Thursday Thoughts...

"One of the wonderful things about books is less that they influence one but rather that they seem to coax into the light ideas that one is already groping for. It's almost a magical process by which one finds oneself led to just the right book, making manifest inchoate feelings or ideas, at just the right moment." 

Jamie Seaton

I had to go a'googling to work out who Jamie Seaton was - and perhaps the quote is by a fund manager in the UK; a UK cyclist; an Australian  environmentalist; a US cage fighter or a US writer. And that was just some of pages 1-2.

It doesn't necessarily matter who wrote what I ponder; but occasionally context does matter so I try to check. In my head at least, it was the writer who said this.

UPDATE: thanks to an arty colleague, I can now confirm which Jamie Seaton I am referencing here!

Hi Fiona

I always read your posts although am unable to comment.  Thought I’d let you know who this particular Jamie Seaton is. He’s the UK co-founder of fashion and homeware label ‘Toast’.  Loved the quote and  your view ....including the view from Scotland.

Enjoy your new workplace...looks very functional.

Cheers
Jo

Whoever said it clearly enjoys books and enjoys how they come into your life and what they do for you. At first I read swiftly and the word less jumped out at me and I linked it in my head to importance.  I re-read it and realised it was associated with the word wonderful. Which helped; because it let many things about books be wonderful.

I was talking to somebody in the studio about how often we feel led by the work; or that we deviate unexpectedly to explore a different or new path, and I guess this quote suggests as well that almost mystical notion of a universal force or a creative force leading us.  Perhaps it is our subconscious at play; but I do know it happens for me with making; and therefore it probably could happen with books as well.

Sometimes we really do find ourselves led to a book at just the right time...

The road leads to a cove...in our village in Scotland, where all are safe and well so far.

Still playing

As I promised myself I would, I kept on playing and fiddled and faddled which I must say, appears to be a very good use of time.

This included taking the time to watch the light and the shadow play on some of the studio displays.

Snow Falling in Daylight (L), Silence (with Susan Bowers, R) and The Library of Lost Words (front).

A Subversive Stitch (L), Too Many Poppies (R),  Dark is Hard, and some wee notebooks with embossed poppies on the covers

Pebbles and a paper cast of a large nib by my friend Lesley.

Back to playing - I took the Profound Change part of the Solnit quote and tested out some new wood type for the first time. Now to combine with the Becalmed part...

I decided I wanted to practise different printmaking things  - things I have never tried or things that I don't do well, or things I just don't fully understand (now that catalogue could keep me busy for a lifetime...).

So I tried to cut a greyboard collagraph plate.  Note to self - why choose so many thing things to cut? Why not a large simple square or something???

Still. I fell in love as I went along and saw the marks emerging.

By this stage I was wondering - do I keep making a printing plate of it or just have it as it is? Pondering.

And then because we have some lovely large wood type, and because I love ampersands, I wanted to play with them a bit and printed up some brown paper wrapping paper.

All drying around the feet of the Lightning Jobber...

And finally some snow pea tendrils attaching themselves to some hot pink nylon against a rusty piece of bracing. Fabulous fun in the garden too.

I feel refreshed, enlivened and lighter for a week of letting myself simply be, exploring some ideas and trying this and that.  I feel happy to head back and do some serious work, make some more product and have some more play.

Hanging, finishing and playing

We have been able to spend a bit of time in the new studio of late for which I am grateful.  We had started out with ideas and dreams of maybe having shows or exhibitions in a small part of the studio and despite the virus, we decided to buy some hanging tracks and last weekend we installed them.  Or should I say, Barry installed them and I helped.

The first items hanging - not for exhibition just for us and to showcase some our work. Two posters we have done for the Communities in Control conference in recent years.

Barry was up and down that ladder...

This wall will be just for us; the wall near the entrance will be more for showing and exhibiting works for sale... if and when.

And so to finishing... I managed to finish gilding the wee circles on the circles of concern/circle of control cards. Ta da!

A little bit of bling can go a long way. Altho I don't know why the photos haven't published with better definition - somedays Blogger has mind of its own.

They will be sold in packs of two.

