ALAW finished!

I am finished my second alphabet for the year over at A Letter a Week.  The theme for this one was "Place" and my letters were all about our trip to New York around Christmas last year.

From this pile of embossed pages, each one 7cm x 7cm, representing sections of a map of Manhattan that I had embossed on a larger sheet of paper and then cut up, I wrote my letters and made a book.

The finished wee book.

For each letter I wrote a word that reminded me of our trip there.

A - the Apple Store; in all of its gorgeous glass cube-ness and full of funky young things. And then us.

F - the Flatiron building; such a stunning building and an icon of NYC architecture. And the park across the road had boulders in the branches of trees!

J - for Jennifer, who despite having so much going on, made the time to come down to NYC and catch up with us - it was brilliant.

N - New York itself, in all its madness, haste and beauty.

U - Upper West side where we stay in our semi-sub street level apartment.

X - for Xmas, we spent a beautiful day there feasting and then wandering Central Park.

The book is soft and white as my favourite memory of our visit was the seeing the city covered in snow; how gentle and quiet and muffled it makes it. Central Park a white and beautiful wonderland. Ahhh...so hard to imagine as we sit here and swelter in a summer heatwave with evening storms.

A new A Letter a Week alphabet

Over at A Letter a Week 2014, the themed alphabet for the year is an alphabet of place.  An alphabet that represents, shows, or tells a story somehow of place, or a place.

I gave myself the first half of the year to ponder what I would do, and then came up with one of my favourite places to visit - New York City.

I also figured that there would be lots of alphabet options in that city, so I started to think about the words that linked to the letters.

But to begin, for some reason I felt like embossing. Despite the city's vibrancy and liveliness and occasional neon overload, white on white embossing still felt OK for me. Perhaps because it was snowing the last time we visited and all was blanketed in white and Central Park looked so beautiful.  Or maybe when I stopped to think about words that linked to letters. I let the hubbub of the city disappear and just focused on that one thing.

I cut a map of NYC into a sheet of lino and then embossed it several times. I cut these embossings up into 7cm x 7cm squares so I would have a mixed up version of the map. The letters will be written in whatever part of the map that appears on top of the pile as I go along.

Here are my first four letters - I tried to make sure each letter was memory of our visit.

A - I love the Apple store
B - Bagels; we stay around the corner from one of the best bagel shops on earth. Heaven.
C - Central Park, so beautiful
D - Downtown, as the song goes...

 On occasions it hasn't been easy to choose just one word for the letter - we have so many wonderful memories of this place. But the good news is that so far, I'm on track with the weekly commitment. Phew.

Happy days and play

I have been enjoying studio time of late - lots of lovely little adventures beginning; but it is probably time to start focusing on some of the bigger pieces of work that are waiting for me to spend time with them.

There has also been lovely news in the past week or so.

I learnt that I have sold both of my Fragile Gains books, and that I also need to send my third in the edition over to 23 Sandy Gallery as well!  As I have said to Laura - it is  still 'under construction' but will hopefully wing it's way over there soon. I end most days smelling like a hippy smothered in incense at the moment…

It is so wonderful to know that books I care about deeply and which I respect are heading into University collections.

Another piece of good news has been that an article I wrote on the "A Letter a Week - Artistic Journeys Through the Alphabet" exhibition which I organised late last year, has been published in Issue 15 of Down Under Textiles.

It is a six-page spread and a visual feast. It gives such a great sense of the pieces and looks wonderful!

 One of the double page spreads…

Here's one of my transition projects - a little bit of fun before I begin some serious work.  I mentioned rusty birds the other day and I have played around with what they can do.  Different techniques, different results, and all a bit of fun!

Studio chaos and mayhem plus good news!

I'm not sure if this happens to other people, but my studio looks like it has erupted and spewed forth bits and pieces of everything, from everywhere.

Not a good look.

I find I get totally engrossed or focused on something and keep having ideas about it, needing to jot them down, sketch them, grab some paper that might be needed, try a bit of this, make a bit of that. Compare this with that, then a new idea is generated from that comparison and it's off again in a new direction. That is the current state of the studio.

Which in its own way is good I guess - it means I am working - but there comes a time when the madness and chaos no longer offers me goodness, creativity and bursts of enthusiasm; when the chaos actually offers me strife. And so we arrive at tidy up time.

Take the time to step away, breathe in and out. Potter here and there, put things back where they belong, tidy, sort, create harmony all over again.

It seems to be a bit of a cycle for me - start tidy, make mess until there is only a small area left in which to work because every other surface is covered, then tidy. Repeat.

Before the tidy up began…

I can't even begin to explain what half those things are doing there - they simply represent my grasshopper-flea-like mind jumping all over the place!

This is where I got to with my tidy up - I can think clearly again now and approach the next steps and stages gently…at least until the next time.

And then this arrived in the mail!  Bound and Lettered Vol. 11 No. 2  features an article on the exhibition I coordinated and curated last year A Letter a Week - Artistic journey Through the Alphabet. What is even better, the fabulous photos taken by Anastasia Karyofillidis are used throughout the article and made the front and back cover! Congrats to Noela and Lisa for the featured works on the covers as well. Happy dance here!

Apologies for the shocking shiny photos; but I was too excited to worry!

A Letter a Week begins again...

I missed doing my second alphabet for A Letter a Week last year, but have started on time this year and am looking forward to the challenge.

This alphabet is a little bit odd, but I have been wanting to play with the idea for ages, so here I go!

The story begins with our visit to Japan last year, where on our first day our friend and interpreter Hiro Kato san offered me a gift surprise. He wasn't sure  I would like them and he hoped it would all be OK and I was sure it would be.

He gave me 500 coloured pencils in beautiful boxes of 25.  Whilst it made packing to come home a bit interesting, I was pretty excited to have so many colours!

