Thursday Thoughts...

“She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted." 

Mitch McConnell

I bet it was NEVER his intention to have what he no doubt regarded as a putdown, a putting-her-in-her-place statement, turned around to become such a powerful statement for women and their rights.

I love these words and what they reflect. Of the story they tell of women who keep putting up with rubbish, with nonsense, with criticism, with judgement, with harassment, with belittling, with rejection, with all of the things that happen to women in the workplace and elsewhere, and who win.

Women who persist and who come out on top. Who become stronger, successful and fabulous.

It is so nice to look at some words, turn them around and see what they say that way...

Hearts at home...

My heart is at home, even though I won't be.

Funnily enough, I think my heart is also in the Highlands of Scotland and that is where we'll be for a while as the cottage calls.

On the weekend, I wandered the block to remind myself of its beauty and all the special things about home, and compiled these images of hearts we have around the place...

Now at the front door, some paper hearts made by Lesley in Wales.

Still love this one which I see each time I go out the front door.

Barry knows I love having hearts around (discretely) and made three for me that are rusting away.

The little one on a block of timber.

One of my faves - a wee rock heart at the base of a tree.

This one could be wishful thinking, but I saw a heart in there!

And a fine one to finish on...rusty clay heart.

So my heart is at home both here and there...I think I might need some to leave at the cottage too!

Peace weathergrams fly

It is September, and International Day of Peace is not far away - 21 September in fact.

On Sunday Barry and I headed to the top of our drive to hang his metal peace doves and my letterpress peace weathergrams in what we fondly call our peace tree.

It is beginning to be Spring here, but you can see the tree is still pretty bare.

This year my weathergrams have PEACE in blue, and 'keep on believing" in grey over the top.  I figure we need to keep on believing in amongst it all.

The weathergrams and doves sit together well.

And fly high in the big blue sky as the mountains wait quietly in the valley.

Looking down the driveway, they gather and dance on the breeze.

And the promise of Spring is real.

And a new weathergram hangs amongst the remnants of previous years...

 And the last of last year's "Imagine Peace" weathergrams was tucked inside this branch, hanging on...

As we watch them flutter with the sun setting on them making them shiny and bright,  I think about hope for peace; the hope of Spring and what new wonders may appear. I think about quiet persistence through the weather the storms the wind and the rain; and peace hangs in there.  I think gently building on peace, going again, doing it again, trying again as reminders to us all - peace starts in small ways in small places, and it grows.

For peace.

Thursday Thoughts...

Some people say, all gum trees look the same. But I go out and see gum trees on the landscape, in all different poses like ballet dancers, accepting whatever aspect of nature comes their way. 

Rosalie Gascoigne

It's been a while between Rosalies...

But today we talk about art, and she mentioned gumtrees and we are just back from down south where we visited some wonderful gum trees so here we are!

It's funny isn't how some folk can look at something and only see sameness. They can't see individuality, uniqueness, quirkiness or anything else that separates one from the other. They see homogeneity. It must just seem easier that way.

Perhaps artist learn to see differently. They learn to see what makes something different from something else; the shadow, the angle, the colour, the light, the texture, the beauty in the old...

I hope so.

Gum tress along the Ovens River at Bundalong, Vic.

Light

And because you travel for work and don't always get to make, sometimes you just have to find the lovely beautiful art-filled moments some other way.

We turned the lights off the other night; and this wee woven basket with twinkle lights was still on. I was captivated by its beauty - its shadows and its simple woven magic.

I am grateful for moments like these...

Deckled Edge Press

I often get a bit bamboozled about social media, promotion and who sees what and where!

Barry and I send a joint newsletter every few months and our most recent one launched our new joint printing venture - Deckled Edge Press.

Here is a link to our newsletter! You an sign up to receive it over in the sidebar; and if you'd also like to receive the DEP newsletter - subscribe not eh website.

I also started an Instagram account for Deckled Edge Press and have been doing daily posts over there.

But then of course I realised, that a) not everybody gets our newsletter and b) not everybody would know where we were on Instagram. So here I am on another social media platform letting the folk here know we've launched a new website and venture together!

Good grief!

