The Shape of Things II - together!

 Well Annwyn and I have navigated the postal systems successfully and her book landed with me this week.

I love how a single starting point with a single theme; combined with an exchange of papers and a suggestion to try structures that we aren't too familiar with, can provide such diversity and interest.

Our first books showed this well; and our second books continue the trend.

Annwyn's book references a yard stick and her blog explains everything so well! It is a beautifully-crafted and presented book, I had such a lovely time with it.

My books retains the series title The Shape of Things II; but heads in a different direction. My first book referenced how tricky it was to find firm ground beneath our feet; to be confident of the future, to have any sense of certainty in commitments.  This time as I began to plan the year I could begin to see the shape of things!  

So my words describe that emerging sense of knowing and feeling sure about somethings, the shapes and forms come through a calendar, and the structure hints at medicine and health by using a doctor's notebook format.

My book is once again relatively small in the hand (11cm h x 5.5cm w x 1 cm d) covered in a grey book cloth, held by  band of the same material, nestled in a card slipcase to protect it.

The title appears on the first page you see, and then the book (a single page) unfurls to reveal its fullness.

My next couple of blogposts will explain my thinking and my making, but it is so great to see the pair of them together!

Thursday Thoughts...

"I guess a big part of serious fiction’s purpose is to give the reader, who like all of us is sort of marooned in her own skull, to give her imaginative access to other selves." 

David Foster Wallace

Funnily enough this one resonated today because I had said to B just yesterday - "I know I spend too much time in my head...", when I could have described it as being "marooned in my own skull" which sounds far more dramatic.

I also responded to it because instead of using the default male; he chose to identify the reader as she/her and that is, in its own way, still kind of shocking. Can you believe?

The language he uses is also nice  "giving imaginative access to" is for me, an a great descriptor of what fiction can achieve.  It can spark your imagination. He doesn't over promise that fiction can get you a new life or let you be in another's life in a different way, but he seems to suggest that fiction can unlock a door, or flick a switch, or any of those notions which can then give your imagination access.

One bit I wonder about is his insertion of the word 'serious' before fiction.  I took it out and pondered doesn't all fiction give you imaginative access? Why does it have to be serious? Or perhaps it was the purpose of serious fiction, rather than the purpose of all fiction?

Not the worst place to be marooned... Heron Island, 2013.

Daily Words

Each morning Barry and I start the day with a fresh orange juice, selecting a word from our Daily Word bowl as we look out our window on the world.

We have had this practice for many years and the set of words within this bowl were written way back in 2004 when we were living in Hobart. As we have moved and had different lives and different vistas, we have replaced the bowl with one Barry made; but other than that these words have been our daily companions.

I just liked the look of them this morning and I liked the words. Beauty and thankfulness.

I am a bit stumped as to how I selected this set of words way back when. They are a muddled mix of nouns and verbs, some inspirational, some less so. I will sometimes say I think we should take all the tough words out - like responsibility and humility - and then I am reminded of the balance in life and how to try and make the best of some things.

The cards started out with crisp, sharp, knife-cut edges, but daily use has softened and rounded their corners; and a number of them have become foxed since we live in a high humidity and often rain-filled environment.

I remember making the marks on the back of the large sheet of paper by dribbling quite bright blue ink onto it and then blowing the ink around through a drinking straw! 

The bowl sits on this humble wooden curtain ring; elevating it slightly.

I have since made several sets of Daily Words for folk and they have morphed  into Rainbows. I have settled on sets of either 70 verbs or 70 nouns. 

I will often make sets with calligraphy words written in rainbow colours - ten words in each of the seven rainbow colours. For smaller orders I will do 5 words each in each rainbow colour.

Some of the sets and their making can be found here and here .

It is a delightful practice which we carry with us.  We randomly select a word, and then we think an it a bit, how might we bring it forth in the day? what might the universe be telling us? oftentimes thinking oh that sounds like a great day! when the words are lovely...

The Shape of Things II bibs and bobs

 My book has made it Annwyn in the UK whilst hers is yet to arrive here, so I thought I might show some of my workings towards the second book in the series; then be able to show both of them together when it lands; and then give the full run down on the making later on as well!

I am not pre-empting too much here as Annwyn has already opened and read the book; but here are a few things that hint at what it became.

