2025, the year in review

 I usually use that never-never time between Christmas and New Year to ponder and reflect, to plan and to dream. This year it has not been like that, with all the heft and heaviness of shifting and moving, but I have grabbed some moments to ponder the year of making that was.

I felt like I was an artist almost each and every day last year; but interestingly I didn't make a huge amount of things. What I discovered as I wandered back through the year was that I had done some lovely things; one thing was very involved, intricate and time-consuming; I spent a lot of time in my head writing a conference paper and preparing courses; my making was varied across materials; and that a lot of my art time was thinking about how to move what to where, how to promote and sell art when we don't have a physical shop and generally re-imagining my world as a maker.

As ever, in alphabetical order only and with no ranking of favourites, here are the ten things I made this year that I like the most.

1. Book of Silences

I loved this whole process; the honour of working with the words of friends, and the testing and trialling that came with the challenge of a representing silence... In the end the wee book is a marvellous thing and I cherish it, and its making.

2. Building Narrative

This is a bit of a catch all for me as maker. I included Building Narrative because I enjoyed it and was proud of it. I presented a paper on Building Narrative in Artists' Books at the  BIND25 Conference in NZ; and I presented two one-day workshops on Building Narrative here in Maleny at the studio of my friend Kim Herringe. Both of these things took a lot of work,  a lot of care, a lot of thinking, and both are a creative product (in my mind). Not so much to show and physically hold in your hand - but I am comfortable saying I made them!

3. Silver pebble jewellery.

I continued to make and sell sterling silver pebble jewellery. I did some commissions, I went big, I tried new things. It is a lovely thing to wear jewellery that you have made I must say; and I also love seeing it on others as it shimmers and moves .

4. Nest.

I really enjoy working with Lindsey when we are in Scotland, and this time I asked her if I could try to make a nest. It was such a fun process and I really got into it. The result was a layered, sterling silver nest that could be sculptural, or a pendant. It has inspired me to try and make more.

5. Peace around the world.

We have been making and sharing peace weathergrams for International Day of Peace for many years now. Over a decade at least. This year was no different - the weathergrams are used cutlery holders that my dad and his folk collect for us; and we letterpress print a message of peace on them and make a hole and tie some string. But this year felt different. It felt like there was such a yearning for peace (and care, and kindness) across the globe. And this year, without prompting, folk sent me photos of their weathergrams flying boldy and bravely in oh so many marvellous places. It truly lifted my spirits and gave me hope.

6. Red Card.

I made my first book about Australian women being killed by their partners or former partners over 11 years ago. It is still a crisis in this county and so little has changed. This book is simple. It is loud. It is full of me being so sick and tired of all the talk and still women are murdered with monotonous regularity. I give a Red Card to governments, to the media and to men who kill the women they loved.

7. Resist.

Sometimes your work is significant. Sometimes it addresses national concerns. Sometimes it seeks to encourage gentle and peaceful ways of being. Sometimes it is small, heart felt and simple. Sometimes it is sent as a reminder that people care, and that we all need hope.

I hand stitched these fabric remnants with red french knots, depicting the word resist, and sent it to friends in the US. I used braille as the format language - because nothing is safe with communication and we sometimes need to talk in code. Small. Not much but something, and yet I loved doing them and they are among my favourites of the year.

8. Serviettes.

I did mention sometimes your work is small, but brings great joy, and so it was with these serviettes. The joy I feel is well out of proportion for what they are and what they do, but there you go. I loved exploring the wing needle and hem stitches on my machine and I love that I now have some lovely serviettes to use - and that they look gorgeous!

9. Simply Being.

This book was a long time in the realising. I have played with the words for years and years, finding them in my journal, re-working and re-writing them. Finding them again. And deciding on how to bring them into being - it seemed I had so many options.  And this I hope is the first of a few different ways of making this book. 

