Thursday Thoughts...

Some of the art nonsense that has been written about my work reads cerebral/political/feminist motives into it that are completely off the planet or is totally incomprehensible. What I’m aiming for is simplicity, and from simplicity comes profundity. 

Rosalie Gascoigne

I think it is always interesting to see how other people view your work and if they see the same things you do; or even if they see what you put into it.  I also think its interesting when people see completely different things - and you realise you don't really own the interpretation of the work; the the work can mean many things to many people.

I had a small experience of this at the school I taught at yesterday - where we talked about my work Time to Change - about family violence and why I had used watch parts (to remind us it is time to do something about it). Afterwards one young woman said to me; I was thinking, could the watch parts also mean that we have to work together to solve this; like clock parts rely on each other - this cog to turn that cog; this spring to move that hand?  And I thought brilliant - it could!

The other part of Rosalie's quote her that I love is that from simplicity comes profundity.  I am always hoping that from the simplicity of my work; the paring back of it, that some profundity may appear or be felt.  I want my work to be simple and elegant; but not necessarily simplistic.

Two different things I think...

Part of the book called 'Silence' by Susan Bowers and myself. Simple, but not simplistic...

Daily Words

Whilst I was teaching in Rocky we had a small daily ritual where I asked each person to select a word from the bowl of 'daily words'. I had written them in white gouache on white paper; with a little bit of silver in the gouache to make it possible to read.

The idea was that in line with our approach of quietly and gently, we would each have a word to ponder on, reflect upon or think about during the day.  People seem to really enjoy it and if I forgot to send them to the bowl; they always asked could they get their word now!

Following on from that I was asked to make a set of words for somebody; and to make them whatever colour I wanted.

I wasn't sure where I was headed, but it suddenly became obvious in one of those moments - I would do rainbow watercolour words.  Partly because the person uses watercolour a lot themselves; and partly because they really like colour and partly because rainbows always feel right to me!

There were 70 words in the set, which then made it even more perfect - I would do 10 of each of the rainbow colours.

I popped them in the post and they have been greeted happily in their new home.

I enjoyed myself so much, I went on to make some more sets, which I now have for sale in my shop.

Here'a look at them in all their rainbow glory!

Red, orange, yellow...

Close up

Yellow, green, blue...

Close up

Blue, indigo, purple.

Close up

 All together now - a rainbow!

How they will probably appear in a bowl.

 Spilling out of a pouch.

70 positive ways to start your day - can't be all bad right?

A little bit more teaching

I am off to spend a day with Year 11 students at a local school this week - talking about and making artists' books.

I think will be fascinating to see where their ideas lead them, and am really looking forward to it.

In preparation I have been getting some pages ready and thinking about techniques and options and things for them to try and do and to use.

I decided to try and make a book using scraps from around the studio, rather than prepare proper pages from scratch. Interesting and fun.

Because of my"Under Construction" books and wall works from last year , I have lots of scraps with nests and feathers and so there wasn't really any competition to work out what I would base this wee book on...

I will be stitching it and doing the cover on the day, so here are some of the pages and elements...

Inside, looking at full width, stitched pockets with inserts, and attaching other artworks. Sealing things inside tracing paper, making it hard to fully discern what they are; and impossible to retrieve them.

Another opening and the left hand side folds out further, whilst the right hand side has a peep hole through to the next page.

Love the peep hole!

All the pages are from different paper, yet that doesn't seem to interrupt the flow.
 Another pocket - but this time attached with tape rather than folded.

And more cut outs and de-bossing. Oh and another fold out peep hole!

I framed the peep hole on the back and attached more scraps to the folded up pocket.

Which I filled to the brim with threads, and more threads...

And on the back, another bit of tracing paper to lift and discover the fullness of the word.

I will be talking about Content, Materials, Structure and and Sequence.

We decided to make a simple pamphlet stitch book - which is nice and easy, and easy to remember how to do again; but it does force you to spend time working out the sequence and how each page will play, given they are stacked within each other and the right hand side of the decorated or folded page can be a long way from the left hand side of the decorated or folded page.