Some layout and design ideas.

Some text and paper combo ideas

Whoooo - cutting out that space was way too much!

I needed to look for not-transparent papers to use.

You can see that I was trying to use the lettering style I had recently developed and played with when doing Brody's online course.

When I'm making books as part of an exchange or collaboration, I oftentimes try to make reference to what was going on at the time, such as this workshop lettering style placing me (and the book's making) very much in the first part of 2023... Like when I used the southern sky constellations which were in the sky at the time we were making these books, in this book Starry Starry Night...when I added my bits to Susan's beautiful pages.

And bits left over and waiting to be re-used.

These tiny pieces made me wonder when is a scrap ready to be scrapped?

And then the other day as we walked into town, leaves had fallen and stained the relatively new concrete.  I love how they left their mark, and added an organic touch to a tough urban surface.

So many folk try to make this transfer happen on fabric and paper - and here Nature just does it ever so naturally...

Thursday Thoughts...

“What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?” 

Maggie O’Farrell

I don't know about others, but I think and read about death and grief and loss a lot. Part of it I am sure is about trying to prepare. Trying to read and think and anticipate. Trying to be as ready as one can be. All the time knowing that all the prep in the world probably won't help at the time.

And so I had saved this quote to my 100+ page lists of quotes some time ago, (it feels like my Th Th quotes .docx could become a book of its own in a way!) and landed upon it today, when I am pondering Life, as I cycle through Art, Life and Books ponderings.

I think they are all great questions. So often we think about loss as absence - huge holes, gaping voids, endless echoes. We remember the person isn't there anymore to check in with, to laugh with, to hug. Their loss is physical; and there are empty rooms and beds and chairs...

This set of questions seems to ask us about not absence so much, but rather about the thing within that we shared; this excess of love we now have; all of the love that we had for the person. What now?

I think and think about this and I don't have an answer. I wonder if the love dissipates a bit like a dense fog gradually thinning and resolving and lifting? I wonder do some folk divert it and direct it towards somebody else? Do we set it in a safe place; its own special place and leave it there and visit it and remember it?

So many question from so many questions. 

Love is eternal.

Colour theory is not my strength

 As I began to work my way through my thoughts of The Shape of Things III, I once again knew I wanted to colour the paper somehow.

I had in mind shades of indigo or maybe shades of navy blue. I had in my head that I had some indigo powder - that if I added water to it, would create for me the shade of deep dark blue I was hoping for. So a little while ago I went in search.

Excited that I found it! 

It looked appropriately dark and mysterious and I set about starting with the tiniest of doses.

I added a bit more and it went this colour. Not exactly dark and mysterious now!

Sigh. It looks more sky blue to me than indigo, and is seriously not going to be an answer of any sort, no matter how hard I try to re-frame the question.

So back to my inks and paints I went, testing this and that and getting nothing that matched the mood I was going for.

And this is where I landed - with a hotch potch of maybes and some very random notes about how to maybe create indigo from other colours.

I have no understanding of what goes with what to make what and so took the opportunity of asking my three super talented friends Susan, Steph and Tory how they would go about making indigo, when we had lunch a week or so ago.

Of course they all knew exactly what to do and look at the difference that made! My lower swatches are so much better than my upper swatches - glee I say!

Steph suggested I buy Indigo - great move. And Susan and Tory both suggested alizarin crimson, prussian blue, violet and lamp black.  So I bought Indigo and mixed it with a bit of the crimson and a bit of the blue and feel like I got where I wanted to go.

And I loved the wavy marks left on the butcher's paper after I lifted up the sheets I had painted with my new found indigo watercolour mix.

So pleased I can colour my pages just the way I imagined...

Taking thoughts places

 Tidying the studio has seen me holding and handling some things that have been tucked away for a long time. Oftentimes only because other things needed to be put away in the drawers or cupboards where they rested and I get momentarily distracted.

And so it has been with these rulers. I have collected these gorgeous things for years - picking them up at garage sales, secondhand shops, vintage shops or wherever they may be. I have never understood the longing, nor have I really ever known how I might use. them

For some reason I just love them.

For the first time I kind of sorted them to see if there were any that matched. A number of them are broken, so they weren't pairable; some were singular in style, so again no pairs. But I did find some where this goes with that kind of thing.

