Calming Play

 I had one of those middle of the night thoughts about a book to make. It has a purpose - an exhibition looms - but it will bring together a few things I am trying to do at the moment - making use of things I already have in the studio (which acts as a kind of limitation to work with, and against) and my ongoing ponderings about two homes.

I went to the studio and found this work box. Full of lots of small, beautiful handmade papers and special papers that have been waiting to be used since forever. Like there is a bundle of papers I bought in Paris in  2014 still waiting...

I also wanted to use up some perspex that has been sitting in a box since we did the Queensland Literary Awards back in 2013. These were the bits left over when they cut out the centre panel to hold the metal panel. 

So I played around with some paper from the box to see what might fit. And came up with this pleasing set of options.

For the trial/test I grabbed a thick and a thinner crochet cotton. Just to see.

It's ridiculous how happy an image like this makes me - deep sigh.

So I did three lines of each cotton on the wafer thin handmade paper from New Zealand (circa 2016)

And three lines of each on some of the beautiful Parisienne paper.

And am now pondering which works best.

Some words and thoughts

 I began these words the last time we were here - when bog cotton and heather were abundant.  I have played with them in the intervening times, and brought them with me again to see if I could complete the thoughts and these feelings, when I was in situ.

They are still draft,  but closer to final than beginning.

Here to there, it’s time already

What shall I take with me now as I go?

I’ll fetch the flight of those wee brown birds,

and  joyously sing it home in my hat;

I’ll pick bog cotton’s whimsy fleece,

and stitch it within the hem of my sleeve;

I’ll catch wee lochans gliding by,

and weave their shimmering into my scarf;

I’ll hold the light, the light, the light…

and thread it delicately though my slip;

I’ll look slowly on morning walks,

and keep the slowness tucked into my boots;

and

I’ll pluck the tiny, shy, heather

and happily hum it home in my heart.

take here there

Time here always makes me think and consider, to seek to understand why and how this landscape speaks to me. How and why does this feel like home? 

I will continue to think and write and make work that helps me understand…

Sky Lines

 After all the unpacking, cleaning, tidying, sorting and re-arranging of the first week or so, I am interested that my mind is beginning to drift again toward art and making.

One of the joys of time spent here is the slowing down. The stopping. The looking up and above and around. The pausing. The delighting in small things. In small moments. Forever grateful.

My eye has been caught by the lines in the sky. On previous visits I think I tried  to avoid them in my photographs. Somehow it felt like they spoilt the rural view. This time my view has changed and I think they enhance them. 

So often they add a beautiful diagonal to draw the eye. They offer a counterpoint to the softer clouds and hills and snow.

Or so it seems to me.

I have been thinking about being surrounded by sky-lines, and wondering what is the best way to describe them.

 

From the electricity wires across the road, 

 

To my favourite rope lines at the fishing net drying poles,

The counterpoints of wee birds on the wire.

Th play of a slow sunrise on the poles.

Same wires, different snow, different light.

Big blue sky and snow hills, amber and russet bracken.

Wires plus trees.

So many lines in the sky

For the love of Letraset

Pondering this Letraset love thing I have going on and I am not completely sure I’ve got it nailed down. What I have got however, is a lot of little ideas, connections or hints at why I am enjoying the process as much as I am. 

 Part of the attraction is a sense of familiarity. Letraset was something I played with as a young person/child, and yet more importantly for me I think, is that it lies somewhere between the hand setting of traditional type; and the typewriter. There is intimacy in the manual nature of it. 

 I am loving that it is old, quite rare and previously used (pre-loved some might say). Just like an old typewriter; just like our traditional letterpress. Part of the joy is knowing that others have held these things and used their hands to make magic with them. 

 Or simply type a letter, make a sign or print a newspaper… 

 The way in which the old Letraset sheets are like cultural artefacts. They bear the biro marks of enthusiastic youngsters rubbing off their letters. 

 Part of the deep affection is that working with vintage Letraset, I am once again forced to work within its limitations. Just as we are oftentimes limited to what we can say or print with our traditional letterpress because there just aren’t enough of, for example, an ‘o’; I am also limited to how many letters of a certain kind have been left on the sheet. If I am doing calligraphy I can create as many ‘o’s as I want; when using a computer the well of letters never runs dry. 

From lower case q to o

 In conjunction with not enough letters, I have to contend with the poor transfer of a letter; I have to see if I can add a bit; I have to modify a $ and make a capital S out of it; I have to sacrifice another letter to fill in a part that didn’t transfer and so on, and this problem solving is something that I really enjoy. Always pondering “Can I make this work?”. 

The arch of the r was lost; then replaced.

From $ to S

 Like calligraphy with ink and nib; I have to commit. No time for sketching, edging my way into something and no rubbing things out. I just have to decide and go. Put it down and rub the letter off. Once I am committed that is pretty much it. The spontaneity of it is followed by almost immediate reward. It can be fast! 

