Promotion Plus!!!

 It has been a time of so many things!

A little while ago I was advised that a piece of my work had been selected for the Annual Juried issue of Letter Arts Review.(LAR). LAR is the pinnacle of lettering arts journals across the world and I have been rejected three times; and then I gave up.  For whatever reason I had a notion to enter one last time and was as surprised as all get out to be told that one of my Grief is A Stone pieces had been selected as an example of some of the best lettering arts going around in the past year!

I know that these things cannot really be representative of the best of anything - in fact they can only show the best of what is submitted; and then the definition of best is so subjective and if your work speaks to a judge, then it might be selected, if not it might be rejected; and yet the quality of the work is there in both. So I know all that, but it doesn't take away from the feeling of being super chuffed to have been selected!

Here are some links to the process of the making of this piece.

A neighbour recently mentioned that my jewellery had pride of place in the window at Maleny Additions, and I thought I should have a quick peek. Sure enough two pendants and two pairs of earrings were on show - looking lovely and twinkly.

And the last little bit of something was that the seminar I am teaching in NZ in September is out and about and being advertised.

Here is the link to the video if you'd like to watch it.

P.S. it's a video about me, not the workshop!

Showings and sale

 We are mid a bit of moving madness here at the moment.

After enjoying our block and our home for 14 years, Barry and have sold our house.  The time is right and we say goodbye knowing this place has nurtured us and given us much happiness.  For sure we will miss the magic of the mountains and the valleys below, but it is time for someone else to enjoy it.

As a result, there has not been much making at all.

A couple of pieces of good news however...

My poster Pockets Are Political has been shown in the fabulous printmaker's magazine Pressing Matters Vol 12.

This is such a great magazine based in the UK - full of interesting and amazing articles - incredible talent and lots of wonderful things to see, read and ponder. I am thrilled to have a wee mention.

On the other side of the globe (New Zealand) both Barry and have pieces on show at the Pumanawah Gallery at he Christchurch Arts Centre in the Love Letters: the Letterpress Poster exhibition.  The show is all about the love of letterpress and would be great see (if one could travel). It has 71 works from New Zealand, Australia and the USA.

After Christchurch it heads to Auckland and to Wellington, so at least a lot of folk in NZ get the chance to see it.  See their FB page for details.

Coincidentally, I sent Pockets Are Political there as well  (world domination is clearly on the agenda - more pockets for women!!!).

And here is the sign that made it all real on the house front.

And a few recent cameos by the mountains before we leave...

This one is smoke haze this morning from the first bushfire of the season...

Of articles and aprons...

I do love going to the letter box and finding one of those large flat envelopes inside - knowing that it contains one of the journals I subscribe to, and that there will soon be time with a cuppa and a chance to curl up and read about letters, and books and beautiful things.

Two recent journal arrivals contained articles I had written.

The latest edition of Bound and Lettered has a short article about writing on pebbles and making pouches out of book pages. I have it on good authority that the instructions are easy enough to follow as some enthusiastic folk started making pouches straight away.  Thanks Jennifer and the urchins!

Its always a great journal and I was thrilled with how gorgeous the article looked.

The Australian Society of Calligraphers' journal Colophon, has a review I wrote of the "Pieces for Peace" exhibition in Ieper; and a short guide to things calligraphic in Brugge. There is also a mention of the best place to buy a good flat white coffee as well!

It was lovely to find the exhibition review partnering with a story on the Buderim Calligraphers.

Which is a fabulous segue into the next part of the post. I have just spent the weekend with a merry band of calligraphers from Buderim, attending  a workshop with Colleen Little in Brisbane. More on that to follow when I have sorted my brain and my images, but it did lead me to earlier in the week when I was making the BIG decision around which apron to wear to the workshop. I know, I know. Ridiculous.

You see, I have this old favourite which really really shows its age and much wear and tear. But it just feels like me.

You can see so clearly how I wipe my hands on my apron A LOT.

In an effort to look more respectable when I go out in workshop-public, I made this little one last year, out of scrabble fabric and based on a Japanese house-apron.  This one I like very much as well.

And yes, the ubiquitous hand-wiping marks are there again.

The third choice was this fabulous newly-minted, fresh-as-a-daisy, never-been-worn apron that I recently bought in Melbourne. It features the work of Rosalie Gascoigne and I think it looks great.

So which one did I take?

A busy weekend ahead

It often seems to be the case that Spring in the hinterland is a very very busy time. For some reason we seem to explode out of winter and every weekend is filled with things to do, places to go, events to attend and activities to participate in.

This weekend is no exception as we are hosting the Maleny Celebration of Books - a weekend of activities and events for people who love books and reading. There is the Big Book Club gathering where the discussion will be all about Dave Eggers' book The Circle - a slightly creepy, too close for comfort look at a world without privacy - where everything we do and say is shared on line.

There is a great Forum with some fabulous authors; 22 of our own local authors will be available to talk about and sign their books; there are two films based on books, book launches and activities for children. AS well s the ever-popular Book Swap Tree for adult sand Book Swap Bush for children, and more I am sure I have forgotten.

I have prepared a small display on the wall at the Library, celebrating books and all the joy they bring. Some details of the work are here.

Which is just as well, because for the first time ever I won't actually be here to do anything else or help out on the day (although Barry has promised to go up the ladder and hang the books in the Book Swap Tree so we're still kind of helping).

