Glimpses

 I have been working on finalising three verses/poems that reflect some of our time in Scotland.

I have called the series Glimpses. Each one is a glimpses of a scene I have become familiar with, and fond of, in the north of Scotland.

The chaffinches that visit our kitchen window are absolute favourites and still stop me each and every time. Yet, they move so swiftly I often only catch a glimpse. 

The changing nature of the hillsides as the seasonal colour changes take effect, incrementally, yet creating such vast contrasts, inspired glimpses of the turning.

 

Trees of the blanket bog came about following a conversation with my brother in Australia:

 

“It’s Autumn there now isn’t it?” he said; “How’s the colour?”

 

I turned and looked out the window.

 

“The colour’s more down south, like Perthshire, up here, we don’t really have trees”.

 

And I told him what we have instead are power poles. That these are our ‘trees of the blanket bog’; and how at certain points in our regular drive, we glimpse them, scratching the sky.

I have been working on them with my beautiful new typewriter and some lovely Japanese papers. 

There were typos, and layout mistakes, one time I didn't return far enough and the new line started in an indented position...so many things to focus on.

I was working towards using the Moleskine notebooks I mentioned back here...but after attempting to glue

the paper onto the lightweight page part, I was disappointed with the buckling and the way in which it flattened and deadened the lovely paper. So...B was right! And I had to ponder what to do instead. 

In the interim, I went and worked on my second doodle page - which was calming and mind-emptying, so I didn't get too het up about my failure.

I knew the typed pages were good and showed promise. I had stitched the typewritten page to another page of the same paper and they created a lovely framed/bordered look. But then what to do with them?

I tried them out on some Arches Velin paper, cut as if to make a cover. I liked the look, but then thought about attachment. Would I sew right through them into the cover? That was problematic as any sewing would cut through the words which were split over the gutter of the page. Glueing them was another option - but I really didn't like how much it deadened the work and didn't let it feel alive.

So I did a mock up in plain paper and much smaller than the real thing. And wondered how it would go if I simply machine stitched from the stitched border to the top; and from below to the bottom?

This was functional - it held the paper page in place; but also met the form requirement of letting the page have lift and life. Felt like I was onto a winner!

And so I went and folded the page and set each page into a cover and sewed from the border to the top and to the bottom. And left the threads...

And attached the title to the front of the cover. And they were done.

I have made four of each verse, and now I know what I want to do, I have the capacity to make more. But this is a good start, in readiness for the Pop Up in Scotland in August.

Conversations with Women Friends cards

I have popped all the cards into their packets/pouches and will see if I get any more made before we head to Scotland; but for now I have enough stock to got with in preparation for the Pop Up in Armadale in late August.

Women Friends are so important in our lives, and  I felt I wanted to honour those relationships somehow - recognise and celebrate them.

I ended up sequencing them - calling them CWWF I, II, II, IV etc all the way up to X.  I thought it would help people choosing, but also I wanted to think my way through sequencing them for a book I might print with them all.

CWWF I is a smily one - simple. We can often say so much with a delivery of chicken soup. Or a friend just delivers it without even talking about it and you know all the love and care that is in it.

Sometimes the conversation is pretty much one where one person does the listening as it's a hard, tough, sad, soul-destroying experience that needs to be shared and heard; not solved. CWWF II.

CWWF III - so often this is my answer to "how did it go?" Whenever I think back over all the topics we touched on - the health, the books, the politics, the friends, the work, the weather... so many things!

This one is powerful, and potent, and didn't need a red thread of conversation between us... CWWF IV

CWWF V - oh my this is cracker! Those moments when a shared experienced is captured in one word and you both just burst out laughing! The stitching line tries to capture that explosive burst somehow.

CWWF VI - this one captures those special friends you have known for decades, where your conversations cover so much territory. Over decades we have seen the ups, the downs and the round abouts...