Introducing cutouts also encourages you to think about what lies beyond; and a book like this always needs something on both sides of the page, so again, a bit of planning is needed.

I'm looking forward to it and hope to be able to share some results!

Thursday Thoughts...

“For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.” 

Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook

In the wake of my mother's death, a dear friend sent me poetry. Two of Mary Oliver's books of poetry and they have proven to be just what she hoped - companions when the world makes little sense; and all of the things that Mary says so well herself here.

I feel this way about books as well - that they are not really simply words; but things set out to rescue us, to warm us and to feed us.

There is no doubt that poetry offers solace.  There is something in the rhythms of it; the oftentimes concise nature of it, that enables even the most bewildered of brains to grasp onto the meaning of it and be moved.

Sometimes when the world seems too immense, too large to handle, to manage, to engage with - poetry can bring it back to scale, to here, to now and to what we can make tiny sense of.

With thanks for friends, for poetry and for books.

One of the gift books. And one of the poems from the book:

Poem of the One World

This morning
the beautiful white heron
was floating along above the water

and then into the sky of this
the one world
we all belong to

where everything
sooner or later
is part of everything else

which thought made me feel
for a little while
quite beautiful myself.

Celebrating Books and Women Writers

I arrived home from Rocky on Saturday and headlong into Maleny Celebration of Books events.

Before I go thundering down that slope, I was remiss in not including an image or two of the wee book-gift my class gave me in Rocky. I hadn't fully unpacked when I posted on Sunday but it emerged and settled into the house on Monday so here it is...a gorgeous reminder of a great week.

Can you imagine a gift that is more me?!?!

Back to Celebration of Books - I missed the Big Book Club discussion on the book The Natural Way of Things, but all reports are that it was brilliantly handled; lots of great discussions occurred and whilst many may not still have liked the book; they went away understanding it a lot better. What more can you ask for from a book discussion?

In fact here is what the author Charlotte Wood tweeted when she learned we'd been talking about it:

I was home for the Sunday morning Forum which was brilliant - three fabulous women writers, hosted by another remarkable women writer.  And we talked women and writing... working through the three topic headings: selfish; strident; and shameful.

I found the three headings intriguing enough and observed my own reaction to the choice of such strong words and topics.

This blog post is going to be a bunch of ideas and quotes from the session that resonated with me.

Krissy Kneen facilitated, and the panel included Jane Caro, Ellen van Neeven and Susan Johnson.

Selfish - the panellist discussed the selfishness of the act of writing and of withdrawing to focus on your own work and how hard that was for women to do, and the judgement that ensues when you do.

We covered how women often get judged for putting themselves and their interests/careers first, and how it is "harder for women to cleave to their creative work than it is for men" (Susan J).

We spent a lot of time in the world of feminism and discussing how women writers face different barriers to publication and promotion of their work.

Strident - Each author mentioned how if women choose to write about things other than the domestic and/or trivial - and make no apology for it - they may be considered strident.

Krissy introduced the notion that if women stick up for themselves and ask for a book jacket that doesn't shout "chick lit" by its colours (often times pink-red) or the inclusion of lips (I had never realised how many lips were on the jackets of books written by women) or  the use of a female form no matter what the theme or premise of the book may be...they are considered strident.

Shameful - this section focussed on how it is often assumed that women should only write about what they know - the lived life of a woman; or for Ellen - the lived life of an Indigenous woman. Rather than having the whole broad sweep of history, culture and community for us to play with; women are oftentimes constrained to write of the small life; the domestic; and by extrapolation - the boring, unimportant and shameful. Interesting.

A couple of my favourite quotes from Jane:

"Whatever I write or do or say, I want women to feel better about themselves"

"I'm getting allergic to being called a strong woman because it implies other women are weak. We don't say strong men unless we are talking about the circus."

"We will only have true equality when we have the same number of mediocre women in positions of power as we do mediocre men".

Anyhow, it was an interesting time!

The rest of the events went well and the feedback has been fabulous. I think we might just get ready to do it all again next year!

That's a wrap(t)!

I am home again from a full-on week of white on white and workshops at Wrapt in Rocky.

We packed a lot in and we got a lot done and we had a fun time and we are now officially tired!

