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.

Workshops with the Students

 Gosh it has been a real whirlwind of a time, and in amongst it all we ran workshops with two classes of the High School Students.

Working with their teacher, I had asked them to consider the four questions that are being asked at the Museum. So they did some mind maps of those questions and came up with some words.

We worked with luggage tags and made an accordion book with a pouch to hold them. They each had eight luggage tags, and we had heaps of options for paper and writing.

They followed the examples I had like this.

This approach is really similar to one of the pieces in the exhibition The Emigrants; where I had recorded thoughts about what the woman would be trying to achieve in her new home - the things that would help establish home, rather than just the building of a house. By collaging different papers, different images, different things associated with the place and home it felt like we were helping create home.

They did some marvellous creative and inspiring work - here are just a few of them:

They worked so hard and so well! Most folk finished maybe 4 tags, and their teacher is going to keep working with them to complete their artists' books.

We also had the pleasure of talking with them again when they visited the exhibition through the week. 

It is always so energising (and at the same time tiring!) working with young folk making art - their ideas, creativity and imagination; as well as their sense of design, colour and thinking always amaze me.

Their thank you to me was a fabulous luggage tag!

Thank you Mrs Wilkinson and Farr High's S1 & S2 classes.