I will be in Auckland in NZ, with Susan, attending the ABCNZ2014 Book Arts Conference.

I am really looking forward to hearing the speakers and seeing all the different books; maybe meeting some folk as well. Another part of me is looking forward in a different way to doing a presentation myself - about collaboration, and using Susan's and my work to date as a vehicle for exploring collaboration.

It has been nice to go through our books and remember each of them; and just fabulous to be able to share them with a different audience.

I've also really enjoying pondering collaboration and the many ways in which you can do it, coming up with a schema of sorts and just spending time exploring it and thinking about it.

It is a great opportunity and I am thrilled to be heading off, even to I miss the Celebration of Books.

Covered

I just came back from a few days work-working in Melbourne, to be greeted by the latest edition of Colophon, the Australian Calligraphers Society journal.

How chuffed was I to see my artwork on the front and back covers? Very!!!

Our fabulous editor Liz Firth approached me to write an article on my experience at Summer School in Winter - where I took two classes with Laurent Pflughaupt from France (see here, here and here).

I happily wrote my words and sent through some accompanying images, and Liz chose to use two of them for the journal.

The cover is a piece called Urban Grit - begun in class, and completed at home in the studio; and the back cover image is Graffiti - again, begun in class, but completed at home.

The issue is chock a block with interesting articles, reflections and investigations.

It was a very happy homecoming as I also opened a package from my parents who have been tripping around Tasmania, and they had collected some extra wooden type for me... just what I needed.

I do just love letters...

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 journal article

There is a great journal from the US called "Bound and Lettered". It caters for artists' books, bookbinding, papercraft and calligraphy.  I have subscribed for a number of years and it is always a treat when it arrives to sit down with a cuppa and go thru the articles.

In this edition (Volume 10, Number 4), I was fortunate to be included with an article on how I wrote on the big log of timber outside David Linton's wood shop here in Maleny.

The article is titled Words on Wood and goes through the trials and tribulations of writing on such a large piece of timber. It also compares the timber when it was originally put in place in 2009, and how it has weathered over the years.

I am thrilled to say that the lettering has survived a couple of very wet summers.

I wrote about the weathering a bit here on my blog last year.

I was really pleased that they accepted the article - and I am in great company in this Volume. The articles on Activist Scribes by Carol Du Bosch and Calligraphy for a Cause - out of the silence by Sally Penley have completed energised and enthused me.  There is also a great article on Modern Bindings on Antiquarian books by Jen Lindsay. And plenty more. It has taken several cuppas to get through this one.

Promoting and Publishing

I have been very fortunate this year to have articles and works published in a number of journals. Each of them has come about in a different way and the projects and articles are varied; as are the journals themselves.

I recently posted about the Australian Book Arts Journal - and an article I wrote that was linked to the theme Paper: the connecting thread and which included some images of my work which combine paper and thread.

A few weeks ago I received my latest copy of Colophon, the journal of the Australian Society of Calligraphers.  In this issue, I had a profile with lots of images of my work, a story about one of my Cartography pieces and an article explaining how I rust paper. One of my Cartography pieces also appeared on the back cover.

It's funny how you put in train, or respond to something else months apart, and then due to production timelines, they all appear around the same time.

I was approached by the editors of Colophon a while ago and asked to contribute some photos and an article which I did. They then mentioned they liked my Cartography pieces and could I explain a bit about them, which led to a discussion about rusting paper so I include my recipe as well. All of which got included!

© Colophon, front cover, detail, Yves Lettermes work

My profile story and spread - © Colophon

My article about Cartography I - © Colophon

Some time last year I approached the journal Bound and Lettered to see if they were interested in running a story on our A Letter a Week project. In March this year I got the go ahead and sent them some words and images of the finished second alphabets from 2010.  They made a selection, and published the article.

In a weird and wonderful connection, back in March I was approached by John Neal of John Neal Booksellers to see if I could send him some more images of my work. He had seen them in the beautiful ASC book Words Work and wanted to promote the book in Bound and Lettered. I dutifully sent them off, and then we took off to the Territory and I forgot all about it.

So what a delight to discover this issue of Bound and Lettered contains the article I wrote about ALAW - with images of some fabulous alphabets including Barry's and Ken's (pretty cool seeing as how I didn't make the selection!) and another article which features my own work. Wow!

©Bound & Lettered - cover and article/images Fiona Dempster

This is new territory for me and I have been reflecting on what I've learned so far, including:

• it's OK to put your art out there for selection in books which call for work that is suited to you (Words Work); 
• if you are selected, this publication can lead to other opportunities (like John Neal and BandL);
• if you have an interesting or different project or piece - write to people and ask if they would be interested in publishing an article (ALAW and BandL);
• If you see calls for article on a theme you can connect with - contact folk and ask if they are interested in getting a piece from you (ABAJ);
• run a project, blog and interact, and folk might ask you to contribute to their journal (Colophon and me); 
• it's a good discipline to sit down and think about your work or project and write about it in an interesting way;
• once you are published, you are more confident to approach people for articles; and
• taking the time to seek out and follow up opportunities, can be extremely gratifying when you see the results!

I probably could have made this two blog posts - there are lots of words - but the stories were linked and made interesting connections, and made me ponder how it all came about..