Paper, paper, everywhere...

 Life is full and fast at the moment, and I am feeling like I am constantly running to keep up; but never quite getting everything done that I need to get done. Sigh

But flowers help make everything better...

We are moving some things on from the studio space and are having a BIG garage sale on the weekend.  B has been busy moving paper from the studio to the office/studio at home and once here, it has been my job to sort it. 

Yesterday a friend and I spent a couple of hours cutting and tearing paper and this is the lovely pile we made.

And this is the box of paper I just ordered!  We need some of our favourite grey for book covers that we both have planned, and we only have two sheets left. It felt odd to be opening packets of new paper as I was trying to sort out which papers went where, and if in fact I could move some of them on!

There was paper all over the sewing room/studio space.

But some excellent new paper drawers to put it all in!

After two hours of sorting, B came home and found me like this!

There is method of sorts in my madness - there are piles for sale; scraps for sale, papers free to a good home and some good papers to sell in their packs. It really was one of those jobs best done by oneself - I had a vague plan and understanding of what differentiated this paper from that paper and why, and it all worked out OK in the end.

All I have to do now is do some labels for the new drawers - numbers and descriptors of what they hold -then that job is done. Phew.

And here is a lovely photo of eucalyptus leaves in the sunlight on our kitchen bench, which we have purloined to be the backdrop for some promotion of our Studio Garage Sale.

Playing with notions of home

 As ever, our trip to the cottage has made me stop and consider the notion of home. I have pondered this before, but travelling so far to a place so remote and so different, and yet feeling so at home, at times confounds me.

Home and Place.

I have returned with lots of thoughts and drifting words to try and express this experience; trying to gain some understanding. For the time being they remain a little bit misty, a little bit unformed. Occasionally some sunlight pours through, and I have odd moments of clarity.

So I am listening to each and every moment, no matter how small, and where I can I am using it to help me make sense of it.

As I was unpacking stuff and putting it away, I looked at the rusty pages I had brought back with me.

I enjoyed their wild, intense, yet incomplete marks. From the old hot plate coil.

A series of rusty nails.

A grid of wires from a cray pot.

And some random rusty metal washer marks. 

I turned the two washer/metal mark postcards over and picked up a scalpel. I started by cutting random squares and rectangles from behind - not knowing which parts of the marks would appear on the piece - random, no rulers, just go.

I followed this up by cutting random triangles in the same way.

Playing with notions of home...

They are quirky. They look nothing like where we live in Maleny. They look nothing like the cottage in Scotland, but universally, this form appears to Western minds at least, to signify home.

I love that I know of so many folk working with this form at the moment. All over the world, in paper, in fabric and in 3D. It is something. It is so recognisable. It is understood. And yet, the investigations are all unique. They are all attempting to discover and share some particular aspect of home and our relationship to it.

Where it goes to next is possibly anybody's guess - but the instinctive and intuitive slicing of paper without regard for precision, accuracy or placement was  good to do. That zone of doing without thinking, let my mind wander and drift across the idea of home a lot as I worked.

Using paper prepared with old materials in Scotland, back here, connected my two places. I love how the other rusted papers appear so wild and fierce - like the landscape there can be when the wind howls.

Paper letter cutting

 I am teaching paper letter cutting in a few weeks' time and have been once again getting down and doing lots of preparation.

Much paper cutting is decorative in terms of the imagery; but we will be cutting letters. Which might not sound any harder; but it does take a particular type of planning.

I have done a variety of cut letters in my artwork and each them requires you to concentrate and work out what is needed to keep the lettering together.  There are simple things; and there are some complicated things.

And it's not all in the planning of the lettering. There is planning of the cutting as well; and then there is the tidying up.

The initial cuts oftentimes don't connect...especially at corners. So we focus on going back in to really make contact. Not tugging away to try and rip it out!

Sometimes the going back in to connect is less perfect than desired, so then there is the tidying up.

And as in many fields - curves can be tricky.

Nevertheless cut lettering looks gorgeous and is worth the effort I think.

A week...

Last week was a good week of playing and sorting and prepping. Preparing for workshops always makes me dig deep again, practise, test and trial things to make sure I know what I am doing.  I know I do, but I do love to double-check!

And so in prepping for a letter and word cutting workshop I got to play with some different pieces of paper; a few different techniques; and generally just got lost in the play and fun which was great!

Here I was testing the BFK Rives grey paper - it is a warm, khaki-like grey.  BFK Rives is such a reliable paper for cutting; yet I had never cut the grey which is a bit heavier than the white/cream.  It worked well and gave some great contrasts, so yes, we will play with it in the workshop.

I looks so different when on the grey concrete.

Another technique I was trying was this random crazy wandering lettering all joined up. Clearly I am very rusty with this; but I think once cut it will look a whole lot better!

This is a good demonstration of the back and what really happens when I cut. I am being so careful that that I don't cut through an end point, I nearly always finish short. But that is a whole lot better than ruining your work.

This piece will become a template that I trace around and then cut from behind - always soooo much better.

And Nature was wonderful too.

Monday dawn - a wee sliver of a moon...

Friday sunset - a wee sliver of a moon...

I love how something (us or the moon) had rotated slightly by the end of the week!

And these small flowers always, always delight me.

And then I laughed. We had a cracker of a storm and some fierce rain this week. I smiled to myself that our new car has a sunroof - laugh! 

Practice, preparations and remnants

The client has been in touch regarding their preferred piece of calligraphy for the title of the series of poems, and so I have had to go back and try to write the final one.

In the end the preference was for no stars, so I simply have the words and the lettering to carry the day.

And may I say, "S" is always a rather tricky letter for me - how lucky am I that here are two in this!?!?!?

Loads and loads of practices later, I have narrowed it down to two, and will spend a bit more time trying to decide between them.

And then it was onto trying to work out the size of aluminium plate to prepare for etching.  Barry and I are making some large etched aluminium books for the Compassion exhibition; and whilst there is an etching solution made up and ready to use; I thought I should think about what else to put in it.

These will be plates to print on cards, and I was playing around with placement.
Still no final decision but it is always nice to have options.

And for another project I was cutting almost circles out and thoroughly enjoyed the remnants. It's like a little city of tunnels or something...

Lots of things on the go, lots of small tasks being thought about, prepared and done; all leading to the completion of the bigger things.  Sometimes we build and finish through lots of small steps... this is just such a time.

White on white workshop

On Sunday I taught my Quietly and Gently workshop to the Calligraphers of South East Queensland.  They are such a talented bunch and always so open and enthusiastic that it is always a pleasure to head down to Brisbane and spend a day with them.

They very enthusiastically engaged with the ideas of white on white, the possibilities and the messages the techniques convey.

They all made loads of samples and we all decided that a pouch was the way to go to store them.  The book would have ended up eating into our time to make, experiment and create!

With thanks to Susan, Marg, Donnie, Desma, Ally, Christine, Barb, Lynne, Robin, Jo, Kay, Sandra and Jennie; here are some of the beautiful samples they created...

And samples alongside pouches...

At the beginning of the workshop we spent some time talking about the vocabulary of white, what it says, how it makes you feel and so on.  Here is the list we came up with in pretty quick time.  

We worked on themes that reflected these types of words, and if we had had another day; we might have gone on to write a verse or poem, inspired by these words, and then created a finished piece of it.  That could be the two day version of the original 5 day version of this workshop - so many options!

Here is the small verse I came up with based on these words.

clean, cool light

purity of shadows;

absence is clear,

uplifting, spiritual serenity.

Thanks once again to CSEQ for having me - it was grand.