And thirdly to play.  I had been feeling bit out of sorts kind of cranky about making for a bit and realised I felt as if I had just been going going going on product and doing things - all very purposeful - and had missed the time to just play.

I gave myself this week to simply play - not achieve anything, not be goal-oriented, just to follow up on some ideas I had had about things I wanted to try and it worked out well.

I began with some ideas for working with fabric.

I read a great article by Rebecca Solnit a few weeks ago and one of the phrases that stuck with me was "We are both becalmed and in a state of profound change".

It certainly feels like that so I played around with the words.

You can see just how tiny these little pieces of rubber stamp are (4mm high and I think that is 1/16 of an inch?). They fit in that stamper at the back there.

I had used a tissue to clean off the stamps that were in the machine and then over stamped the tissue with the new words.

And then I stamped onto fabric.  And I liked it.

More play was had though the week but that's a story for another day.  In between times I had the lightbulb moment of realising that it would be good if I could include some play, some serious art and some product each week.  That would seem to be a good recipe for keeping me balanced, but as ever, we shall see...

Thursday Thoughts...

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us”. 

 Iris Murdoch

I only came across this one recently - it brought me such joy!

It was the loveliest gentle reminder to not take things for granted.  I tried to put myself in the shoes of folk from a planet without flowers and had to agreed in full with Ms Murdoch - how astonished they would be and how excited they would think we must be to be surrounded by such magnificence on regular basis!

No matter which part of the world we live in, there are flowers that emerge from the depths of Winter; that herald the coming of Spring; that burst forth and cheer on Summer and that wind us down into Autumn.

In many ways it resonated as well as I have found fresh flowers to be a small antidote to the drear and the fear.  It has been nice to find them, be gifted them and to simply enjoy placing them around and about the house.

Here's to celebrating flowers in all their gorgeousness.

Couldn't help myself, two photos not one - today's gatherings from the garden.

Circles of Concern - gold!

So I am continuing along slowly with these cards - everything I do is by hand and is slow, but there you go.

I thought to myself would I hand colour the circle of control and if so how and with what?  In the end I played around with gold markers...which just looked pretty flat and less than attractive.

So I went and tested a bunch of different transfer materials to lay down some cheap and cheerful gold leaf someone had given me.

I worked out which transfer system would work and got down to getting the gold leaf ready. 

Ahh my very messy work space...

Each square is drawn by hand, then I use a wee rulery thing with different sized circles to draw random circles across the square.

After I have done that, then another circles gets drawn and centred and filled with gold.

I got quite fascinated with the gentleness of the process of putting down this gold leaf and took a wee video to show how little effort there is brushing off what looks like a bit of a mess, before it becomes an elegant and smooth circle...

Enjoy!

A sweet commission

Recently my Dad commissioned me to make him some cards.  Like us, during this time of the virus, he has been checking in on people and wanted to be able to give them some positive words as well.

A few years ago he asked me to print him some similar cards and also to create a calligraphic piece for his home, so it was nice to revisit the words (always slightly modified, but basically his).

Once again we printed on black, but this time I thought I'd like to try a bit of gold rather than white.  I also changed the typeface to something more elegant, and played around with the layout a bit as well.

Here are his twenty, in their drying rack.

A single card on black - enlarging the space for Love as you move down the page.

The next thing I did is cut tiny fold back triangles to create the sense of holes being poked in the darkness - lots of tiny cuts.

Which I then poke out and fold back, revealing light from the other side.

I attach the black card to white card, so they have a bit of presence and the little 'lights' shine through.

And here they are...

All packed up and ready to be presented.

It is a lovely little commission to have been doing and the words are so apt for our times.

I sometimes think the sadness, the fear and the issues can feel so big - and yet we can slow down, come back and simply do our best to poke a few holes in the darkness...

Thursday Thoughts...

“Every authentic work of art is a gift to the future” 

Albert Camus

Isn't this just the loveliest way of thinking about the things we make - that they are gifts to the future.  That in the future folk may find our art; may wonder at it; may see it in a book; may buy it; or simply come across it somewhere.

