Thursday Thoughts...

"Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested". 

Francis Bacon

At different times in my life I have tried to read books in a kind of sequence - one literary fiction, one trashy fiction, one non-fiction and then let the cycle begin again.  I certainly consider my trashy fiction as the books to be tasted. I think both literary fiction and non-fiction can both be swallowed and or chewed and digested.

These words give a sense of the lightness of some books; and the depth and seriousness of others. Books that challenge your thinking, make you feel big feelings, or learn some great stuff are ones that you truly need to savour.

At other times my mind can only handle a light dusting, a tasting, or even as the French would say an 

'amuse bouche' - something that amuses the mouth!

This amused both me and my mouth on a recent trip to Melbourne - a square, fairy bread, lamington in in its own wee box!

Exhibition - All Stitched Up

All Stitched Up is an exhibition by Paper Makers and Artists of Queensland, being held at the Gympie Regional Gallery from 22 February to 23 March 2024.

The Gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am - 4pm.

Three of my pieces were selected for this exhibition and I am thrilled to have them shown in such a fabulous venue, with so many other wonderful paper artists.

The first piece is called Postcards Home and I have blogged about it previously here.

"Contemplating home in two places; sending messages from here to there and back again…"

 

Handmade paper from recycled and natural fibres, botanical dyed threads (agapanthus, rosemary, comfrey, from one place; stinging nettle, thistle, scabiosus from the other), hand stitching, Perspex.

The second piece is called Homecomings I-VII

"Journeying, travelling, moving between two places. Finding home."

 

Graphite rubbings from two places on Japanese Kozo and Hosho papers, machine stitching, embossing, Arches Velin paper 

These are simply three of the seven - all seven can be seen on a recent Thursday Thoughts post here!

The final piece is called Home is...?

"Home is stitched together from memories, places, and people."

 

Graphite rubbings from two places on Japanese Kozo and Hosho papers, machine stitching, hand stitching, Khadi paper 320gsm, Perspex

We hope to visit in the next wee while and see them on show.

Thursday Thoughts...

“They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?”  

Jeanette Winterson

I have no doubt that somewhere in science somebody has done the research about whether or not this can be true, but it is most definitely something that we have grown up understanding.

When Ms Winterson puts it like this I agree entirely - it is too, too much to consider, think about or hold onto really. The scale of design innovations and variations.  I start to turn my mind to it and wonder surely not every snowflake EVER? Maybe just snowflakes that are snowing at the same time? 

The more I think about it the less I can imagine the possibility of their uniqueness, and yet it does seem that science suggests that in fact each and every snowflake is unique. 

My utter delight and enthralment whenever it snows most definitely makes me want to believe. It is awe-inspiring to think that amongst that beauty and joy, each snowflake is different...

Page from Snow falling in daylight, part of BookArtOBject 2012.

Cards and more cards...

 Whilst here is MUCH making of artwork for exhibitions, as well as packing and delivering artworks, the regular business of life as a Letterpress studio continues along.  Recently Barry and I have managed to re-stock our cards and feel quite chuffed that we managed to print, illustrate and package so many.

I still get asked if I am 'the grief card lady" on occasions, and am happy to reply "yes, I am". I updated a couple of cards which had basically sold out.

Three muted colour ways.

Packed and sealed and available here.

The mess of the process belies the quiet beauty of the outcome.

These too are now back in stock. With the words "and life will never be the same again"on the inside, they seem to capture the reality of loss and bereavement.

And then it was back to re-stocking regular celebratory type cards as well. Barry helped out so much - he set and printed nearly all of these, whilst I added the illustration/decoration.

And I re-printed some of these soft and lovely pebble cards, based on a couple of my watercolours back here. The first is the warm pebbles.

This one is the cool pebbles.

It feels good to have a range of cards available again. Not all are on the website shop, but if anybody is interested, just drop me an email or a comment...

Or, I just thought I could try something and see if I can create a link to purchase a particular item...so here goes. I won't actually know if it works till the blog post goes live so its a bit hit and miss...but fingers are crossed!

• Welcome to The World purchase link

EDIT: The links work! So if you are interested in any others, I can arrange that too! Also, the postage would not be what it says in the system - just a bit too complicated for me to modify -  I would arrange to refund you. But also - just email and it might be easiest that way.

The best fun - wood carving workshop

 For Barry's birthday I bought us both attendance at a 3 hour wood carving workshop in Brisbane. The tutor was Theresa Darmody and it was held at Artisan in Bowen Hills.

The goal was to make a small specimen vase and we did!

On arrival our bench positions were set up with a vice gloves and tools, and we got select our first blank.

We began by using the draw blade and it was such a delight. I was utterly mesmerised by the slow motion effective removal of large chunks of the timber.

After the draw blade, and about to begin with the carving knife. none of which I photographed I was so engrossed in whittling!

This is after sanding. And then we burnished, oiled and waxed it.

What a great bunch of results by the 8 participants in just under 3 hours!

B on the L, me on the R - our bud vases at home with some lovely dried flowers. So. Much. Fun.

I have determined I thoroughly enjoy pretty much any sort of making with my hands. Just sitting being carried away by the slow movements, the concentration and the mediation of it all.

Barry has posted his side of things here.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Do work that feeds your soul, not your ego.” 

