Teaching and Presenting

 I am excited to be presenting at a Conference in NZ in September - "Bind25". Hosted by ABCNZ it brings together fine binders and artists book makers and all associated variations in between.  Whilst they have prepared an extensive week-long program I will only be dashing over for a long weekend kind of thing...life.

I am presenting on my work and thinking about how to build narrative in artists' books. The presentation is coming along and taking shape as I ponder and meander and crystallise and clarify.

Before I head off I have also been offered the opportunity to run a workshop on Building Narrative - an opportunity for folk to take their artists' book making deeper; to think their way through story telling via the medium of artists' books and to take the reader on a full and satisfying journey.

Through the week I knuckled down and grabbed hold of a heap of artists' books from my collection to start finessing and updating the course.

I brought them home and spread them out.

And sorted through the opportunity moments in the workshop where participants will sit down together and discuss what different stories different styles of artists' book tell...

And I reached a point where I knew which books would work with which books, and in which groupings and why.

Sometimes I joke that there might be two things written on my gravestone:

1. She had neat handwriting; and 

2. She was organised.

The organised thing is always a bit amusing as I am the only person who ever really experiences my head space. My head is filled with thoughts that need connecting or jotting down; or which create new jumping off points for other ideas and... it can be quite the jumble. My sense has always been that my organisational side is just about trying to make sense of all this bubbling excitement!

And so as I kept having a multitude of thoughts and ideas about where to take the workshop and presentation next; I decided each thought could go on a sticky note and get stuck down. That way I wouldn't lose it, and I could watch them all come together.

It got pretty wild by the end of the morning!

Yet the sense of satisfaction as enormous. Despite how it might look here, I knew where to head next, and what needed doing. So good!

And then just to some lovely colourful, jewel-like details of an artwork we recently purchased from our friend Ken Munsie. These delightful moments make me smile each time I pass by, or glimpse over at it...