Things are getting real...

 

This morning I checked my emails and Fiona from Strathnaver Museum was asking what did I think of the poster she had designed? I replied all good  - and within 5 minutes it popped up in my FB feed! Things suddenly got really real.

It is really quite exciting and I am looking forward to installing the works next week. Barry has made all the plinths for me to cascade my seven scrolls for All That Was Lost down, I have laminated all the signs I need and printed all the catalogues. I have prepped for the workshop with the High School students, and broadly speaking I think we are on track!

Here are some images of The Emigrants (shown in the poster above) and I previously blogged about it here.

And here are some details of All That Was Lost. The last image shows the word kist in a rusty tin. Kist means a chest, that you store things in.

And here are the seven plinths lined up against the cottage wall. Next time you see them, they will be installed!

The Emigrants I

 I am delighted to share this finished work, based on the statue of The Emigrants, in Helmsdale in the Scottish Highlands.

I always appreciate and enjoy when serendipity comes along and let you accomplish things. This work has come about because I was a) doing the course Visual Narratives, through Fibre Arts Take Two; and b) because I have an exhibition coming up in Scotland later in the year and some of the pieces will focus on this statue. I was fortunate enough to then have the online exhibition for students of the course to be called In Retrospect which made me realise I could probably bring all three things together and make a piece that suited them all.

I used techniques from the course, the work fitted the theme In Retrospect, and would be a great start towards the Scottish exhibition.

The work is an unbound book, presented in a hand stitched envelope made from Japanese paper rubbings from our cottage in Scotland, and from our Maleny home, that had been stitched together by machine, and dipped in beeswax. Held with thread from Scotland.

An envelope seemed appropriate - they travel between places...

Inside the envelope are 15 pages of an unbound book, made using techniques explored in the course. The work contemplates and considers what makes a home, and what it is that you would be trying to re-create when you have been forced from your home, and then moved to another country. What is it that home means?

The pages are both landscape and portrait in orientation and the 'title' page reflects this, with home written in both directions using vintage Letraset. 

Each page is a collage of different papers, images and techniques. Each page contains an altered image of the statue, in particular the woman, mother, wife, who looks back at all that she is leaving.

Here, her foot orientated to the past and the land she is leaving whilst everybody else faces forward and away.

Detail of shelter.

I think we often find solace at home, and I imagine it can be hard to find that in the same way in a new and unfamiliar place, country, culture, and climate. But perhaps we know we have created a home, when we do...

I recognise home isn't always a safe place, but it is a place where I feel safe and I imagine one hopes to create that feeling of safety in a new home.

Home can be a haven...

Home can be a place we find and provide care...

Home is a place that holds many memories...

The work is an unbound book, with 14 pages and a title page. The nature of an unbound is profound in my view. It enables a story to be told and re-told in different ways, as needed. As times change. As life changes. As our understanding changes. 

This unbound book also reflects how the foundational elements of 'home' can be re-built in new ways, in new places, creating new stories...

The work can be seen alongside other work by student of the course Visual Narratives. This exhibition catalogue shows so many beautiful pieces, so much heart and so much beauty and skill. I highly recommend a wander through the pages.

The 'hard copy' version of the catalogue will be available within a week or so, and I shall keep you posted.

Waxing and waning

 I have a project with a deadline of 29 December, which I figure is kind of a kind date - it gives folk who might get a  bit of a breather between Christmas and New Year a chance to finalise work, as opposed to saying it is due before Christmas.  That said, I am not one of the folk who will get a bit of down time between Christmas and New Year, so I am trying to get my piece completed before the 25th!

I am edging closer and have turned my mind to presentation (before the piece is actually finished of course!) and set out to plan some pockets or packets to contain it.

The idea came about because this wee parcel/packet/pocket was sitting on my desk for no good reason. But I picked it up, touched it, smelt it and wondered if it might be the answer.

It involved letterpress printing on Japanese paper, dipping the piece in bees wax, and then hand piercing and stitching down the sides.

So I gathered some papers that had graphite rubbings on them, and wondered if Letraset might suit the purpose? But answered myself 'no'.

