Exhibition in Japan

We are very fortunate to be part of a Sister-City cultural and art exchange once again. We are in Tatebayashi in Japan, enjoying catching up with artists and friends from our previous visits.

This time around we are even more fortunate to be participating in a beautiful exhibition "Australian by Nature".

Christine, Noela, Merv, Barry and I have each brought work with us to hang in the  elegant and sophisticated Gallery Fantasia in Sano.

I am showing my five artists books "Under Construction" honouring title birds and the nests they build so well.

Some before shots of a few of them.

The beautiful printer flyer to advertise the show...

We have now set the work up in the gallery and the show is open

Thursday Thoughts...

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. 

Leonardo da Vinci

I'm with Leonardo on this!

Perhaps that's just because I like simplicity and it's pretty much how I work; but if he thinks it's sophistication; then I'm all for it even more.

Perhaps a bit like Coco Chanel who advised women "before you leave the house look in the mirror and remove one accessory" - I like the elegance of less...

Sometimes too much just covers up mistakes and blurs the whole; sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes less means there is nowhere to hide and the work has to be good; sometimes it can seem like you gave up or didn't really try. It's tricky, but I do like less.

Purple plus and a PS or two

As part of the commission I am doing for Melbourne, I need to work out what colours the words for the windows will be.

It is tricky being here, whilst the sign makers are there, and not being able to check and test colours.  So, I asked them to send me a few samples of vinyl to 'match' the purple that will be on the upholstery in the room, so I could see what might or might not work on windows.

I love how many stages I have to test and check in this piece of work! So many unfamiliar processes.

They arrived last week and I pasted them up on the windows here and there to see how the different light and different orientations to the sun would impact on the colour.

four samples with a smily note. They all look pretty purple and I think at this point that pretty much any of them would do the job.

I attached them to the kitchen window - it is north facing like the windows in Melbourne, altho it was early in the morning here. It is not easy to photograph from inside looking out into the light, so all the colours you see in the photos are a bit unreal.

I began to think the one on the left almost look black; which is not the look I was going for.

 In the afternoon I move them to western window to see if the light changes things.  The left hand one is still looking blackish

 With the sun streaming through them in the late afternoon, the one on the right starts to look bluer. The middle two are firming up as options.

But from another angle, the right hand middle one starts turning blue!

So I took them over to the shed studio - the glass over there isn't tinted or treated like the glass in the house windows.

And pretty much all I know from this is that I won't use the one on the far left.
I will use the left middle one, but the others are pretty tricky to choose between.

This may actually form part of the decision as well - this is how the middle right one looks when you look through it - it offers a bit of transparency.You can clearly see the outlines of trees and the shadows of posts.

 Whilst the far right one offers no real transparency - but lovely blobby images!

Decisions, decisions.

And a late postscript PS.

Over the weekend I won the Printmaking Prize at Kenilworth Art Show with my piece Under Construction V.  Here I am collecting it today and photographing the evidence.

 And the judge's comments which were very nice. Little happy dance!

And another late addition PPS - good grief I could have planned this better...

Just found this link to another piece Under Construction IV which is a finalist in the Sunshine Coast Local Artist Local Content Prize! Barry's there as well...it's all happening....

Metal play!

Although I live with a metal worker, it's a bit like cobbler's children or the kids of doctors' - I don't often get to play with metal.

We managed to change that over the weekend during a visit by Caren Florance of Ampersand Duck fame. We picked Caren up for a flying visit (less than 24 hours) and decided we would spend some time hammering together.

Barry guided us through making a bowl and a brooch/scarf pin thing and by the end of the afternoon I was very happy with the results!

But back to the beginning - we started with metal tray and cut three disks out of it - one for B to show us what to do, and one each for us to play with.

Me hammering - love the elegant pinkie finger action!

I decided to hammer to a certain point and then leave a  simple plain border on the edge.

Whilst Caren hammered I mucked about finding scraps off Barry's bench to make a pin with

 Ready to go grind and polish on the wheel.

Taking off the rough edges...

And don't you love a machine that let's two of you work together?

Working closely with my tiny scrap of copper.

Ready for riveting and then riveted!

Ta-da!

 And the finale of the day - birthday cake for Caren.

Thursday Thoughts...

A book without women is often said to be about humanity but a book with women in the foreground is a woman’s book. 

Rebecca Solnit

I am happy to call myself a feminist and I find the older I get, the more I realise how entrenched so many of the ways in which we think of, and treat, women differently are.

Part of the trick for me is that so many of the moments I realise things are awry are relatively small when seen by themselves.

Like how we describe works of fiction.

Yet when you gather them all together a pattern emerges...

But today's post is about books so I'll head back in that direction rather than in the direction of a full on rant!

It intrigues me how often women read books with male protagonists and just think about them as books to be read; yet for men to read books about women oftentimes seems unusual. Perhaps women are more interested in understanding or exploring different worlds and experiences? Or perhaps we just assume men's worlds are more interesting?

Like all things that are generalisations, there will be exceptions, and one book I can think of that has a woman in the foreground that men really read was the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the other books in the series. For which I am thankful - Lisbeth Salander is fabulous!

The fourth book in the series, this one written by someone other Stieg Larsson...alway interesting to see how that goes (and I enjoyed it).

Play time!

After all of the left-brain work of measuring, calculating and planning that I am doing for the Melbourne job, I really wanted to just go do something light and breezy.

And I did!

This is a playful alphabet called the button alphabet, designed originally by Peter Thornton.

I picked up a 6.0mm parallel pen, popped in a red ink cartridge without rinsing to the nib from its previous black ink and started to see if I could write this alphabet.

I had such fun and will definitely do it again.

The alphabet with a few variations and lots of less than perfect looking letters.

 A quick go at writing names - not too bad.

And then a couple of phrases/words.

And on grey card as well.

Which I decided to make into cards.

A fun and very fruitful little while in the studio - it was good to get inky again and do some letters by hand and have so much fun doing it!