Jessica Walsh

For any artist I imagine there is a balance between self expression and the need/desire for others to enjoy or understand or appreciate what they do.  No art work is ever really made in a vacuum; and most work gets looked at, at some point, by somebody, even if it is never shown publicly.

Whether or not one thinks they might occasionally make work for their ego's sake, I think the value of these words is in the first part, where she suggests we should do work that feeds our souls.

Over and over again I return to this idea that it is really the main purpose and the main point of making. To do the work that is your work, to say the things you need to say, to make the things you need to make because they give you joy, because they make you feel brighter or better, or for any other reason by which they feed your soul.

If I ever get caught in the making for others, for viewers, for profit or whatever else can lead me astray, I return to this and realise that feeding my soul matters, and that making art does just that.

I adore this work, and delivered it to an exhibition yesterday. I don't think many people get it at all; but that's OK. My heart fills when I spend time with it.

Grief is a Stone in pouches

 Having said how lovely I think multiples of the Grief is a Stone cards are, I also think they hold up well as their beautiful individual selves; or as a trio.

Even tho the pebble cards now looked more like small artworks, it felt like they needed something more. Barry suggested popping them in some sort of pouch or covering and my mind went to a lovely white stitched pouch, with a blind embossed pebble on the front and threads hanging loosely.

And I managed to do just that!

I cut the paper to size with the lovely deckled edge at the top and front. I then selected one of the three pebbles that was blind embossed on the cover of the book-et to indicate which poem card was contained within. 

Poem I's pebble blind embossed and the pouches stitched.

Deckled edges and loose threads...

Pome II's pebble pouch.

And poem III's blind embossed pebble pouch.

And the edges of threads...

One of the tricks will be pricing the individual poem cards and book-ets as well as pricing if somebody wants to buy all three. I am never very good at pricing so that will keep me pondering for a bit!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.” 

Jeanette Winterson

I am not sure I could describe myself as a collector of books, although I do experience a bit the obsession she describes.  I find it very hard to walk past a book shop without going in to have a browse. To hold books, turn them over, flick through them. 

I always look up which bookshops are nearby when I visit a new town or city and generally make an effort to visit them (a bit like art galleries). Need versus desire gets tested a lot; and so often a book you didn't even know existed o r had never heard of catches your eye and it must go home with you. 

We tend to circulate and move our books along and around so I never feel like I really own them - altho a lot of art books I purchase I feel are part of a collection; or perhaps simply a library.

I agree wholeheartedly that it is not a hobby; it is definitely a fascination, an absurdity, an obsession...

Books in our hotel room in Ullapool 2019, with a reminder that these plus more could be found in theyr bookshop, and even more in their Library. Such a bibliophile place to stay!

Collating the Collaboration - The Shape of Things

 I mentioned in the comments back here when I posted on the final instalment on the collaborative exchange of artists' books that Annwyn Dean and I undertook over a year, that it might be nice to gather them together and do a post with them all together.

I am so glad I had that idea! I spent time with the books at the studio recently, and truly enjoyed having them alongside each other; and together.

Bringing them together, it was lovely to reflect on what a beautiful collection they have become; to look closely and see how we both approached the work; and to see how our signature looks appear throughout them all, despite our use of the other's papers.

It was lovely to look at them as a collection and see how well they sit together; but also lovely to re-consider each of them as individuals and remember the moments of discovery and the things I loved about them.

I hope you enjoy their gathering as much as I did!

Annwyn's books 1-3

Annwyn's book 4-6

Fiona's books 1-3

Fiona's books 4-6

Books 1-3 together

Books 4-6 together

Books 1-6 all together!

What a beautiful collection to reflect on such a beautiful project across the miles...

Hand stitching lengths of fabric

 One of the pieces of work for Scotland involves joining quite a few lengths of fabric to create seven scrolls, which will drift down some plinths Barry has been making for me.

I decided to join the different lengths by doing hand-stitched run and fell seams, which of course, I dreamt about how to do at night but then ended up watching a YouTube clip to put me right. So glad I did, as I learnt many a good little tip. The woman there hand stitches historical clothes so she is more of a perfectionist than I needed to be, but I digress.

First up, I wanted to stitch the scrolls with some of the flax thread I had been gifted by the gorgeous folk at Gongcrafts, the natural dyers of wool who live in a nearby village to us in Scotland.  I have shared some of my struggles with unwinding and re-winding the flax thread here, but I hoped that the hard part was done and that I could now simply merrily stitch my fabrics together.

As you can see from the photos, the thread still wanted to stick to itself as I drew it through the needle, and the needle through the fabric, and then tear, and I gave up after half a dozen stitches. I was sadly disappointed, but will keep working out ways to use the thread!

I then turned to some crochet cotton thread I had dyed using the Devil's Bit Scabiosus flowers from Scotland and you can see they stitched very nicely in comparison.

Not that I stitched so very nicely, but after watching the You Tube I learned to draw a stitching line if I really wanted to do straight stitches.

I did the fell part with a tiny diagonal stitch and this is how the seam looked from the back.

And this is how it looked from the front, so I thought yep we are on to something.

And away I went. I have cut down all the fabric I need, and now have seven lengths to create - from 2.0m down to 1.7m; some involve joining three lengths, others involve joining seven. So I at least got to practise hand stitching run and fell seams!

With loads of notes to self and calculations...

They are now all joined and looking pretty OK and tidy.

Now to hand stitch onto about a metre length for each scroll - a fair mountain of work awaits!