have to turn my mind to what sort of product could I have?

So the process has begun testing this and trialling that - all things need to be fairly light, small and transportable (and non-breakable!)

I have chosen to take some of my home-cottages back - and have mounted them on nice paper and backed them onto foam core, all measured to fit into an 8x6 frame. Or to rest on an easel.

My sense is that they would like nicer in a white or timber frame; but black is what I had to play with...

Interesting to see how it pops a bit more when on the black.

For the markets I think I will have one or two propped on easels; you can really see the texture better that way.

I might also take the small mat just to show they frame up quite well. 

Decisions, decisions.