I have always loved the pairing of timber and metal and fine finish to them.

And here, where the metal has gathered patina over the years.

The flip side with lots of lovely metal markings. 

But I digress of course. The point of the exploration was not their beauty, but to see if they also offered some form of utility.

I wondered if in their fully closed state, they could somehow hold pages.

So I tested them with the thinnest of paper, using some sticky notes I had on my desk (where I could find them!!!)

Yes, they would close.

I kept adding pages until I reached this point - 8 sheets of very thin paper.

 

You can see how that looks as it closes.

And this is how they make the ruler appear when closed.

It looks like a bigger gap than it feels, and my sense is that I could probably add 8 pieces of paper within and make some kind of a book. The pages would be long and narrow, and I would need to test if 8 is really possible if they are fully overlapping each other rather than the partial overlap I used to count the number of pages. That's the next test.

I am also not sure if I need a pair, but that did offer a starting point.

No idea where this is headed but it was great to finally try a few things out.

Thursday Thoughts...

… Looking at “Nighthawks,” I sense an invisible fifth participant who hovers on our side of the street. A passerby like us, he observes the action from the dark, and in through the plate glass, with appreciative and yet rather terrible detachment. Darkly shimmering, mercurial, and soon gone again is the artist’s self, the actual nighthawk.” 

Alexander Eliot

I like how Eliot has not simply described what is in the painting, what is there to be viewed, but rather he has taken us outside the painting and created a sense of perhaps who is viewing the scene (rather than simply viewing the painting).  

Oftentimes with art we look at we see and we examine it. We move around it, we peer more closely, we hold it if we can, we turn pages if allowed.  We focus so very much on the the object. We sometimes step away from pure observation and consider the why? We ponder motivation and drive, we read the artist statement or descriptor and ask what was the catalyst for this work? 

Far less frequently do I feel as if I completely step out and pretend I am an unobserved participant. Of course a painter paints from a perspective and you feel you can see what they were looking at say, as they painted; but I like the suggestion here that one is an invisible participant in the scene - not simply viewing it from the point at which the painter stood.

Rather, feeling as if you are a passerby looking into that well-lit room and wondering about the individuals as you pass on by.

Nighthawks by Edward Hopper.

The Shape of Things III is underway

I have begun work on the third of six books that Annwyn and I are exchanging this year, all under the working title of "The Shape of Things". See here, here and here for previous posts.

Our second books are en route to each other, after a wee delay because the Royal Mail had problems and parcels could not be sent overseas for a while.  Fingers are crossed the books land safely at their respective destinations in the next wee while. 

After tidying and cleaning the studio I have found the enthusiasm and energy to get right in to this one.

First up I was thinking of confetti, or circles.

It was surprisingly tricky getting my blunt old hole punchers to clean cut small circles from the fine papers Annwyn had sent. Lots of tearing and ripping ensued, until I worked out if I doubled the paper over the cutter cut better.

I had a brain spark about how this paper might go with the circles...

And then I had to check if it might also go with the paper I had planned for the folios. As we all know, not 

all whites are created equally! I think they will be friends.

The thing in the middle is my magnificent paper tearer. It is quite long (maybe a metre?) it has a tearing edge on one side and a place to rest your hand as you hold the paper down on the table as you rip it gently with the other hand.

It creates the loveliest feathered edge.

I then spent I many an hour trimming down three very large sheets of paper into small folios. I gave up on the maths to work out how many folds and tears occurred, but it did take a generous chunk of time. But they do look so lovely.

From each large sheet I was able to get 6 A4 sheets. From the 6 A4s I was able to get 12 A5s, from them I got 24 A6s and from them I got 96 of whatever comes next; which then got folded into folios.

This is a pile of A5s to folios (forgot to photograph the A4s and the large sheets).

Altho here is a photo of me working out if I could get 6 A4s from the sheet... hi tech as ever.

And then I had a play with piercing holes and thread. I had that awful moment, after all that tearing, when I stopped and thought, oh my goodness, what if the paper is so fragile it won't take holes and stitches?!?!?!?!?!?!?

But I think we will be OK... wipes sweat from brow.

There is plenty left to do so I shall get on with it. But I won't be showing too many photos until we send and receive them - all a ways away down the track.