So away I went and dipped in wax. The smell is divine, but for some reason I couldn't quite get my act together for a lovely smooth dipping action. But I did like how the wax trapped the wayward threads on this piece.

A few too many lumps and bumps for my liking.

But I persisted and tested out some envelope ideas.

I quite like the shorter overlap on the second one, but the lumps and bumps distract me a bit. The first one could seem too busy, and is also bigger. So I don't quite have the answer but I do have some options. Which in my mind, at the moment and given all that is on, is progress!

Nudging things along

It has been nice to put a full tick against one body of work - the three Validation boxed works (no ticks yet against the two Validation books, sigh).

Once more I have been nudging other things along.

Having decided on the walnut ink for the calligraphy commission; I spent quite a bit of time drawing up the pencil lines to work with. I had originally worked the letter height at 4mm; but for the sake of my brain, I decided to change it to 5mm, keeping the 10mm inter-linear space. So much easier to mark things off along a ruler if they are 5mm, 10mm, 5mm, 10mm etc.

Having done that however, as every calligrapher knows, it immediately extended the length of all my lines, and when I wrote the first stanza out I learned that that extra 1mm height had added 40mm to the length of the lines.

So my trial piece was adjusted along the way, and by the end of it I knew I just needed to start the final stanza 50mm to the left to maintain a pleasing balance. So far, I can find only one error in the writing!

I also went back to the original to check for correct punctuation, and I think I now have it right.

So that is the first full draft of the poem done. Now to get on with drawing up lines for what is hopefully going to be the final piece; one that remains error-free along the way! Love my positivity.

I have also been pondering work for the Vessel exhibition September, and started playing around with the idea of envelopes as vessels that can contain thoughts and feelings.  

As part of the playing around and getting ideas moving, I found these lovely bits and pieces.

Then I set up this lovely bundle.

From which I then made this smaller bundle. Which feels just right.

I like it very much, but have no idea how it might really apply to making a work for Vessel!

So then I went and played with these - also fun but not really related in any way to things that could be exhibition works yet...

The pursuit of works for the exhibition continues.

Faffing about with fabric

 On Saturday I went to the studio with jobs in mind - I had to write up our mid year art review; I had to draft some words for a newsletter; I had to list all my work to do; and I then had to prioritise it so I could focus and get on with it all.

Laugh, laugh, laugh.  I actually did quite well up to a point, and then I wrote the words tatty old scrim (something I needed to check) and I was off.

I couldn't believe how quickly I jumped up, got the scrim (which I don't think is scrim at all), tore a few pieces up and started playing with.

As I said to some friends "Distractability is one of my superpowers!!!"

Such lovely soft colours and edges.

And the curling of it...

Like their own little nests or something...

So delicate, and such an open weave.

and a line of red thread running thru...

And then I dipped it in some divine golden bee's wax.  The smell is honey-heavenly; but I'm not sure it added to the beauty of the piece.

It changed it into a landscape of sorts; a map, some cartography of land and deserts, and dried up waterways...

Who knows what stories it might tell.

And then there were teabags to empty and get ready to play with!

After lots of brain work and computer work it was fun to follow a flight of fancy.

Waxing and waning

With lots of talk of the blue moon, super moon and red moon through the week (which we missed because of cloud cover), the notion of waxing and waning really came to the fore for me when I was playing on the weekend.

I love my wax-wok; an electric wok which lets me manage and control the temperature of the wax beautifully and which means I don't burn myself if I also dip my fingers...

As mentioned in my last post it all happened pretty quickly, so I turned the wok off and kept pottering about.

I walked past the wok and went oooh; now that's nice!!

And so began a series of photos of waning wax.

As the wax cooled it made beautiful marks.  I couldn't get great photos because of the light and shadows if I went right over the top of the wok, but I did enjoy the ones I got.

Here's a short and sweet record of them - enjoy!

If i were any kind of scientists I might have returned every minute to watch how much happened in a minute; as it was I sometimes got distracted (now there's a news break!) but the result is still rather lovely I think.