Thursday Thoughts...

“I always forget how important the empty days are, how important it may be sometimes not to expect to produce anything, even a few lines in a journal. A day when one has not pushed oneself to the limit seems a damaged damaging day, a sinful day. Not so! The most valuable thing one can do for the psyche, occasionally, is to let it rest, wander, live in the changing light of a room.” 

May Sarton

I spent a fair bit of time pondering how this one came to be filed under 'art' and not under 'life' in my document, and in the end decided it felt more like life than art, so rather than write about it last week, here I am today, pondering Life!

I should probably have this one stuck on my wall, on the inside of every cupboard door, tattooed on my forearm and on the heads up display of our car as I drive!

There simply are words and thoughts that are meaningful and true and that continue to be life companions.

If only I could learn from them...

After returning from Scotland I knew I would be super busy for a month or so, and yep I have been. Tomorrow I fly to New Zealand to present at the Conference, and return home on Monday - literally a flying visit. And then maybe, just maybe, I can begin to work out more ways to incorporate these words into my daily ways of being.

How precious for time to be spend simply being, and not to be judging oneself harshly for not achieving masses of things. Oh to sit and rest among the quietly changing light in a room....

Jewellery making

In between things I have been wandering over to the workshop to test a few ideas about pebble jewellery, and prepare some commissions. 

These large pendants are working out well.

And I think these earrings might be OK.

I am not sure what the collective noun for a bunch of pebble pendants might be, but here it feels like a dangle! Quite a bit of variety amongst this little lot.

And then to packaging.

I am also thinking about packaging.  I am almost out of my earring boxes and have to come up with a solution so I am trying a few things out.

Here are a three different types of earrings, and I am liking the notion of the luggage tag. Thinking that if it was inside a pouch of some sort, then you could use the string to pull it out. The card would need some heft, and I would need to punch a hole and thread some string, but it is beginning to maybe in the right direction.

And the question now is, should the card  be black, or cream or natural???

Small steps making books

 The small steps needing to be taken along the way of this small edition are happening. Slowly. I am making a book about silences, and it is hard to come up with thinking and thoughts and design ideas that support silence and make the book feel silent in a way. It's an interesting struggle.

I was testing out a couple of white pens here, to see how they performed on the chosen cover paper.

And then seeing how they perform on the white Magnani Map paper for the inside pages. White on white can be hard to get right, but this gel pen feels close to what I am trying to achieve.

And so I spent more time in the studio today cutting pages. I am now up to 200 sheets ready to become folios and pages. Only 125 to go. Spending extended periods of time bent over cutting and trimming paper isn't great for your back, so I stopped after a while and turned my mind to how the words might print.

I will try to set up a chase so that all I have to do is slip the text in and out whilst the remainder of the furniture and leading stays in place for easy printing. Hopefully as easily done as said!

And so I began setting the first silence.

Either I grabbed the wrong letter or I had put it in the wrong part of the case, but this is why we proof!

Got it right this time I think.

Now I am thinking about the spacing between the words, and the lines and wondering if they all need to breathe a bit more. A problem for later in the week!

It has felt like Spring on more days than not this week, and the flowers are beginning to really burst in the garden, and in the house...

 

Thursday Thoughts...

“First forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not. Habit will help you finish and polish your stories. Inspiration won’t. Habit is persistence in practice.” 

Octavia Butle

Oh the comfort of these words. The subtle, or less than subtle, reminder that we don't need to feel 'inspired' to be making art; more oftentimes we simply need to show up.

When we were particularly busy working, we tried to set aside Friday for art making and creating. It felt like we could carve out that day from a busy schedule and keep it safe. Make it a sanctuary for making art.

And so many people said to me - but what if you aren't inspired on that day?!?!?

It had never once struck me as a potential problem.  For me, I tend to have so many ideas flitting in and out, landing momentarily and then heading off again if I can't capture tham, that I knew I wouldn't lack for things to do on a Friday.  And if ideas hadn't been floating in and out, I knew that by sitting in the studio space, by picking things up, holding them, moving them around or wondering what if? then I would find the ways and means to make and create.

It really is the biggest of myths that artists and makers and creators are hit by inspiration and then begin a fever or frenzy of work. Creativity can just as readily be quiet, calm, and persistent.

Inspiration from a walk on Orkney...ladders....

Paper selections and decisions

 As I continue along my merry way with preparing this small book; the next step was the cover selection. I had bought this beautiful grey Magnani paper recently (when I was culling all my other papers) because I had planned to use it here. When I discovered a scrap of other paper I had left over from putting together the paper sample book, I wondered if that might work better. The planned grey was cool; and 300gsm. 

