Libris Awards and mist...

I had some good news the other week - two of my books have been shortlisted for the 2018 Libris Awards: Australian Artists' Book Prize.

The exhibition takes place at Artspace Mackay and will open at 6pm Saturday 26 May 2018.

I find myself in excellent company with some of the best book artists in Australia represented on the list. I can only imagine that it will be a stunning exhibition, so will just have to see if it is possible in any which way to get there.

This little book Lost for Words is going places (currently on show in the US; in the journal Bound and Lettered and now headed to Mackay...).

And this book What? Why? What? What? too in a way - currently on show in the US and also headed to Mackay.

Happy Dance.

But back to the mountain...where we have been having what seems to be the longest wettest summer ever.  I know folks in the northern hemisphere feel like it is a looooonnnnnngggg cold winter, but we are just warm and wet.

Here are some shots form out of the window last week - sigh.

Thursday Thoughts...

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” 

Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver is such  great thinker, writer, chronicler, observer and translator of emotions.  I do love her work and dip in and out of her poems on a regular basis.

This feels like a really tough set of words.  They question and challenge and make me squirm a little bit. Perhaps that is why I chose them.

Over the past little while I have been really pondering and exploring what my art-life is about. What it looks like; what am I trying to achieve? what do I really want to do? how would I measure 'success'? what is calling me? what do I really need to be doing?

It feels a bit as if I am coming up for air after a long while and re-imagining my life.  I really really don't want to be one of Mary's regretful people - I really want to make sure that I listened to my creative power and gave it both time and possible power.

And so, the exploration and examination of an art life continues...

Graffiti on a wall inStockholm.

A lovely commission

The Easter weekend was a good time for getting things done. In Sunday's post I wrote about getting the letterpress commission almost done; and today I can report that the second commission got finished as well.

Here are the leftovers - almost more beautiful than the finished piece for my mind.

Not sure why, but I imagined the calligraphy in silver. So I tried the FineTecs and I tried gouache and for whatever reason, they just wouldn't work. Maybe it was the paper; maybe it was the nib; maybe it was the weather, but some days it just doesn't flow and you think - oh oh...now what?

I wondered about straight black sumi ink, but then I mixed up some pale green gouache and felt like I was edging closer to a resolution. Ignore the wobbles in the letters!

I conferred with Barry who asked if I had any green ink. I did, and had basically not even considered it so I did a test or two and thought...well maybe!

I had to do a logo as well and tested out my watercolour pencils to see if I could get close enough to the logo colours. This was quite tough given it was Easter, shops were closed and it had to go the framers on Tuesday morning. It was a real quick commission let me say, and I was working within constraints!

I actually ended up mixing a bunch of gouache to create the colours matches as best I could, after a few trials with the pencils.

Strangely enough I nearly always try to work on two pieces at a time, in case I fall apart and ruin something on one of them.  So I prepared two 'finals' and then had to decide between a dark grey backing for LOVE or a metallic silver backing for LOVE.

Choices, choices, do they ever end?

I took the final to the framer this morning and fingers crossed all shall be well and the work will be winging its way to Melbourne next week for its important date!

Working together

Folk who have followed along for a while will know that Barry and I work together occasionally, and always help out with each other's work when asked.  Barry will often solve technical problems around my work with me; I will often times help him out with design thoughts and solutions.

However of more recent times, we have officially banded together to create Deckled Edge Press - the home of our letterpress hopes, dreams and designs.

Together we will design and print a range of things; and over the weekend we did one of our first efforts together - a series of posters for a Conference.

The Conference theme is Equality - and we were asked for something like my 'imagine peace' weathergrams that I hang on International Day of Peace - but larger!

We spent a few hours trialling paper and placement and here are a few of the reject papers. Arches Velin is a favourite calligraphic paper - but letterpress, not so much.

Mohawk Superfine also didn't make the cut..

We chose Fabriano Tiepolo - even the name is gorgeous!