I like the positive sense of this. Yes, the work may have come from behind us - drawing on things we had seen or thought or done in the past; and yes it may have been made in the present, right here and right now; but really its purpose is in the future - a gift to the future.

It can also be a gift to the future me - I get such delight when somebody reminds me of a piece of mine they have and love; or way down the track somebody discovers something on Pinterest and gets in touch and I get all nostalgia or enthusiastic again.  Almost a bit like a gift that keeps giving.

That thought of a gift to the future offers me hope and a sense of wonder.  As I finish something I never know who might see it when it leaves home; or gets shared or...

Back in 2013 my wee book "A Subversive Stitch" appeared in The Huffington Post! Who knew it would ever be there!?!?!?

Defining skittery

I did manage to spend a fair bit of time focused on problem solving a big letterpress piece over the weekend; but for the rest of it - skittery remains!

I sat down to blog and thought what have I done?

And so here it is in no real order, making no real sense, just capturing the range of things I seem to be doing at the moment. None of which is yet serious enough to warrant its own post!

I have stitched five more calico aprons and am using my high tech design skills to discover how much room I have left over for type. I am planning fundamentally feminist type words and shall pop them in the decklededgepress shop if they work.

I have been playing some more with glitter I found in my drawer. It makes me happy.

 
And to add to the definition of skittery I do not believe I have an 'after' shot!

Further evidence of skitteriness linked to my larger letterpress project - setting a poem and discover I have run out of 'n's. Sigh. I needed a lot of 'n's.

Rummaging through some old books I was moving from home to the studio and discovered some of these playful moments and again, they made me smile.

Removing text to create some sort of poem. I do this in one of my two-day workshops (Words and More Words) and these were preparation for that I think.

Black marker.

Dr Ph. Martin's Bleedproof White.

Our avocados are in full swing at the moment so I got distracted by the notion of dying threads with their skins and their seeds.  Turns out they make a delightful coral pinky colour.

Today we had rain, and the mist started to rise and a rainbow appeared. Always a good day when it's a rainbow day.

So yes, I am sadly not yet through my skittery phase, but maybe in some sort of way I am getting lots of little bits done?

Around the edges

Over the weekend I spent a lot of time solving a letterpress challenge.  It is not yet complete, and the struggles were many, but I did manage to see and do a number of other things, around the edges.

Saturday was ANZAC Day here in Australia - the day we stop and remember those of our armed forces who have fought for our country.  It is for me a conflicted time - how best to honour and respect the terrible losses; how not to celebrate war and mythologise it; and how to try and focus on peace. Every year I weep.

We usually begin with the dawn service (here in Maleny in the pitch black at about 4.30am).  But this year because of the virus, there were no public gatherings. Instead a grass roots people-led campaign suggested we go to the top of our driveways at 6am, perhaps light a candle, and listen to the memorial service broadcast from the Australian War Memorial in Canberra - the Last Post and the minute's silence.

So we did. And it was moving and perfect.

We looked down our street not expecting to see many others and saw our neighbours and another couple further down the road. Here I am afterwards, heading to have a socially distant chat with Rodg.

Whilst chatting I glanced across at the embankment of grass on the right.

Can you believe? On THIS day, I spy the second last peace weathergram from last year resting in the grass!

So I collected it, brought it home, and let it dry with the gathering of peace doves (I wonder what a beautiful collective noun for peace doves could be?) on the chair at our front door. A compassion of peace doves? A serenity of peace doves? 

Do share.

There is a single peace weathergram still on the tree - a remarkable effort since August last year.

And so to the other edges.

On Friday Barry and I learned that our artists' book "We are Sorry" has been shortlisted for the Libris Artists' Book Awards. We did a happy dance - this is probably the most prestigious book arts prize in Australia and it is an honour to be shortlisted, and to be amongst some very marvellous book artists.

Because again, the virus, it is not known when the books might be able to be judged nor when they might be able to be shown to the public.  But still, first steps first.

And in some in-between moments, I decided that the circles would be contained in a square, so the template has been put to good use and I am beginning to prepare the cards.

And for hope. Not made this week, but a sentiment for always.