10. Square Alphabet.

Again, this isn't exactly a thing you can hold in your hands, but I did enjoy the making of this alphabet so much! It was a recollection of a calligraphic exercise from many moons ago, which clearly has strong connections to the Berber alphabet, and ends up being almost a code I can use to write with.

As ever, thanks for coming along on the wander and for being part of my year - I appreciate each and very person who reads and comments and shares their thoughts. This year's top ten had a lot of variety and I think that reflects that I didn't have a body of work I was pulling together, so instead I got to play in lots of different puddles.

Go well into 2026, and may we all find, and share: love and care; peace and generosity; and hope and kindness along the way.

Bits of teaching, marketing and sharing

 Life as a creative, as an artist, is full of all sorts of weird things that are tangential to the making, yet make for a full and arty life.

I count amongst these the work I do researching, planning, thinking and prepping for teaching. Recently I wanted to update some thoughts about how to progress work when it feels stalled; or where you think you might have got the perfect solution really quickly. I came across some of my learnings from a workshop six years ago and refreshed them, added to them and printed them. 

 

And as I so often  do - I reckon I got the its v it's thing wrong again here! Why oh why doesn't it have an apostrophe for the ownership bit??? A do-over won't hurt. Sigh.

Fixed it!

And today I got to use the cards as I taught another workshop on Building Narrative in Artists' Books. It was such a joy and delight! It's a small group - only four folk - and we get to go deep, think hard, and explore a lot.

I get to teach in Kim Herringe's beautiful space The Studio here in Maleny, with so many lovely things around us how could we not be inspired?

One of the things I teach is about how to read an artists' book and we have some lovely, lovely examples to dive into.

A few weeks ago we did a short evening workshop with Kim on Marketing and Social Media for Creatives. It's never easy for me to do the marketing thing, but Kim offered sensible and clear ideas and information about how to go about it.  And I think I can do some of it!  It was so good in fact that I started my homework the very next morning!

And to share some small good news...the State Library of Queensland recently purchased my small Grief is  Stone book-ets. In fact they bought two of the editions so that one could go in the Education Kit to share with visitors, school children and the like. I am thrilled to know they have a public home; and will also get the chance to be shared and talked about more.

So I packed them up and posted them!

An artistic life is full of this and that, and oh what fun it can be.

Building Narrative Workshop

 Sunday evening weariness after a wonderful workshop with four great women, at the amazing Kim Herringe's studio here in Maleny. Kim is a fabulous printmaker, artist, and all round champion of art and is a truly excellent and generous teacher.  I was honoured to be asked to be a guest instructor in her beautiful studio space - and yes there were wallabies hopping through the garden!

Kim had asked me to teach my Building Narrative in Artists' Books workshop and it was a joy to spend time talking about the many ways we can bring our stories to life for people in our artists' books.

As I said at the beginning of the workshop it is a really heavy 'head-day' and far more so than the usual  'hand-day' that we love as makers and creators. However, time to ponder, investigate and explore is also a gift that is welcomed and we went in and down and around and through and back again with our thinking about making.

As ever, I failed to get many photos, but here are a few.

After chopping up papers for my paper sample books, I knew there was a reason I had left the scraps lying around!  There was enough black paper to make 4 name plates for the attendees at my Building Narrative workshop (and enough white paper to make the next ones too!). Winning.

Packed and ready to go - those boxes hold so much books-goodnes!

We talked about books and what they mean to us. We talked about storytelling and art. And we talked about how to bring it all together.

Part of the workshop encourages folk to examine artists' books, discovering how well they tell their story, and what the artists might have done to enhance the storytelling. Here the group is quietly at work interrogating some beautiful artists' book.

Here are just a few of the books we spent time with. Thanks to my friends Susan, Annwyn and Lesley and one from Alice Fox in the UK as well.

It was a big but beautiful day and I am so grateful I had the opportunity to work with these women. So much richness in their thinking and exploring and learning and sharing. I have another workshop set up with Kim in October and then we shall see if there might be more. 