 I adore both the crispness of letters that transfer perfectly and the fractured disrepair of those that don’t. I also love the accidental appearance of random elements like guidelines or serifs from the letter below or behind the letter I am transferring when my rubbing gets a bit enthusiastic. The gift of the unexpected. 

 The playful exploratory part brings delight too. The ease of changing the direction of a letter; just turn the sheet to the right position and transfer. The placement of the ligatures and connections between letters – just place the sheet down exactly where you want it, or go for a random point or juncture. 

 There is an element of instinct and intuition to it which also appeals. Each letter goes down with part reference to what has gone before; but this positioning is sometimes obscured by other yet-to-be -transferred letters – so much depends on the eye. Placement can be a bit by chance, and whilst I might choose, the Letraset letters determine what happens. There is a constant twinning of ease and difficulty; of control and letting go. 

 When layering letters onto previous letters; sometimes the first letters down lose parts of themselves as I apply the letter on top – this dance of happenstance and hazard is part of the attraction I am sure. 

 So, in summary, I think it’s because it is old; that it is tricky and a little bit fickle; that it forces me work within limitations and problem solve every step of the way; and that it is such a combination of ease and difficulty; planning and serendipity; control and letting go. And I also think it is the haptic nature of it all; as ever, the joy of making words with my hands.

Updating 3

 The third and final of my updating posts.  

This one catches something I missed along the way as I moved my website from one platform to another.  It didn't require much reflecting or introspection; but in the end it did require a lot of research.

On my previous website, somewhere on the About page, I had listed which of my books were in which collection across the world.  

For some reason this information appeared absolutely nowhere else on my computer or on any of my inter web places.  Sadly, when we moved, I hadn't paid attention and this information was lost.

I still had the collections listed, on my new website, but I had little (if any) recall of which of my books were in which collection. Not great and a real trap for young players when migrating information and updating websites.

Fortunately for me, a lot of my books at the State Library of Queensland are searchable. If I type my name into the catalogue search, they have done the grand job of listing them all properly - lucky me.  

More good fortune shone upon me as many of the books that have made their way to the U.S. were sold through 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland, Oregon and the marvellous owner at the time Laura Russell was a  meticulous record keeper and always advised me which books had sold and to whom.

I also knew that Beyond Books and Burning had gone to the National Library of Iraq, and even now as I type I am thinking one of my Subversive Stitch books is in some collection in the UK and I am not sure which one; so clearly the job is not yet done!

So one day I set about painstakingly tracking each book down, recording where it was, what year it was made etc. Except for my (very!) recent  remembering about the UK and A Subversive Stitch, I felt confident that I had got them all.

Having done such a big job I thought I would organise them several ways. First up, if people want to visit an Institution - they can see which books it holds. I only screen shotted the first page of each of the records.

If somebody professed interest in seeing a particular book; I would be able to point them in the right direction, or give them options, by having the books organised this way.

And then finally, more for my own purposes, I listed the books by year of production so I could find them more easily in photographic records, or on the blog.

And so now, I truly have an excellent record of whereabouts in the world my books are!

Having said that, I am yet to put the information on the website, but that's not far away.

A nice discovery was serendipitously made along the way. At first I put my name into the search engine on the State Library of Queensland's website (rather than the catalogue search) and got a ping.

I expected more pings!  However when I looked closely I realised that the mention was in their Annual Report.

Intrigued, I went looking into the Annual Report and found this lovely wee mention:

So there I was, being rewarded, with discovering a mention, for my bad behaviour of not cataloguing my books. I feel very very fortunate that I was able to track them all down.

This series of Updating posts has formed part of my art life and art work that is not about the making or creating of art.  The work involved in all three (imagery, words and collections) form part of what I think of as Art Extenders - (teaching, writing and promoting). Things that take my art and skills out into the world, beyond the walls of the studio.  

These posts all fit into the promoting part of the extender section.

 I am now thinking a post about the Extenders might be worth doing sometime too...

Updating 2

 I wrote earlier about the process of building new websites for DEP and myself, and the updating of our imagery.

Part of that whole process meant we felt we needed to update the words we write about ourselves.  So we had a go at new artists statements and descriptors.

Two things coalesced as I began to consider what I say.  Firstly,  my old tag line - calligraphic and book artist - no longer felt as true to me as it once did.  I described myself as a calligraphic artist, because I didn't feel I could own the title of calligrapher.  True calligraphers are very specially skilled. 

Of course the subtle differentiation meant something to me; but not necessarily to others. And I also began to realise that book artist often made folk think that I was a book illustrator when nothing could be further from the truth or my skill set!

I coined the phrase back in 2004 so its probably not a bad thing anyway, to stop for a moment and think if my art journey has led me somewhere different.

The second thing was when I attended the Poetics of Place workshop with Ruth Hadlow in Hobart in late 2019 (ahhh the before times) and I began to consider NOT describing myself as a thing or a name or a category or a role but rather to consider what I DO. This was the most interesting part.

