Thursday Thoughts...

“A good book is always on tap; it may be decanted and drunk a hundred times, and it is still there for further imbibement”. 

 Holbrook Jackson

Somebody who enjoys a glass of red probably wrote these words I reckon; or perhaps  a whisky drinker or a drinker of other spirits.

I imagine its about the decanter - which you can just keep filling up I guess - and that sense of ongoing renewal. Or the idea of beer on tap just flowing.

A good book does offer itself to you time and time again; I can, and do, keep books to read over again and I often enjoy them just as much the second time round, even if for different reasons.

Books can really be the gift that keeps on giving I think.

A well stocked wine cellar!

Fun with fabric

Not much actual art happening that can be shared and shown just yet; so it's back to the clothes I was sewing before Christmas.

It has been a bit of  revelation just how much I enjoy making clothes for myself and how much time it can makeup in my brain! It's also funny to observe how when I am in the middle of making, I am constantly trying to find ways to get back to the sewing machine, grabbing half an hour here, setting aside time there...I guess that's the definition of an addiction or obsession.

I haven't touched fabric this year except to pre-wash a stash that I hope to make up, but before Christmas I got a bit done, including my Christmas Day frock, as featured with chickens previously.

I liked the detail on the pocket, and the sort of underskirt in black - added some length and also added a bit of interest I think.

It fits really well and is a nice cool summer shift.

I whipped up some black trousers the week before Christmas - I like to wear comfortable black trousers when I travel and these are very easy and comfy and still look OK.  I turned the pocket fabric around so that I could use the selvedge at theta of the pocket as a bit of decoration - the selvedge was so lovely.

Nothing flash but very serviceable with a dash of interest.

I also completed this loose top in mid December. Another summer top, loose, cool and comfortable.
The fabric was some of my mum's stash that I kept and it's nice to have made something with it.

Back to hand stitching now - edging closer to completing the commission and sending it off.  Handing over another one next week I hope and getting words cut for a different one next week as well. Phew.

Randomness

Whilst Barry and I have been under the weather this week, not much art got done.

We mooched about a bit, continued the new year tidy up and clean up of the house, and generally took it quietly.

So this is a selection of random moments over the past few weeks.

We spent Christmas in Sydney, at Coogee beach and there were some lovely moments, early in the morning, looking out to sea. I love the way shooting into the sun changes everything...

The sea baths.

The quintessentially Australian Surf Life Saver flags...

My Dad heading through to the cliffs for a good look at the ocean

 and I got to go feed the chooks and hold one (in my best Christmas Day frock and all). No animals were harmed in the taking of this photo.

We returned home to a hydrangeas in full bloom. I love love love this colour.

Managed to quietly sort some type we collected in Sydney. Thanks Mo!

When I say collect, my Dad very kindly drove it home in his car - no way could we have posted it or carried it on the plane!

Today I started to play with mono prints - this trial used Caran D'Ache water-soluble crayons. Interesting!

I accidentatllygot some ink on my embossing tool that makes my mark, so I had to clean it off and the  it seemed easiest to just emboss, emboss, emboss and wear it off. I did so on a tissue and was surprised that it worked so well!

And as I left the studio this afternoon, I took this photo of the first flower ever on our ponytail palm - fascinating.

 I am still finishing two commissions; one is ready to hand over (yay), and new work is getting ready. But slowly, slowly...

Thursday Thoughts...

“It’s impossible” said pride. 
“It’s risky” said experience. 
“It’s pointless” said reason. 
“Give it a try” whispered the heart.

Anonymous

A whimsical quote for the first Thursday Thoughts of 2017. As I cycled through art, life and books I am pondering life this week, and I've always liked these words.

They aren't difficult to ponder, they aren't earth-shattering in their depth and consideration; instead they are a simple way of recognising the dimensions we bring to decision-making and the dimensions we sometimes need to quieten.

How many times as we think about starting something new or doing something differently do we come upon voices like these?

I didn't know anything about Reason v Intuition as two ends of a spectrum until I was well into the workforce - it was a revelation to me that not everybody just instinctively 'knew' things!  One of my own favourite ways of describing how this happens for me is "I come to quiet knowings..."

I listen to my intuition; and I always have. My gorgeous mum was highly intuitive and I learned it was possible to make a successful and happy life listening to it.  Here, the heart encourages us to give it a try - and sometimes we just have to.