Sometimes our conversations with friends are texts, chats, messages, emails and oh the bliss of a written letter. CWWF VII

Nothing beats sitting side by side and blethering whilst the road unfurls before you. CWWF VIII

CWWF IX - so true! Somehow time disappears and you take a breath and look around your and realise its been hours...

CWWF X. This one. The special ways of knowing and understanding, of sharing, connecting and checking in... is like no other relationship.

And yes, they still look glorious in a bundle!

Conversations with Women Friends - the choices

I have turned to these conversations because they feel unique, they feel special, and they feel enriching.  They are something I want to make small portable bits art about. The small works will try to celebrate the joy of women friends and the conversations we share.

Whilst I have bene pondering and playing with possible words for a while, I have settled on my ten descriptors/verses around different conversations with women friends. 

This is their first iteration as a set of words. I have thoughts about other ways to share them and use them, but for now I have settled on some business card sized pieces of printmaking paper, with typewriter, vintage Letraset, silk thread hand stitching and tracing paper pouches with machine stitching.

But the journey to this point has been a bit round about!

The first challenge was what sort of pouch to present them in? I tried a few origami fold style ones of different sizes. I tried some rectangular ones made of printed lightweight paper with tape holding the edges down and I tried my usual pocket pouches that I make for pebbles and some of B's jewellery.

Interesting how I came down on the side of what I know, and what I am known for.

And I decided I wanted to try out lightweight tracing paper as the pouch. Luckily I had a pad of 25 sheets I could use to test, but then I had trouble tracking any more of the same stuff down. I found another alternative, after trying some drawing/tracing paper friends had gifted me years ago. In some circumstances it would have been right; but for these, it just looked a little bit dirty, which was a real shame because I have a stash of it still!

I had typed the cards, and cut them all down to size and rubbed out the pencil guide marks and then it was down to determining how best to use the illustrations I had in mind.

I had decided on two circles with a line of running stitches between them, signifying a conversation. But first to the circles. I selected a couple of the letter O from a  few different typefaces we have and quickly stamped them using an ink stamping pad. Of course that ink ran, but I also wasn't too sure that I would get a crisp mark out of them anyway just by hand inking and stamping.

For the sake of testing I also chose to trace a few circles using a circle tool I have. They came out pretty cleanly which was good.

Then Barry asked if I had considered Letraset? And I hadn't, so I popped downstairs to the studio space and collected my bags of Letraset and set to work searching for a variety of Os that could work. Generally speaking they came out well and I thought yes, we have a solution. They aren't always perfect, but I kind of don't mind that they show their age.

And then to deciding which of the conversation lines I might use. Not the solid lines, and not the ones that were underlining but rather the intermittent lines that went between two people. I thought hard about do I choose a single style or ????

And as is often the way with me, the answer was in the ????s and it came about as I read each card and thought "that's a jumping up one" or that's a between two people one" or "that doesn't need a line between them" or "that is a very close one" and the images just happened.

And so here they are in sets of ten. I have made three sets of ten with a few spare. The idea is that they get sold individually because one of them might be just the perfect one for a friend; but that all ten could also be bought together as an art piece/installation.

The red thread harks back to my Women Friends work for The Red Thread exhibition and felt like the right choice. See here and here and here...

The wild dangling threads are just part of me and my making (dating back to A Subversive Stitch I think way back here).

I'll go through the finished cards individually next time I think.

You can see that each card is individual and unique with different typefaces and sizes of the Os, and different placement and numbers of stitches.

 Just like our friends and our conversations. Unique.

Back to the typewriter

 Yum! I spent the most delicious of mornings playing with the typewriter I got for my birthday. It was the first chance I have had to see what it does and how it does it and it was good to feel the keys under my fingers.

I had this idea in my head to use some of these Moleskine postcard books I had purchased a few years ago, to pop a couple of poems I had written in Scotland into.

I typed out the first poem to see how it would fit. And just like letterpress, discovered that you can't modify the size of the font/typeface, and the poem ended up much wider than a single page. I would need a Plan B.