There were twelve students in the class and they all worked extremely hard, tested themselves, played, experimented and created things of beauty.  We had such a nice time.

In phase 1 we spent quite a lot of time creating sample swatches - working on, above, through and within the surface of the paper, creating shadow, contrast and texture.

We then made a book, and learnt coptic binding; stitched the book, attached covers and attached our swatches.

The third phase involved participants choosing their favourite techniques or those they wanted to test, and creating a second book just for themselves.

Our final phase involved them making a simple slip case for their book, to protect it on its travels home.

I have only include one photo of each of the participants'' work - but they were all great in so many ways.

After learning coptic binding the way I do it, Jan came back the next day and was thrilled to still be able to do it (she hadn't forgotten overnight!) and her sewing was near perfect on this small book she made.

Suzanne used cut outs and machine stitching to create this window with these five cards held, yet twisting gently...

Carmel's delicate embossing using lino was stunning and some of my favourite imagery of the week.

Pam used some of the daily word cards in her cover - creating cut-outs to house them. The words she selected seem to reflect the week really well for me.

Stephanie showed just how beautifully simply white gel pens could work on white paper with these simple lace-like drawings.

Mary had fun with her scraps after making two other books - I loved the freedom here with the wild loose yet restrained machine stitching.

Bettina made this inspired cover for her book by folding small scraps of paper and attaching them like a spine. Simply stunning.

Aileen made many beautiful things, but I fell for this page of pierced tracing paper - I loved it a lot!

Sally was industrious and after making her sample book used her time to test out techniques and paper and book structures - here she embossed an apple then cut it down until just the core remained. It was really effective, and then she did it another way as well!

Julz did some beautiful stitching and embossing and her book cover was stunning paper weaving (but my photo is blurred so sad)!.

I loved the delicacy of Peta's stitching onto the surface of these wee tags.

Lynn's embossing with lino was lovely and this design was particularly pleasing I thought! I loved it the moment I saw it.

On Saturday morning we displayed a few of our sample books and others, before everybody got into planes, trains and cars and headed off to the real world again after a week of immersion in art and paper and books.

You can see the slip cases we made as well as Sally's second apple cut!

I landed home and went straight into Celebration of Books events, which was the most amazing finish to a great week - exhausting and exhilarating all in one.

Thank you Wrapt in Rocky for having me; and thank you to all twelve of the participants in my workshop - it was a delight to work with you all.

Thursday Thoughts...

There are only two feelings. 
Love and fear. 
There are only two languages. 
Love and fear. 
There are only two activities. 
Love and fear. 
There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results. 
Love and fear. 
Love and fear.

Michael Leunig

I love Michael Leunig - he is an Australian cartoonist and philosopher and he captures our world so beautifully and so sadly at times.

I have been thinking thoughts like these for a little while now - as we watch American politics; Brexit; and in our own country the debate over a plebiscite to legalise gay marriage, and our response to refugees.

I seems to me these words hold true for all of us - we act out of love or fear. It's that simple.

Wherever I turn, I see a lot of action out of fear - of others; of uncertainty; of loss.

I would love to see a world where love drives more of our actions; is the language we speak more frequently; is the feeling we share more often; and is the result of our lives.

I guess I am feeling bit sad for the world and us within it at the moment.

But there is hope - one of Leunig's gentler cartoons. I think I shall go look at my device!

Wrapt!

I am having a fabulous, tho chilly at times, time here in Rocky with the wonderful class and staff and tutors.

We have been working quietly and gently and white on white, but there is also an awful lot of colour around as well.

You know you're in Rocky... (The beef capital of Australia)

Thes prayer flags appeared overnight and I love their vibrancy and movement.

 

My class is doing amazing things, working hard and trying out so many ideas. Who knew there were so many ways to do white on white? We are testing 24 samples, but have discovered some along the way as well.

Name tags and folders for all those handouts.

Remnants from stencilling...

The ghost print from the roller after we inked up letters. Beyond belief beautiful to me!

A stack of samples is collecting on my tables - fortunately the participants' samples are better organised.

And tomorrow we stitch a book!