Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Paper selections and decisions
Sunday, August 31, 2025
Papers and ironing and orchids
The good (great!) news through the week was that I submitted my presentation for the Bind25 Conference in New Zealand. That felt like such a relief and such milestone.
The fact that it was there, always there, waiting for me to tweak it, add to it, delete elements of it, was the strangest of feelings for the past few weeks. But now it is done. Yay.
So I decided to turn my mind to a wee book I am thinking of making in an edition. To start with I had to work out what papers did I think would be best; and then discover if I had enough of the paper to do what I wanted...
These are my lightest book papers - from my paper sampler book - and I was looking for the whitest, and the smoothest, and luckily for me they were the same paper. Magnani Map paper, 140gsm.
Thursday, August 28, 2025
Thursday Thoughts...
Tuesday, August 26, 2025
Lovely news and lovely moments
I received some lovely news through the week. The Mackay Regional Council (hosts of the Libris Awards, Australia's premier artists' book awards) contacted me to advise that they had purchased Red Card for their Collection.
Their collection is a very impressive one, as they acquire the winner of the prize and then go on to select books from amongst the finalists which they think will add value to their collection.
Back in 2022, they had purchased another of my books (a wee trio in fact) called Turning Point and it feels rather special that Red Card will joining them.
It's also just an interesting aside that both books are about similar issues; and both employ red, black and white. Rather different to my sisal soft, quiet palette.
So that was lovely. And just before that news we had three delightful days of blissful sunshine and there were some lovely moments to be captured within them.
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Building Narrative Workshop
Sunday evening weariness after a wonderful workshop with four great women, at the amazing Kim Herringe's studio here in Maleny. Kim is a fabulous printmaker, artist, and all round champion of art and is a truly excellent and generous teacher. I was honoured to be asked to be a guest instructor in her beautiful studio space - and yes there were wallabies hopping through the garden!
Kim had asked me to teach my Building Narrative in Artists' Books workshop and it was a joy to spend time talking about the many ways we can bring our stories to life for people in our artists' books.
As I said at the beginning of the workshop it is a really heavy 'head-day' and far more so than the usual 'hand-day' that we love as makers and creators. However, time to ponder, investigate and explore is also a gift that is welcomed and we went in and down and around and through and back again with our thinking about making.
As ever, I failed to get many photos, but here are a few.
After chopping up papers for my paper sample books, I knew there was a reason I had left the scraps lying around! There was enough black paper to make 4 name plates for the attendees at my Building Narrative workshop (and enough white paper to make the next ones too!). Winning.
Part of the workshop encourages folk to examine artists' books, discovering how well they tell their story, and what the artists might have done to enhance the storytelling. Here the group is quietly at work interrogating some beautiful artists' book.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Thursday Thoughts...
Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Trying different pebble jewellery things
I have been thinking about the jewellery I make and at the moment I am still very happy making pebble-inspired jewellery. I don't have a need or a hankering to head off and try other forms just yet. And anyway I still have things I want to improve and get better at with these ones.
And so it was that I snaffled an hour the other day to try and see if I could use up some random, small pebble forms that were lurking about. I had this notion about soldering five pebble forms together to make a necklet of sorts.
And sitting on the couch one night I collected some silver chains to see what might work.
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Re-stocking
As mentioned, my grief card cupboard was bare, and so I set about cutting paper, setting type, inking up and printing. Then the illustrating and then the packaging and the final step updating the inventory.
All done now!
In a way it's sad that these are my best sellers; but in another way I am happy that folk can choose simple, heart felt and hand made cards for folk who need their thoughts and care at the time.
After finishing the illustrations for the dandelion cards - with the quote "they lived and laughed and loved and left... and life will never be the same again"
I find it quite meditative drawing these flowers and counting the seed heads that remain attached; and those that have been blown away.
This time around I also made some of my 'dandelion' cards in a portrait format, and they look OK.