When I began to look around me and think about what I do - I was stitching words; I was letterpress printing posters and booklets; I was not actually doing much calligraphy but I was definitely still hooked on books.

I used to say things like:

"Books have always been important to me, and I love words and telling stories. No matter what I make, text is nearly always present – in beautiful calligraphic words, in letterpress type, or in burnt book pages". 

And I realised that this still held true. That words and text are at the heart of what I do. No matter WHAT I do, words and text are there...

Along the way I realised I preferred the word maker as well.  Again, the word artist leads folk to imagine all sorts of things and so very often they ask do I paint, do I sketch or whatever.  The word maker immediately brings me to the hands. The doing with stuff. The holding, the tearing, the stitching, the writing, the cutting, the setting, and all those things I do with my hands.

And so I now describe myself as "a maker with words".

Part of me simply loves how this enables me to not be categorised and somehow gives me scope to try all manner of things - to make in many ways and still be true.  These words feel true to me, and about me.

My most recent and detailed descriptor of myself can be found on my website. My artist statement can be found here on my website as well. 

As I finish my artist statement, these words also hold real truth for me "making helps me make sense of the world".

All images by Megan Gill Photography.

Updating 1

 Every now and again, one realises that things need updating.  Recently we revised and re-built our websites - yay.  We updated the online shopping thing - yay.  And as we did this, we realised the photographs of us were well, to put it mildly, rather out of date.  We think they might have been taken in 2014; and 7 years on we are both a tad older and different looking.  

We ended up getting  a package of professional photographs taken by Megan Gill Photography.  We asked for individual photos of us (some that were arty; some that were more professional) and also some joint photographs.

We were thrilled with them, and today we have updated our websites and uploaded the short videos she took of us. Mine is here...

Here are a few of them - so happy with the way they reflect the different bits and pieces of who we are...

You can find how we used them here on my website; and over at DEP as well. They are black and white there - nice!

In addition to updating our imagery, we needed to update our descriptors of who we are and what we do.  Never an easy task.

Despite the pressure of learning new skills; working through the complex behind the schemes worlds of website interfaces and the like, it was good to stop and reflect on these things.  But more on that later...

I just love how this contemporary photo reflects the same joy as this very old photo - me and books!

                    

 

Bibliomancy

I was recently privileged to attend a worksop with Ruth Hadlow, called Poetics of Place.

It landed in my inbox when I was in Scotland last and it utterly drew me in with it synchronicity - I have been yearning to investigate and understand how these two places call me; how I feel like they are both home; and their beauty speaks to me so eloquently, even tho they are so vastly different...

Its not possible to describe the magic of the days I attended; but I did want to share one notion which has stayed with me since and which has become part of my weekly practice.

Ruth referred to the notion of Bibliomancy. One definition of which is

"divination by means of a book, especially the Bible, opened at random to some verse or passage, which is then interpreted".

Now, that's not how I do it however.  I define my own bibliomancy as simply reading things at random, and finding interesting things, and sometimes connections.

Here I am on Wednesday last week. I have some varying and different books in my bag - What Days Are For by Robert Dessaix, re+home+ing by Irene Briant and My Katherine Mansfield Project by Kirsty Dunn for starters.  These are diverse, off to- the-side-idea books and I have loved dipping into them and finding a bit of this and a bit of that which I like or which resonates.

Each week I select one, dip into it, find myself entranced or drifting away and make some notes. No real rules - read a bit, think a bit, put it away and get another one, or keep going and going deeper.

The cover of Kirsty Gunn's book made me catch my breath. It says it all about how I am feeling about home here and there.

But really, what I do is sit and make my way slowly through a cup coffee and jot down notes and quotes and thoughts and make connections.

I have read some academic papers and I am keeping list of words I'd like to truly understand and get the proper definition of along the side.

Every now and again I realise the connections between the vastly different readings...

Each week I write in a different coloured pen so I can more easily find things when I reflect back.

In Irene's book, she ponders having moved to a new home.  Some of her pages are exquisite and I have sat and thought long and hard about the question she poses "How long does it take to feel at home?"

Initially she describes quite prosaic things like being able to find the light switch in the dark, but then she turns to eloquent and poetic indicators that run more deeply. Like When you feel the sun is coming through the right windows; when you feel that all you have gained equals all you have lost.

These are poignant and perfect descriptors of feeling at home.

I have been feeling tired/exhausted by all the moving shenanigans and so have given myself permission the past two weeks to simply read the fabulous print magazine out of the UK Pressing Matters.  I am a couple of issues behind in my reading, so that felt right - a chance to indulge in nice pictures and nice stories about printmaking. I did so without thinking I would analyse, contrast, compare or the other things I do more deeply with other readings.

But in the end I got lots out of it - ideas, connections, opportunities...

I figure I would go to the barricades to safeguard this one hour a week!