I kept wondering what sort of installation I could make with them, and Barry suggested letters…so after a fair bit of pondering I decided to make my letters for the first alphabet out of the coloured pencils.

Not that you'd know it from these shots…

But maybe now you can see what I was doing…

A - with an Amethyst theme…

B - with a Burgundy theme…

C - with a Crimson theme…

D - with a Denim theme…

I must say I have had some fun with these! Altho I am not sure just how I will go making some of the bigger/wider letters, I'm pretty sure I'll keep having fun trying!

A busy few days...

Sitting here at the end of a fabulous weekend of the Maleny Celebration of Books - that lovely sensation of still feeling on a high despite being a wee bit exhausted!

The weekend was a huge success and there were so many wonderful bits.  I was so enjoying myself I took barely any photos; but I did get some down at the Library yesterday morning. And before that at Cooke Park, where at 7.30am we set up the Book Swap Tree.

In this first shot Barry is holding a branch in his hand that fell off - very heavy balloons perhaps?

The gang getting the tree together...

The Book Swap Bush was down at the Library for the kids and the Treasure Hunt really went off!  We had about twenty five children in two teams racing around the Park discovering clues, running back to look them up in the books and discovering the gold at the end.

My bookmaking workshop with children was also full and busy. We always laugh - despite a booking system, there were no bookings but of course the room filled with children and it all went berserk! Thank you Barry for being the back-up bookmaker! We did a simple alphabet book.  I love how you teach kids how to make a book, which is magical and wonderful on its own; then they get to fill it, to tell their story and I watch in wonder where that next bit takes them.

I also really enjoyed the Queensland Writers' Performance, but the Big Book Group was exceptional.  I hosted a group of 8 in one of the local coffee shops and we discussed the book in great detail and with really interesting insights; then we all re-grouped (about 60 or so of us) and participated in a facilitated discussion with an ethicist who talked about many of the issues raised in the book "The Dinner".  Just brilliant.

Last night the Maleny Film Society hosted a movie which was based on a book - Henry James' "What Maisie Knew" which was remarkable. Today we spent a couple of hours at a Forum listening to three talented creative non-fiction writers talk about truth in non-fiction writing and how you manage it (in a way).

Truly delightful and spell-binding.

On Friday morning (and before racing back for the haiku workshop in the afternoon), a number of friends trooped up to Cooroy to listen to my artist's talk at the A Letter A Week exhibition. We had a delightful time and I was thrilled to share my passion for these works and how the humble alphabet can be such an amazing thing.

Kim Schoenberger took some photos of the talk, and as I said to Barry when I saw them - I clearly get very animated! Thanks Kim for letting me use them here.

And so here we are, settling into Sunday night, very tired but very happy. Another great effort by a bunch of people who loves books and reading and writing and want to share that passion. Thank you team!

A Letter a Week opens!

Saturday was a great day at Cooroy Butter Factory - quite a lot of folk gathered to celebrate the opening of A Letter a Week - Artistic Travels Through the Alphabet.

The exhibition has been a while in the making and our house looked very much like a Post Office over the past few months with parcels arriving and piling up. We delivered them all to Cooroy on Tuesday, and it wasn't until I walked through the door on Saturday morning and saw the exhibition in place for the first time that I really realised that we'd done it!

It was quite surreal in a way, to have lots of friends around smiling and happy to see their work together with artists from interstate and overseas. Best of all I think was seeing the works in the flesh - we have all watched their development on the blogs over the course of the past three years; but to actually see them and in some instances hold them, is an experience beyond belief.

Here area a few of the ALaW artists still there at the end - we missed Helen Irving in the shot which was sad. Elaine on the far right had travelled from Sydney with her husband Nick just to see it! L to R: Barry, Jo,Kim, moi, Christine and Elaine

Many of the works are hung; and many are displayed on plinths and a selection is available for handling and holding with gloves.  It was amazing to observe how intently people engaged with the books they could hold; how much they marvelled and how much they turned to others (often strangers) and spoke about how beautiful they were.  I was thrilled that so many people said they wanted to come back and that it would take them hours to fully explore the works.

That gives me hope for my Artist Talk on Friday 25th October.  I will be talking about the project, what I love about it and as many of the pieces as I can. I feel like the works are part of my family in a way and love to share and promote them!

If you are nearby it really is a beautiful exhibition for lovers of letters; but I think most folk will find something to enjoy. I have tried to grab a shot (not a professional one at all) of each of the overseas and interstate artist's work - at least one piece - so that they know they are here!  I think in the mad rush of it all I didn't get them all, but I will on later visits! I will be sending all the individual artists proper photos later on and also hope to make a Blurb book catalogue in the new year...fingers crossed.

I must thank all the artists for the patience and forbearance as I continued to email them and ask multiple questions and request extra information; but the end result has really been worth it. Patricia Stahl from Maleny Library also spoke beautifully about community, books, words, letters and collaboration which captured the essence of the blog and all it does.

Sue from South Africa

Laurence from France (and a snippet of Lyndell)

Linda from Sydney

 Lisa from Italy

 Lyndell from Canberra

Annik from France

Gemma from Tasmania

Julie and Anna from the US

Barry's Birds in Flight and Ken who is in France

 Marie-Helen's from France

Jeanette from Armidale and Jenny from Sydney - you are hanging on the left...

Valerie from Sydney

Terrie from the US

Deb from Adelaide

Eithna from Ireland, Meg from Sydney, and Jane from the US your work is here I promise!

And local artists - Susan, Noela, Mieke, Christine, Kim, Jo, Barry, Helen (and Eileen you're an honorary local today), you have seen or will see your work there at some point! And I know I saw mine somewhere...