Kim had run a cyanotype workshop yesterday, and how could I not take a photo of these beautiful blue brushes left out to dry???

Ahhh.... the end of a good day.

I ask participants for one word about how they are feeling at the end of the day and here is a compilation (some gave two or three...)

Challenged, Encouraged, Enriched, Inspired, Overwhelmed, Exhausted...

Teaching and Presenting

 I am excited to be presenting at a Conference in NZ in September - "Bind25". Hosted by ABCNZ it brings together fine binders and artists book makers and all associated variations in between.  Whilst they have prepared an extensive week-long program I will only be dashing over for a long weekend kind of thing...life.

I am presenting on my work and thinking about how to build narrative in artists' books. The presentation is coming along and taking shape as I ponder and meander and crystallise and clarify.

Before I head off I have also been offered the opportunity to run a workshop on Building Narrative - an opportunity for folk to take their artists' book making deeper; to think their way through story telling via the medium of artists' books and to take the reader on a full and satisfying journey.

Through the week I knuckled down and grabbed hold of a heap of artists' books from my collection to start finessing and updating the course.

I brought them home and spread them out.

And sorted through the opportunity moments in the workshop where participants will sit down together and discuss what different stories different styles of artists' book tell...

And I reached a point where I knew which books would work with which books, and in which groupings and why.

Sometimes I joke that there might be two things written on my gravestone:

1. She had neat handwriting; and 

2. She was organised.

The organised thing is always a bit amusing as I am the only person who ever really experiences my head space. My head is filled with thoughts that need connecting or jotting down; or which create new jumping off points for other ideas and... it can be quite the jumble. My sense has always been that my organisational side is just about trying to make sense of all this bubbling excitement!

And so as I kept having a multitude of thoughts and ideas about where to take the workshop and presentation next; I decided each thought could go on a sticky note and get stuck down. That way I wouldn't lose it, and I could watch them all come together.

It got pretty wild by the end of the morning!

Yet the sense of satisfaction as enormous. Despite how it might look here, I knew where to head next, and what needed doing. So good!

And then just to some lovely colourful, jewel-like details of an artwork we recently purchased from our friend Ken Munsie. These delightful moments make me smile each time I pass by, or glimpse over at it...

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!

Farewell Hame, and welcome...

 On Saturday, my exhibition Hame closed. Late in the afternoon, Barry and I headed down to dismantle the show and pack the pieces up.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a show comes down, after the time it takes to make the work and set it up!

Rolling up the scrolls and keeping them with their rusty tins.

Amazing how compact they become, after having drifty regally from the tops of their plinths.

Add in the cubes from Rolling the Dice and a folded up Postcards Home and a bundled up The Emigrants in their pouch and the whole show is nearly here!

Bundled and Burnt gets added in alongside the display case for Rolling the Dice. The perspex case for The Emigrants is pretty large; and Travelling Home the wall piece is also of a size so they do add a sense of heft (tho not shown here).

And it is done. We will be leaving the plinths with the Museum rather than carrying them back to Australia with us

And straight away they have a new role in life! I have moved my four hand stitched books onto the main table where they will accompany the work the High School students made in the workshop we did with them. I am so excited for the students that their work will get a public showing.

And on Sunday morning, Tracy, their teacher, and I set up their work.

Once more, the work is all about ideas of home and what it means.

So vibrant and mazing - so much to look at, to draw the eye. I really enjoyed displaying them and showcasing this bit and that...

I love all the shadows and the angles too!

I really want to go back now and have a good look through them. Some of the work was exceptional, sincerely thought through and well resolved and presented. So many complex ideas were considered, and so many creative expressions made of them. Always, young people will surprise you, and impress you.

This showing is on for two weeks, from Monday 7 October until Saturday 19 October. One of those weeks is the school holidays so hopefully more students will get the chance to visit and see their work on display. And hopefully there will be more visitors generally!

It has been a great collaboration between artists, the High School and the Museum. So good to have community working together to showcase art and talent.