Thursday Thoughts...

“Learning became her. She loved the smell of the book from the shelves, the type on the pages, the sense that the world was an infinite but knowable place. Every fact she learned seemed to open another question, and for every question there was another book.” 

Robert Goolrick 

As an opening line, who could disagree.  I think it is the most beautiful ode (not in the literal sense) to a girl or young woman - to let her know that learning becomes her.  I think it also holds hope for all of us who are older - that learning still becomes us too.

I would love a world that thought we were at our shiny best when we were learning!

The rest of the quote too gives one of the best expressions of why I love books.  "...that the world was an infinite but knowable place".

So true - books give you this send of limitlessness; far away edges, and unknown places.  Yet they also give you a path and a way to make sense of it; to contain it bit by bit as you grow to understand it.  Oh yes.

And to have a sense of security that as another question was opened, there was hope of an answer to be found in another book.

Somehow this quote captures the wondrous explorative nature of books; and the making sense of the knowledge thing they do as well. Sigh.

As we prepare for our weekend boutique festival Maleny Celebration of Books - this seemed the perfect quote to ponder!

Value adding?

I think most of us use and re-use materials in our work. I am pretty sure we nearly all try not waste things. And so it was that I looked at the scraps of final prints I had done on my sampler, the ones where I was trying to remove the ink from the type before cleaning, and I thought they could become notebook covers.

They are small, they are handy for popping into a bag. They are stitched with the simplest of pamphlet stitches. They are not made with precious paper. They really are scrapbook notebooks.

And I like them in their humble, unassuming way.

The light on one of the presses was lovely this morning.

Some are stitched with tails out, others with tails in.

They play nicely together as a group.

Ahh, that light...

And then when the scraps were even smaller I printed some thank yous on them and cut them down into coasters for the studio. Not beautiful, yet practical!

Gratitude

Its a strange old time, but in amongst all that there is to worry about and be concerned about, I find many things and many people for which, and whom, I am grateful.

This has flowed into my spare time in the studio, where I have found myself picking up pencils and pens, stamps and ink and type and scraps of paper and repeatedly making thank you cards.

Odd but true!

I made these wee ones a few weeks ago and then this week, these emerged.

Folded cards.

And notelets.

Playing around with the words, and then turning 90 degrees and printing again.  I loved the patterns that appeared - I am still not good at predicting what will happen, but get inordinate joy out of the moments when I discover what does happen!

This is what I managed to do mostly.

And then this happened somehow.

And I actively worked to see what happened if I tried this. So, a bit of  serendipity and a bit of planned play.

I love the different shapes that appear in the central negative space; as well as in the broader outline of the pieces.

And then these wee scraps were stamped as well - swing tags for gifts perhaps.

Walking out the door on Friday morning - we were welcomed by a peace weathergram caught in the decking.

By Saturday morning it was gone. A fleeting visit but very welcome.

Thursday Thoughts...

“My actions are my only true belongings.” 

Thich Nhat Hanh

This one got me pondering back and forth, yet I enjoyed the mental ping pong in my brain for a bit.

At first, I felt he was saying that the only real things you can own are your actions.  When you strip away the possessions and accoutrements and all those things that we accumulate along a lifetime, then what we are left with as a sense of of what we can own - are our actions.

Then I wondered if that could possibly be it - surely we can own our own thoughts as well?

My sense is that as a buddhist monk, you are probably pretty good at not owning possessions - and that the statement is almost an expression of his lived reality. "I own nothing (unlike many of us) so my actions are it".

I think what I take away most from it tho is maybe not about belongings so much as about the real person. If you strip away all the things that surround us - our clothes, our house, our car, our computer, our phones, our televisions. These things tell you something about us; but they don't tell you about the real us.

It is perhaps in our actions, that our true selves can best be glimpsed.

Tokyo, 2016.

A sampler of sorts...

I spent some time having a play afternoon with a friend in the studio - getting her to print her first wood type. We had such fun and my brain was going in this direction and that thinking about things to do and try next. 

So the next day, I thought I'd try a mash up sampler thingy - trying out all the wood type we have as sets, and just the numbers 1-10.

For some reason I just love the jigsaw puzzle nature of letterpress and the problem solving of layout and positioning that comes with it. It took me quite a while to make a proper shape of the type. I hadn't known what I was going for, it evolved and became clearer that I didn't really want many 'holes' in it; I wanted it pretty dense.

I filled the gaps with ampersands, because...ampersands! 

Anyone who knows my work knows I am not known for my use of varied and vibrant colours - but again, I thought I want to try a multi colour print and so I did.

 I thought they'd work well together.

Starting in the middle and with the gold, I inked my way around the set up.

I was somewhat concerned when the yellow appeared so lime green, but I thought just go with it.

