Thursday Thoughts...

"Attention is the doorway to gratitude, the doorway to wonder, the doorway to reciprocity". 

Robin Wall Kimmerer 

I have seen many folk celebrate the book Braiding Sweetgrass by Ms Wall Kimmerer, but am yet to read it myself, but with these words I recognise a kindred spirit of sorts. 

I love the way she uses attention as the bedrock to experiences; and the notion of a doorway, an opening, which enables or encourages us to go further.

Attention as a doorway to gratitude seems to be about how paying attention allows us to acknowledge the small and good things - the sun on our face in winter; the taste of a divine chocolate brownie; being present with a giggling child. Gratitude for being alive, and being able to experience these things.

Attention as a doorway to wonder is so real for me. The stopping and pausing and noticing beauty, soft light, colours, the perfect formation of a flower bud...to wonder at how much beauty there is if we pause and notice.

Attention as a doorway to reciprocity makes me think harder. Perhaps it is paying attention to small acts of kindness, noting them, being reminded and trying to remember to do the same?

Kindness...

Slowly slowly with pegs

 I have been saving the threads I have solar dyed from the gardens and kitchen both here and in Scotland for several years now.  They have been randomly wrapped on old pegs, labeled with hasty calligraphy and left in bags and boxes. Waiting.

I suddenly realised that for one of my exhibitions next year, that they might come into their own; so I brought them out of their cupboard and began to play around with ideas and notions.

I must admit, just spending time with them, selecting complementary ones from Scotland and Australia and gathering them together has been a delight.

The original pegs - a mix of square and round heads, messy labels and quite random wrapping of threads. Some pegs look like they have trousers on!

As mentioned, I really do enjoy their company and how they look - I think they are forever photogenic.

But those labels were bugging me, so I created new ones, and made them tidier. Much happier.

I also re-wound them so that they are more uniform in the wrapping, and unwound them from round headed pegs all onto square headed pegs.

And because I haven't yet worked out how their labels will be attached, I wrapped teeny weeny rubber bands around them to hold label, peg and thread together in the interim.

And then I lined them up and thought they were looking rather rigid and less lively than before. Less lively was OK because they were too wild for me before, but now they just looked a bit too tight.

And so I started unwinding a few threads and thought now we are beginning to play and breathe again.

And then because I thought the warm white background might be a bit bland, I tried out some grey paper, which I think has potential.

Of course, this all happened over hours and over days as I meditatively wound and unwound threads, played with positioning and responded to how they looked by trying some new things. The piece is well underway, but there are still quite a few issues to resolve and decisions to be made.

Slowly, but I hope, surely, we will get there.

A week of this and that

 It was an art-filled kind of week, but mostly made up of bits of this and that.  For me, living an art-life is never simply about making art; it involves so many other aspects - reading about art, visiting galleries and shows, teaching, doing small creative acts for folk, fixing up the websites and so on.

This week I did a couple of small jobs for folk, and together Barry and I ran a Letterpress workshop for nearby printmakers (from up Noosa way). I also fiddled and faddled a lot and spent many happy hours pottering in the studio.

It is clearly heading towards the end of the year, Christmas celebrations, holiday excitement and all the rest of it. So I hand wrote some Christmas tags for gifts for a group of people.

I added some words to this piece of work a friend had been gifted, just letting folk know the name of the flower and bud.

The Thursday workshop 'before' shot - all prepped and ready to go.

The workshop 'during' shot - showing lots of enthusiastic efforts and preparations.

We proofed with carbon paper, and I always love the look of the used paper.

And this. The simplest of words - Pop!

Whilst we waited for another press to be free, here it is by itself on simple, plain cards.

And here it is on some industrial looking prints. What a great addition it makes to the work, and how beautiful do the prints make the word look?!?

A little sampler of different typefaces.

And a sampler of wood type too.

As ever, I missed shots of the other lovely work that went on, but everybody tested and tried ideas and went away enthused by the possibilities...

Thursday Thoughts...

"For me drawing is an attempt to understand what I feel about the world I live in."

 Brian Froud

I think this quote holds true for so many ways of being creative. I think so many of us feel the need to try and express how we feel about so much that is going on in the world; or even in our small part of the world; or simply in our own lives as we navigate the world.

Words can sometimes be too clumsy, too bald, too simplistic. 

I so admire folk who can make marks, or draw or paint what they feel. Whilst I am not amongst them, I do believe that every person can do something to express their feelings or perspectives. It might be a garden, or singing or dancing in the dark.  It might be comedy or journalling, or making up recipes. It could be setting the table, arranging flowers or designing the ultimate playlist. 

I also like how he suggests that his drawing in an attempt to understand. It is enquiry, it is trying again, it is testing out. It is not sorted, settled or solved.  And so we continue.

Cy Twombly (detail) Sydney, 2023.

Online course continuing

 I did manage to get through a few of the phases/steps/modules of the Fibre Arts Take Two online course I am doing with Sally Tyrie called Visual Narratives, Print Paint, Stitch, whilst we were in the cottage.

Always with constraints, but I managed.

One module was about gelli plate printing and I had taken a gelli plate and some ink/paints with me so I thought I was well prepared.  And I was fairly much.