We'd love you to link through and have look at the site and enjoy the bits and pieces we do over there.

There is a small shop space which at the moment has our set of four Staying in Touch postcards for sale (free shipping!).

And we will also be running another Introduction to Letterpress Workshop in November if folk are interested. See details here...

Whilst we both work independently as artists; it is wonderful to work together in an area we both love.  As we say on the website:

Both of us believe strongly in fairness and equality and are committed to working towards peace. Much of our work is based around these themes and letterpress printing, with its history of democratising the written word and protest posters, is a perfect companion for expression of our social justice values.

We make mostly small editions, with a love for the written word, poetry and the odd slogan.

What we do:

Deckled Edge Press is a small home-based press, where we work together and print small editions of booklets, poetry, posters, post cards and other offerings, nearly always with a social justice message.

We believe in the power of print to share these messages of support and inspiration and love working together on them.

Thursday Thoughts...

“A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination — any two of which, at times any one of which — can supply the lack of the others.” 

William Faulkner

When I think about writing, and my meagre attempts at it, I think that Faulkner's reflection on what is needed are pretty accurate.

Oftentimes we write from experience - to make sense of it; to share it or simply because it amused or entertained us.  We need to observe - looking closely at things and considering them. Exploring connections; random moments; noises, smells and sensations.  And then the imagination - the ability to extrapolate, expand, and move beyond the present or the known, to create people, ideas, places, experiences that simply don't exist in the realm of the real.

I also love his approach to getting by with two; and if push comes to shove one might do!

My sense is that if you read a really good book; or a beautiful passage, you can understand that the write was working with these notions.

Experience, observation, imagination...

PS - here's a link to a short video from our Celebration of Books - I get all enthusiastic!!!

Stitches and Covers

Slowly slowly these books progress. I am grabbing moments in between times to do a little something with them.  Recently I managed to stitch the sections together; that seemed like a major achievement!

I then began pondering the covers. Despite having thought of the hard covers, I decided I'd also try some soft covers.

I thought they looked a bit dull; and wondered what I could do with them to make them a little bit more interesting.

I selected some really large wood type and thought I might be able to deboss them using the proofing press.

This type didn't work out for some reason; but I tried another one and that worked a bit better.

So - now I have to attach the covers and am still testing out a few ideas even for that part.

I think I might still have some hard covers in me, so will attempt them at some point; altho the next few weeks are not looking like they will offer much time in the studio sadly.

In between times I did manage to make a lovely frock!

Workshop in Gympie

I have just returned from  a really delightful a weekend, teaching book making to the art group in Gympie. It is about an hour and half hour drive from us to them and Barry drove me up yesterday and came to collect me today - and I am very appreciative of that drive.

I do always love walking into an art room/workshop room and seeing the fabulous colours, and the mess on the floor and the tables.  You know you are in a good place when there are paint spatters here and there.

My table...sigh.

And then this lovely collage of one group's previous work.

On Saturday I taught Black Beauty - a sampler book using one sheet of paper with a variation on the Japanese stab binding.  The idea is that folk get to test and try their various media and see how they work on black paper.

We often don't think that black has that much to offer; or that perhaps it is a bit sombre or funeral, but in reality it is great to work with - full of mystery when you work dark onto it; and giving other colours a real chance to shine or pop when you put them onto black.

So everybody made a heap of samples, we stitched the book and then we all went home; exhausted after a full day and with no photos of the finished items being taken - sorry!

On Sunday we moved house to another lovely art workshop space and learned about single sheet binding.  It is always a tricky business yet these folk had great staying power and problem solving and made their way thru the complexity of the stitching and each and every one finished two books!

The first book was a pre-cut sample book, made of mat board.  It is good to work small and learn the sequence and rhythms of the stitching on something not too precious.

Their second books were their own - with covers either cover in paper; or left beautifully grey with a window cut out.

I did manage to grab a a few shots of finished books - Freda's sampler; Cate's book and Marjorie's book.

I loved Marjorie's approach to it - she wanted to do a covered cover, and a cut-out cover so she combined them. Brilliant.

All up a very full two days, lots of learning and lots of fun.

Thank you again Thursday Afternoon Art Group for the invitation and for a fabulous visit!