In case like me, you didn't notice it in the set up - here's the first print - for proofing of course! I had moved those letters down and turned them around, but forgotten to switch them around when I did. Always good to see where the different heights of type are not inking etc, so back we go...

Properly inked and set up this time.

And lots of lovely trials done! I am really happy with them on different papers and seeing the results of my problem solving.

As I went to clean up, I thought I should do some prints to remove ink from the type. So I did some diagonal masking and printed; then I turned the paper around and printed again. Quite a nice effect.

Studio re-jig

After teaching our letterpress workshop a few weekends ago, Barry and I decided that we could sort the studio space out even a bit better and so on Monday we went for a trip to IKEA.

We purchased six more storage units and a table top, and so it came to pass that on Tuesday, we spent the whole day building furniture.

The idea is that downstairs will be given over to letterpress printing. And other presses.  But the main focus is on making the letterpress machinery and type and equipment easily accessible and easily found.

So it was out from under the kitchen bench for the furniture; disappearing from the centre of the kitchen for the etching press; moving upstairs for the calligraphy bits and pieces. Transferring some of the books to the bookshelf upstairs. Getting quoins off the window sill; removing quoin keys form a tray; retrieving the pica rulers from a kitchen bench. And so on...

Two new filing cabinets with Adana presses on them - ready to go wherever they are needed.

And behind them in a space which is rarely used, lies the etching press - also ready to be moved to wherever we need it, when we need it. Note the pumpkin crop outside the window!

 I can't believe how open the kitchen looks! We removed the defunct dishwasher and put in place more storage, and new bins for cleaning cloths. And built a wee shelf not for the corner space where the furniture both wooden and metal now sits in clear tubs.

 Upstairs, the beginnings of a new desk for calligraphy.

Setting up.

Getting down to work.

21 swing tags for Barry at the end of a misty and rainy afternoon.

I adore the new space and can't work out why it took so long to set up a desk up there!  It is way up in the air; I look out over the mountains, I can see up the driveway and across to the house. I feel like the Queen of the world...

And may I say, that after all the rain, the valley and the mountains were spectacular on Friday morning - deep deep sigh...

Peace emerges book-ets are now for sale!

Many of you will have followed the ups, downs and roundabouts of me re-working some peace pages into what I happily describe as book-ets.

There was much wondering, and much wandering, as I explored the options hither and yon.

I was really pleased with the outcome and have now managed to get them into my online shop for sale.

Because the pages have been re-used, there is still evidence of tape residue visible on the pages.  I am OK with this as it seems to me that if what we are doing for peace isn't working; then we try another way, we try something different.

It also says to me peace needs renewal and we should just keep working...

Each book-et contains three pages of original calligraphy on rusted and pierced paper. The words are different in each.

1. Let peace be a daily conversation
2. We dream of peace and peace dreams of us
3. Peace is fragile, tend it gently and daily
4. Dwell with peace in your spirit and your mind
5. Every new breath allows peace to be born anew

I hope that you enjoy them - you can find them for sale for $95 pp here...

Thursday Thoughts...

“Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to love the beautiful, but it’s beautiful to love the ordinary.” 

Unknown

Sweet and simple and oh so true!  I think one of the joys of having discovered an art tribe amongst the interweb is the realisation that we nearly all stop and look at things that others might dismiss as old, ugly, worn or whatever; and see within them some beauty.

Oftentimes ageing beauty; oftentimes stoic beauty; sometimes solitary beauty; sometimes independent beauty...so many things have beauty within them that we might otherwise pass by.

I love the notion that it is beautiful to love the ordinary.

And so often the ordinary is so beautiful!

Leaves in Krakow, Poland 2017.

Lovely letters arrive

Late last week I collected a hefty 15kg parcel from the Post Office.

We had been fortunate enough to purchase some old Italian wood type letters from New Zealand. Terrie Reddish a fellow letterpress lover had put them up for sale and I got in just in time to purchase them.

'Full' alphabets of old wooden type are getting harder and harder to find, and we had been really wanting to buy some tall type - about 10cm tall. These letters were about 13.5cm tall so they certainly fitted the bill and hence my speedy fingertips to keyboard and across the airwaves to NZ.

 We enjoyed opening the box - it does still feel like Christmas to me when I get parcels in the mail which I know hold magic.

It took me a while to work out what the letters on top were about - and then I worked out they were all letters that have descenders - the bits of the letter that hang below the baseline where we normally write.  So they were even taller than 13.5mmm and hence needed to be packed slightly differently.

p, g, y.

And here I just loved how they interlock together, without messing up your line height. I so often think of letterpress of old as being pure genius.

And then I just fiddled and played with a a few words. I forgot to say how beautiful the lettering is as well. Its not just a plain jane set of wood type - they are Art Nouveau elegant!

They really are tall. This two line piece measures 27cm (11 inches)!!!. Posters here we come!

 Not all the letters are there; but we have hopes of being able to replace them - but that is another adventure!