Stitching scraps of copper with wire - I just had to give it a try...

Peace Mends the World 2013.

2017

I must admit I'm a sucker for a sparkler, and we surprised ourselves by staying up until midnight to greet the new year; celebrating Hogmanay with a Scottish friend.  Sparklers just make you feel better so it was great to have plenty to play with on the cusp of a new year.

In between Christmas and New Year's Eve I received some new type. An excellent Christmas present.  It is a set of caps - Delphian 30pt and I really like their elegance.

As part of our tradition, Barry and I make and send New Year cards, rathe than Christmas cards, and we both decided to do letterpress cards this year.   I thought what a great way to christen my new font, and to test myself with a different, slightly tricky, lock up.

As ever, I enjoy the back of the locked up chase as well - and this time the writing on my apron peeks through the spacer in the bottom left!

Once again the stairs in the shed studio performed well as a drying rack.

And in the end, I like the simplicity of the card, and I like knowing it was a bit tricky to do and I did it.

 It's always a nice way to start the year, with a bit of low key creativity.

With more wishes for a kind and gentle new year, filled with creativity, care and connection.

Happy 2017!

Looking back on 2016 with hope for 2017

We've arrived at the end of a year and the beginning of a new one.  Around this time each year we stop, look back, think about our year and how it went; and think about how we'd like the next year to be. 

Looking back involves spending time looking over the work I made in the course of the year, and the pieces that ended up meaning the most to me - either because they were significant; or simply because they made me smile. It's become part of a tradition on the blog to create a list and in doing so I remember so much more about what I have done though the year. 

For previous lists you can see: 

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2009

It was a fairly lean year in the making stakes for me and yet I discovered I had more than 10 to choose from for the Top 10, so from the 2016 archive, listed alphabetically and not in any order of favouritism, we have:

1. Daily Rainbow Words

These make me smile and in a way I wonder why I never thought of doing them before!  I love the ritual of choosing a word each morning and here they are in rainbow coloured wonder. 70 words in packet so lots of options.

2. Fed Up

2016 was a year of commissions and this was one of them. I made five pieces as gifts for the five men who host the Fed Up lunch to raise funds for family violence services.  The five works were siblings not quintuplets - the same letters but with different patterns cuts into them and slightly different layouts. 

3. Go Girl!

This piece came about because I had ink left on the roller. I grabbed some random wood type and one of my favourite phrases and there we were. I intend to make this an open edition variant - using the same words with different inks and different type. It too makes me smile!

4. I Lost my Words

After my mum's sudden death in December 2015 I just found it so hard to create or make - to find something to say; to draw from inside me anywhere. As a woman who works with words, I felt like I had lost my words. And so I set myself a small task of working with the word WORDS - to see how many ways they could disappear... this is one in a series.

5. Imagine Peace

One of my favourite innovations this year has been to use up ink on the rollers and offcuts of nice paper to make business cards with Imagine Peace, using a variety of typefaces. I carry these in my bag and hand them out at random and offer them to folk in different places.  They make me happy.

6. In Peace and Stillness

My biggest commission of the year and one with loads of learning in it - putting words on windows in a new service for homeless women in Melbourne. Working with the women was an honour and a joy, and creating a space for reflection and meditation was precious. So so precious.

7. Lost for Words

Continuing on with the notion of losing my words, this is the only artists' book I made this year. I used wood type to produce a small edition, masking off the letters as the pages progressed.  

8. Peace Books in the Landscape

Barry and I had wanted to do this for ages - etch some big standing books for our garden, and we finally made time to do it and I love them! With words of peace within them, and loose circles and semi circles on their covers, they are a beautiful collaboration - words, books, metal...

9. Quietly and Gently

It was a year of teaching as well and one of my favourite things for the year was the sampler book I prepared for the course I taught at Wrapt in Rocky - Quietly and Gently.  It was all white on white, exploring techniques, working on, above and through the surface and I just loved the book; and the class!

10. Words and more words

This broadsheet came about because I forgot to remove some of the masking tape on the wooden type before inking up again. It is a reminder of happy mistakes and I love it for what it is; and what is says about process...

 Thanks for coming along on the journey back in time.

For 2017 - I wish for a year of hope; of peace; and of kindness. A gentle year in which we find our way back to our best selves and in which we create and make and continue to share.