As we proofed, we realised that the length of the paper would sometimes rest on the edge of the press or the chase or the quoins and impressions and marks were occurring where we didn't want or need them, so we taped everything up to create clean surfaces.

We worked well as team - here I am inking the small letters (Barry inked the larger letters), and then Barry rolled the press whilst I managed the paper; then he held the paper whilst I lifted it off.

The length of the paper (about 76cm) meant that it would have moved and jiggled a fair bit without two pairs of hands, leaving smudges and overprints which would have been somewhat undesirable.

But oh, the magic of the reveal... I never ever tire of it.

We need an edition of 30, so printed about 36 just in case. We will go through and select the edition and the artist's proofs tomorrow - they are still drying today. I just love them.

With extra big thanks to Caren (Ampersand Duck) for the loan of the large type.  I had purchased some large type sight unseen with the promise that it was the kind of height I needed; and it all appeared much shorter than I needed, and Caren came to the rescue. Letterpress folk are lovely.

And just because we couldn't help ourselves, and there was still ink on the inking plate, we did a few on brown paper - I almost loved them even more!

And I just loved the look of this. Before we began I popped the type onto the bed of the press in preparation, and it just looked so lovely...

Barry is also blogging about this today - so it might be worth popping over to his blog rustnstuff to see his take on it all. It was a great weekend of joint-jobbing!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Reading – the best state yet to keep absolute loneliness at bay”. 


William Styron

I must admit I always find books good companions and one of my favourite phrases is that you're never alone when you've got a book.

I think I like that you always feel connected somehow when you have a book alongside you - that you are somehow conversing with somebody by reading an author's words. Your brain is working, trying to understand something, reacting to the rhythms of the wording, the words, the subject,  whilst all of this is happening I think in part, you are almost too busy to feel lonely.

No idea if that is what it really is about; but I certainly find books do keep loneliness at bay. In fact for me they usually offer the opposite of loneliness; a feeling of connectedness and satisfying engagement; and often, of having something to talk about to the next person I talk to!

A grey misty mountain day - perfect for curling up with a good book!

Little bits of this and that

As we re-settle into our lives and days, there are smatterings of art; and moments of smiles and loveliness.

I was overjoyed last Thursday to receive my copy of Bound and Lettered, a fabulous paper arts journal from the US.  I always enjoy reading it and was taken aback when I opened the envelope to find my work featured on the cover.

The article inside is one I wrote about this book - Lost for Words - and how it came about.

The story travels through my grief after my gorgeous mum died and how I lost my words, and found my way back to them. Theses cut outs were the beginning...

And then there were serendipitous moments of shadow magic  - as I went to lock the front door for the night - a gift.

And the beginnings of a commission. So many ways to try and write the words, to convert the meaning and let them shine...

So many drafts...

Home from the Highlands

We are back from an amazing 4-5 weeks away, staying in the wild, remote and isolated Scottish Highlands.

Barry and I have become third/share partners in a wee cottage on the North Coast of Scotland - way north!

We headed over to re-furbish the cottage - to scrape, patch, paint all the rooms and also furnish it so that we can visit comfortably in the future.  We worked really hard nearly every day, but did manage to find so many moments of beauty.

It was particularly special and magical for us to arrive when snow was everywhere; and to experience a good snow dump. Lucky for us it was big enough to be excellent; but not harsh enough or long enough to cause us much angst. Unlike friends in the US who have had way too much snow this season.

Here are some  images of those moments when you stop and see the beauty in small things; and appreciate magical landscapes.

The cottage itself amongst snow.

The view from upstairs the morning after a reasonable snowfall...the light is so soft and eerily beautiful.

Moon set one morning

The sun trying so hard another morning...

Snow shadows 

Grass seed against snow

Snow flurry at night

Snow build up on the window

Frost on the beach

Rocks within ice

Resilience

Lovely lichen

Dancing grasses

We had the most wonderful of times - towards the end I was itching to start making again as all the hard work was coming to an end...but that shall be for next time.

Now we are home I have two commissions to do; a workshop prepare for; and a couple of commitments to get moving on so there will be art again soon!