Things circular

When last in Scotland I purchased four double, dos-a-dos accordion books that I thought maybe I could use for an exchange of sorts. When I received them I realised they were way too big to post back and forth, and would take a very long time to fill, so instead I decided to gift three to my friends and keep one for myself.

When we got together recently we decided we would all simply try to fill the book, and we would check back and see how we went in a year's time.

Far less pressure than a monthly exchange!

But because there are four parts to the book and because I am me, I have been pondering what to do, where to start, how to start, what to focus on and the like. None of that pick up a tool and make a mark and we're off!

Interestingly I came around to the notion of circles. I think I was wandering through Pinterest randomly and a series of circles caught my eye. And then I saw them everywhere. And then I thought I might spend time with circles for a bit.

So I collected images of circles that appealed.

 

 I collected thoughts or quotes about circles, and explored their symbology and what circles mean. I also just sat and thought of things circular.

I settled on circles and the sense that they can portray wholeness, completion or perfection (less on the perfection side) and also that they can be thought of as timeless, and endless with no beginning and no end...

Other options included - circles of protection, circles of friends, running around in circles, circling back  and so on. I must admit it was an interesting concept to dive into - so many ways of thinking about circles!

Once I knew the thinking around circles I was trying to explore, I tried to sort the images a bit. Whilst I love multiples and a grid, these weren't really speaking to me of the wholeness or perpetuity of a circle. Hold them over for another time.

These were differing designs...

 

And these were different techniques...

I ended up selecting ones I thought may play a part in the evolution of this part of the book, and cut them down and stuck them in my journal with a few notes to self alongside.

I will take both the books with me to Scotland and see if I make some progress there... 

Notes to Self

 I was looking for some documentation I was sure I had recorded in one of my art journals the other day. It was simply a record of the paper used and the nib size and pen I had used for some calligraphy (the daily word cards). I knew it had to be there somewhere...

So I got them out and started going through them. Fortunately I had indexed them so I had half a chance of coming across it, and also narrowing it down to a certain year.

But still. It took a while. 

Over a cup of coffee in the studio I enjoyed the wander and after I had found it (yay!) I continued on with my reminiscing.

I was intrigued to come across some great notes to self.

Most often I would write notes about what to do, not to do, why I had changed my mind or where I thought to go next. But these ones I am sharing here were more about the bigger picture of my making. 

This was the first one that caught my eye - and I think it holds true. It holds the duality of my work where I need to say something; along with that work where I am simply making for beauty or simplicity.

This one intrigued me a bit as I so often want to use words! But I think I wanted to make sure that the other parts of my making which might supplement my words, were also speaking.

I turned the page and came across this, which kind of answered my own questions.

This one came after some notes from a course I did. A couple of words to guide my process. I think they are about guiding the final piece - select which bits to include; eliminate unnecessary parts; and then work out what and you want to emphasise.

I am not sure what this means, but my sense of it is that it might be about drawing on a memory, or evoking a memory. Making an association stronger? The reading of my own words, in my own journal, is still quite an investigation and full of queries.

I found this one in my first journal and was tickled pink because it is the first of these - what is your vocabulary? - that I offer as a handout to students of Building Narrative and which I gave out at the Conference in New Zealand recently! I have obviously hung onto this one and still incorporate it in my thinking, work and teaching 

And then the spirals all together... such a pleasing image.

Strangely enough I hadn't thought to go through my journals in this reminiscing-reminding way before and will definitely do it again. There are some gems in there that could become something still!

And a note to self and everybody: next Saturday 29 and next Sunday 30 November we are holding our Closing Down Sale at the Studio. We are not renewing our lease and lots and lots of stock has to go so prices are low!

We are busy with the tidying, sorting, pricing; and getting ready for cleaning and moving. We will continue to make and create and sell; just in a new way....

I made a book...

 It's not often I land where I have, which is I have made a book and I don't know what it is. I guess that reflects my time at the cottage a bit - I am less purposeful and more explorative; more open to trying a bit of this or that simply because I don't have a full set up or I have fewer commitments or goals to hit.

So I started painting marks with an acrylic ink onto some lovely kraft card squares I had brought with me. Payne's Grey and White.

Not knowing where I was going, I turned them over and kept going.

And then I cut them down and put them together and they were a BIG book - heavy and hard to handle, so B suggested maybe make two books. So I looked for some paper or card to make extra pages and found some beautiful Vintage Paper Company paper which I could use; as well as a test page where I had laid out all the stitching mark for my peg piece - as well as some test  stitching. 

I embossed some lines I had previously cut for my first book in my exchange The Shape of Things with Annwyn way back in 2022 into some black paper/card I had here, and then stitched them using some thread that a friend had passed along to me after her mother died. All together a compilation of things that I found along the way.

Here they each are standing - quite firm paper means they stand well!

And a selection of openings.

So my question is are they done? There is already so much in them it seems to me that it could be hard to add to them. I have pondered writing in tiny writing around some of the marks, between some of the marks and maybe begin to tell a bit of a story of sorts?

Is there any way the marks could guide me to a narrative or story? Could they support and enhance a storyline?

I have pondered are they just lovely things to look at?

Or are they book-like journals with pages begun and space for new ideas to be jotted down, sketched in? Something to be added to?

It's quite the confusement for me. I am usually far clearer in my intention before I begin; these wee ones evolved and became something, but I remain uncertain as to how best to use and appreciate them. 

Thoughts welcomed and gratefully received!