Thank you all for the time you spend here - I look forward to another year of connecting in blog-land. Go well.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Pare down to the essence, but don't remove the poetry” 

 Leonard Koren

So much of my work is the fine balance between enough and not enough; never really at the other end of the scale of enough and too much.  I constantly struggle to find the balance between my need for simplicity and the essence of things, and the appearance of nothingness and emptiness.

I love the words here, suggesting that the goal I have in my mind without real knowing it, is to not remove the poetry. To make sure I have enough of it, and that I leave the bits that sing, that speak, that whisper to folk. To ensure that I haven't simply created an echo chamber.

I love those moments when you go - That's me! That's how I want it be! That's what I'm trying to do! And keeping the poetry in the work is just that.

More low tech design strategies

As previously seen, I still like to do a good old cut and paste and print it out to see where I am headed with long and large amounts of text for walls.

I have the honour of attaching the storyboard to the artwork that sits above the checkouts at our local IGA store. Back in 2014 Noela Mills designed the work, Edith Ann and her team installed it and here in 2016, I am completing it with words. Rob and Sam the IGA owners, say that folk really love looking at it, but they don't always fully understand it, so could I please help tell the story?

Happy to!

The two walls I have to place it on are 8m and 8.8m wide, so I want the words centred on both.

Rather than try to get handwritten calligraphy to scale I chose a computer font that looks slightly handwritten and scaled it up.

So I thought about what size I thought would work and decided the only way I could comfortably do it was to print it out.

The good news was that I printed on old letterhead, and that the paper was then shredded for mulching the garden...I used 48 A4 pages up front.

As you can see my first attempt at printing went a long, long, way, snaking through the house for 9.5m...a bit too long.

So I fiddled and faddled with font sizes and scaling and worked it out pretty well after quite a few extra efforts.

The top run is at 300pt, the second at 250pt, the third at 220pt and the fourth at 235pt.

235pt won.

So now to choose the colour; to measure the height above the baseline (currently the baseline is hidden by Christmas decorations) and then organise to get it printed, cut and installed.

2017 here we come!

Peace on Earth

Today is Christmas Day, and we turn towards families and friends; to gather, to celebrate, to share, to reflect, and to remember.

Wishing all my friends in the land of blog a peaceful, gentle and calm Christmas. Wherever you may be, near or far, and however you may spend the times, may you find and celebrate moments of peace.

Peace for all of us, one step at a time...

Thursday Thoughts...

“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.” 

Stephen Fry

It seems to me that the near hysteria about the end of the paper-book is slowly receding and we are all settling back and realising that there is place for everything: the e-book,;the audio book; the hardback; the paperback...

We live at an amazing time and are privileged to have so many options available to us - the chance to listen to a book being read; the chance to read in the dark with a semi-illuminated device and the glory of holding a paper book in our hands.

This quote by Stephen Fry says it simply.  Escalators and elevators exist, but then so do stairs.  Stairs are still there and are still used by many folk. As any person who uses a wheelchair will tell you - stairs never died out and lifts, ramps and elevators never took over the world (yet).

The newest and the latest and the greatest don't always take over, and don't always last - fads and fashions have shown us that through history. On the other hand some things do become consigned to the waste paper basket when they are superseded by improved and better things.

I guess its just about keeping perspective and remembering if something is good; and is useful; and does things for us that the new things don't, then it will probably be OK.

Next steps...

The end of the year is approaching which means my deadlines are approaching too!

 I have been struggling a bit with head and neck problems and have been told no sustained bending of my neck - which makes hand stitching a virtual impossibility. I have put it aside for 10 days to let my neck get better; but in the interim have been progressing other tasks that also need to be done, and which don't require me to have my head down for long periods of time.

 This is part 2 of the poetry commission and thankfully, the tricky parts - using the photopolymer plates and registering the second colour print - have gone well.

 The work won't be public until the end of January, so in the interim, here are some more shots of work in progress...

Once again, the photopolymer plate got itself inky on the way through. We trimmed it back to here; and then ended up trimming all the way back very close to the lettering.  You really couldn't leave the ridge line and the inky bit in...

An inked up press is a beautiful thing.

Part two printed and left to dry on the 'drying racks'

 A detail of the cover - from a photopolymer plate (no inky bits!)

Hopefully I can get back to some stitching in the next few days - taking it slowly and gently and not pushing myself.