I typed it at triple space, double space and single space.

So I started to put the wee book through the typewriter. The poor thing, its first outing and it has to handle a book! The life of a typewriter in the hands of an artist...

I typed the title on the opening page.

And then opened it up and tested how it would go typing across the double spread and the flattened spine.

It didn't work really, so that was a good test. The roller also creased the cover and back cover rather a lot.

So off I went to type the second poem and then typed them both onto this nice firm, but light, Japanese paper.

And then tore them out (with no grain to guide me) and looked at them and thought maybe yes.

So now I am drifting and dreaming and thinking and pondering and wondering how they might become part of the page...

Small bits of satisfaction

 As we get ready to return to Maleny, we have managed a few more minutes here and there of making and creating.  One of the things I enjoy about being here in the cottage is that I face limitations. Plenty of them in terms of space, materials, equipment and time.

With making jewellery, I don't have access to a roller which is a key part of what I do. It takes the round wire pebble forms and flattens them. I can try to hammer them flat; but I find that without a large hammer and a large anvil it just doesn't seem to create the best effect.

So I decided I would do lots pf preparation, and take the pieces back to Maleny and use the roller there.  In between times after soldering the forms, I usually 'pickle' them to get the heat marks off them.

Again back in Maleny I have a small crock pot with a pickling solution and I pop the pieces in and leave them in for about five minutes then collect them all nice and clean.

I had imagined I would take the forms back and pickle them there; yet one night as I lay awake I thought about googling non toxic pickle mixes to make. And lo and behold I had all the ingredients I needed, here in the kitchen.

Vinegar and salt. I laughed as the salt is our fabulous salt from Blackthorn Salt - have a look at the magnificent way they make salt and the beautiful building they do it in here - and not just plain old table salt. But needs must. Luckily the vinegar was distilled cleaning vinegar!

Again, I don't have a crockpot for regular and slow warming, but we do have a microwave, so it was pour in the vinegar, stir in the salt and then heat it for 30 seconds. Then drop the pieces in a few at a time to see what might happen.

Yay! They came out shiny and clean!

Hopefully lots of new jewellery waiting to be.

And is so often the case, you do something, buy something and then see it everywhere. And so it was when we popped in to the Clachan Cafe through he week and went to look at Barry's sculpture in place and on display, and sitting quietly in a window was this great old typewriter!

And a final few photos of the weather, and the water, and the rocks, and the fishing net drying poles before we go...

Typewriter 2!

 Well, we went and did it. We went and bought ourselves a small compact 1970s typewriter so we could have one to use when we are in Scotland. 

Decadence. Indulgence. Whatever it is, it is nevertheless fabulous to have this wee one with us now and I couldn't wait to get started using it! Here it is all primed to go on my multi-purpose studio bench.

I had so much fun remembering the little quirks of a typewriter, setting tabs and line spacing; and loving the ding when I had room for just a few more characters in my line. I tied it on the usual 80gsm bond paper and that fed through really well. 

The ribbon is brand new so it was quite inky in places. This image also shows how easy it is to make typos; and how you can't readily remove them by simply backspacing or deleting. I like the honesty of the work.

I can't yet tell that ghost effect is me thumping the keys too hard because maybe the typewriter is too high on the bench; or if there is a setting I need to get sorted that will change it.

For the time being I don't mind it - perfection is not the goal - but it would be good to be able to understand what is going on.

As is my want, I then went and picked up all sorts of papers I had lying around - Japanese papers; lightweight tracing paper; used teabags; heavier art paper; and card; and checked to see if they would go through and if the keys would work on them.

I popped the tea bag onto a piece of copier paper and held it down with washi tape, then fed it through. All good.

The 'ghost print' equivalent on the copier paper was a bit of a bonus!

So I can see a lot of fun happening here.

We went away for a couple of days through the week - taking my Dad to see some of his favourite old haunts and some new ones. Here are a couple of shots from our road trip.