The prints were to be painterly, and mark making which is quite a departure from other gelli plate printing I have done in the past, building on my first attempt ever ten years ago.

I had my favourite Payne's Grey with me so went about trying to make marks...

And I thought some of them came out well and were definitely interesting. 

Others were less successful.

But some of the other colour ways gave nice results too.

Here they are pinned together in colour coding above my wee studio table at the cottage.

I brought them back with me to continue to work with them; but laughed out loud whenI realised I had left the inks/paints there so have just ordered some more to work with here.

Silver Sunday

 I have gotten into a bit of  a rhythm since returning, of heading over to the workshop with Barry on a Sunday, and sitting down and trying to do some silversmithing.

I think living with a metal worker does make it easier to attempt things like this that are far from paper and ink, but I am nonetheless finding my feet and getting into the swing of it. And loving it! It is meditative in a different way to my stitching, writing, setting type and making of books.

It does however take me away from my notion of myself as a maker with words. It will be interesting to see how far away I go. I can see it being an adjunct to, but not the main making I do.

What has happened is that it has brought together my desire to improve at soldering and hammering and making with silver, with my many explorations of pebbles. So I have set myself the challenge of making pebble-like jewellery. 

I soldered 6 small jump rings last week, and today I got to check if they worked and then began to shape them into pebbles. I put them through the rolling mill which flattened and elongated them; and then I got into hammering them.

They are pretty small!

One opened up as I hammered (poor soldering by me) but I figured I could use that as my middle pebble when I tried to overlap and re-join them. Before cleaning.

After cleaning. It was worth taking this photo because I had been polishing the one on the left and thought I was getting nowhere; so when I compared it to the one I was yet to polish I realised I had done OK. Of course, I have no photo of the finished pair! Yet.

I also challenged myself to solder the post on. The posts we had bought have this nice circular plate at the bottom which makes it easier; but my pebble was too narrow and the plate would have shown, so I was bold and cut the plate off and soldered just the post. Very chuffed that I did that. You can see one on the unpolished one above.

But then I wanted to go big, and make some jump rings from thicker wire and formed them into wobbly pebble shapes.

Playing around with positioning.

Reminding myself how much polishing adds, in comparison to clean, but unpolished.

I popped a circular jump ring on, but didn't like the curved nature of it, so took it off and tried to hammer it a bit flatter on the tiniest of mandrils.

Much happier with the hammered look.

And now to try and find some cord or wire or chain to go through and take some finished shots!

Thursday Thoughts...

"I don't always, or even usually, read stories from beginning to end. I start anywhere and proceed in either direction". 

Alice Munro

I must admit I found this notion very challenging! How on Earth could I make sense of things I wondered, if I just randomly wandered this way and that through a book? Surely a narrative is sequential (yes I realise you can narratively flip between time and places, but the whole thing has been chosen to be presented in a particular way even if you are going back and forth in time).

I wondered what you might lose and then what you might gain if you did that?  Perhaps you get a slow roll into the story, different moments of understanding, confusion whilst things don't connect, frustration that things you know happen are only being forecast when you go backwards?

I have no idea what this experience would be like in real life, but it has certainly made me want to try it.

And so I start to think of a book - should I re-read something in this way and see how it feels? Should I start a book I am not sure I care that much about and try it out? Should I choose a highly recommended book and see if this approach offers a good reading?

Still not sure which way to go, or just when, but I must admit my curiosity has been piqued.

Photography Pursuits

 A friend and I have been spending time learning new ways use to our iPhones for photographs and are coming together in the next wee while to work out if we can do something lovely with some of the imagery.

It has been such a delight with many an unexpected outcome and we are both keen to see what might be possible, and where it might lead us.

I like these two - reflections of a wine glass with shadows of my hand holding it.

These are more the style we have been exploring and wondering where to next with. The same wine glass however!

I am intrigued by how black the black is.

These are the same subject - some honesty and three hag stones - but with differing styles.

Colour.

Black and white

And mostly white.

Neither of us are photographers, but we have both been enjoying the moods the images evoke and shall see where we go with them... 

My making seems eclectic and all over the place at the moment, but I can just about see a common purpose through the haze...

Prepping fabrics

 I have two exhibitions next year and they each involve a lot of work, so I am starting as early as I can on both of them. I am trying to push each piece forward a bit at a time so I feel as if I haven't forgotten any single piece. At some point that will change and I will be head down, bum up finishing specific works, but for now, I am a bit of this and a bit of that and a bit more of that over there.

This week was all about prepping fabrics for use in a large piece. I combed through my back catalogue of fabrics and found a bunch that worked well together.

I need a number of long lengths so thought I might also need to dye/stain a few more. Out came some pins.

I folded up the fabric with the pins in, and popped it in a brew of strong black tea.

Which stained it well and the metal made some interesting marks.

It might have been toooo strong a brew so I went again with a slighter weaker mix and random pin placement. Even tho of course it was random in quite an orderly fashion.

 

And here it is hanging in the sunshine in the peace magnolia tree

I started to measure and tear the lengths I might need for the work. And this is how our lounge looks for the time being.

Each one measured and labelled!

I will need to stitch lengths together so that part will be fun.