The opportunistic grey was warm, and 250gsm. Here they are with the Magnani Map paper between them - warm at the top, and cool at the bottom. I cut mock up covers of both of them and came down on the side of the warm grey, mostly because it just folded and felt better.

And so I cut 50 covers...there will hopefully be two books, each in an edition of 21, with a couple of spares ready in case I muck things up along the way.

There are so many preparations to making a book in an edition like this, and whilst I had done this for the first book, I now needed to do a type count for the second book. Just to make sure once again, that I would have enough type, of the typeface I wanted to use, to print all the words I had to print.

This isn't an issue when you are using the computer. There you have a never ending supply of every letter. When using traditional letterpress techniques however, one really is limited to the number of the letters you have in your tray. So if a quote needs 10 lower case es for example, I need to know I have 10, not nine; otherwise I can't print the full quote.

It is a time-consuming and mind- numbing process, but again if you don't do it, then you get halfway through the printing and have to change direction in a hurry.

I don't mind random moments if that is part of the design of the thing; but when you are going for consistency and accuracy and exact reflections of the words of others, then I really need to know I can make all the words.

So here we are...counting each letter off.

And yet after such a large amount of eye-tiring, inside work, there are flowers...

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.

I then looked through my light papers drawer, with Japanese papers and other feather light papers and came across this great piece. We had a sunshiny day so I popped it outside to apricate - gather the sun's rays - and freshen it up a bit.

Which really drew attention to the creases! I need to cut around 50 small sheets out of this piece, so I knew I was going to need pretty much all of it. Next step - google "can you iron tissue paper?" and with my newly found knowledge that yes you can, if you protect it with other paper (which was common sense really, but I do like to check).

And so I did, portion by portion.

And this is the after shot. It worked really well and I realised that once I have cut the sheet down further, I will be able to iron the individual pages as well before using them in the book.

It is going to be a small book - about A7 when stitched, so kind of nice to hold; but will require lots and lots of cutting of papers.

And I thought it really was worth sharing my beautiful ironing board cover design! By Suzie Hope, handmade in Dubbo. I makes ironing a much nicer event.

Which is the perfect segue to some of Dad's orchids shining in the early morning sun...

Thursday Thoughts...

“In writing. Don’t use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was “terrible,” describe it so that we’ll be terrified. Don’t say it was “delightful”; make us say “delightful” when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, “Please will you do my job for me.” 

C.S. Lewis

This week's pondering is on books; and on these weeks, I nearly always grant myself license to ponder books, reading and writing - seems fair. Smile.

Today's quote is a great reminder for me whenever I try to write and or describe things.  I imagine it is an early version of "show don't tell". The notion or idea of not simply describing in detail what a thing is or how you want a reader to respond.  

I think good writing nearly always asks us as readers to get involved, to bring our own thinking and imagination to the show, to add in details, or draw on experiences. Rather than simply being told what something. Or how to feel. 

When writers use similes that suddenly open up our understanding or encourage us to feel differently, it is a wonderful experience. I often stop, pause, take a breath and think wow - what a great way to 'explain' it.

Nevertheless this is challenging work and it so much easier to simply say or describe something, rather than write it in a way that encourage the imagination and involvement of the reader.

For me, his final sentence gives us a very clear reason why we should try harder. It really is a bit weak and a bit lazy to have readers do the work for you. Onwards!

Books I dip into and return to help me think about beautiful writing...

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.

And for the not so sunny moments, there are still beautiful sunflowers bringing some sunshine inside...

Because it felt like that regular programming had resumed this morning... sigh.

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.

Packed and ready to go - those boxes hold so much books-goodnes!

We talked about books and what they mean to us. We talked about storytelling and art. And we talked about how to bring it all together.

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.

Here are just a few of the books we spent time with. Thanks to my friends Susan, Annwyn and Lesley and one from Alice Fox in the UK as well.

It was a big but beautiful day and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to work with these women. So much richness in their thinking and exploring and learning and sharing. I have another workshop set up with Kim in October and then we shall see if there might be more. 

Kim had run a cyanotype workshop yesterday, and how could I not take a photo of these beautiful blue brushes left out to dry???

Ahhh.... the end of a good day.

I ask participants for one word about how they are feeling at the end of the day and here is a compilation (some gave two or three...)

Challenged, Encouraged, Enriched, Inspired, Overwhelmed, Exhausted...