And in a weird sideline; as I was connecting my phone to transfer these photos across, I opened to this photo. 10 years ago I made these books with Susan Bowers, and I was struck by how similar they are to the shapes, tones and marks of the ones I have completed here. Very graphic in their sensibility. In these wee ones we deliberately left the pages unbound so the story could be told and re-told in whatever way one chose. My new ones are firmly bound.

Interesting.

Pens, drawing and flowers

 Recently for my birthday a friend gifted me a journal and a pen. I have loved these pens from the first time I saw them, she didn't know that, and I doubt I would have gotten one for myself; but now I am the happy owner of this one, The Wren from Tom's Studio.

I promised to bring the journal and pens with me and try some ideas in the journal. I am notoriously bad at using journals, but I liked its already worked into look and figured I could work with that rather than simply blank pages.

The pen uses these nibs that you can replace depending on what colour ink you are using; as well as these soak-it-up cylinders which draw the ink from the bottle and can be changed in and out. Quite a fun way of doing pens! I  will have to see what other colour inks I have here and try them out.

And so in line with my commitment to use the pen in the journal I did some blind contour drawings o f a jug of daffodils.

I like blind contour drawing because there is no pressure - you just look at the object and draw the contours and don't lift your pen and who knows what will happen. I was chuffed that she could see daffodils when I showed her!

In typically trepidatious fashion I started with the card that had been in an envelope fold on one of the pages thinking I could throw it away if needed (why oh why do we censor ourselves so much???) and then overcame myself and drew another version straight on the page. Well done me. First actual page in the journal committed to!

I am going to try and do something in the journal with the pen each week, and see where I go.

And just because daffodils...

The late varieties are so different!

A single tulip contemplating will it open further, or retreat? It retreated when it started to hail yesterday, but today is pondering emerging once again...

Words at play

 Looking back through my journals and notes it seems like I started to write these words about the way life flows when at the cottage back in 2019...

I did nothing with them, but by 2021 had thought I might add another verb into the mix.

Whilst we were away I had another think upon the words and started to draft some ideas. Here I was working with 5 sentences. 

But this is what I found in my phone and added to last month. I had found 6 in another journal somewhere and written that into my phone, but forgotten I had. So clearly my record keeping needs tidying up.

By adding the dates I tried to firm up the chronology.

This morning I sat and went through them again. I realised I have created six short sentences, and wondered to myself if they wouldn't be better as seven? Seven is a much nicer number.

Rather than revert to five, I went for seven and this is what my book looks like this afternoon after a bit of a play.

And then I tried to be ordered about things and wrote three columns - two verbs and one adverb - and wrote the different words in the columns thinking I could play with this and that - join them up this way, try them that way...

Half way through I then thought to analyse what I had written thus far - hence the bits about syllables. I figured the rhythm should be pretty much the same across the seven sentences.

Clearly nothing is resolved, but the idea of seven works. My understanding of how they are written is better. The direction is underway and soon I shall have my seventh.

Then of course to work out how to present them - but that will emerge. Given it has taken 5 years for the idea to get to this stage, I really hope this is the time to complete it.

I have written notes to myself to stop directing the work, and let it emerge. I had drafted outlines of the book, and the size, and the placement of imagery, and the where the words would go on each page and what typeface I might use, and I just said to myself STOP. 

I hope to now do some playful experimentation and see where the words and possibly the imagery from the previous post take me. Let the words and the work lead me, so often better things emerge that way...

Back to books

 The year has gone pretty quickly and the collaborative exchange The Shape of Things that Annwyn and I set ourselves to do for the year is coming to an end.

We have decided our last books will be posted in the first week of January - after all the Christmas rush. As an aside, it took just over 6 and a half weeks for some documents to reach Scotland after my Dad posted them in Australia - we were long gone...

Nevertheless anticipating all that happens as the year rushes to its conclusion, I thought I should turn my mind to this final book.

I spent some lovely time in the studio on Saturday playing with things this way and that.  Unexpectedly, it all went rather smoothly!

Putting together the last of Annwyn's beautiful papers was quite calming.  I really enjoyed this colour way.

One of my goals with the last three books in the series has been to use things I had in the studio. To work with the shape of things I had. So I pulled apart a small blank journal I had never used and separated the pages into two books. 

Not really sure if there were enough pages to call themselves 'books', so I pulled apart another book that had had some damage to it to see if filling the book out a bit more with some more pages might work.

I think I made this book in about 2010, and it got damaged in 2011, so after 12 years of sitting around waiting to be something else its time has come! So I set to snipping, which felt a bit bad given the lovely stitching, but I shall just have to do some more sometime.

And I made it to here, not sure at all if it is headed anywhere, and still not clear at this point how I might incorporate Annwyn's papers! Which of course, is the main point of the collaboration...

At the very least, I got a nice photo...

Notebooks done!

 Well, I had a really good run at things and managed to get all the covers printed, all the lined pages printed, all the less-than-wonderful ones cut down to mini-notebooks, all the holes pierced and all the notebooks stitched. Yay.

I had fun trying to photograph them all as you can see - a straight line was too long, so circular we went.

In the end these were the eight designs that held up best, so I have done a few doubles of some of them.

For those that looked less brilliant, and where the printer didn't do them justice, I trimmed away the worst bits and cut them down to be small notebooks - truly pocket sized. Some are portrait orientation and some are landscape.

And I enjoyed how our round woven rug played into the background as i photographed them at home.

And here is the bundle of smaller ones, all ready to go.