Fragile gains

I have finished my book! After the many steps and stages of pages and covers and possible bindings, I have managed to finish it and it all comes together.

But to go back a step or two...

Last year I chose to work around the theme of peace, and I used peace to guide me when I was making prints, books, doing calligraphy or whatever. It became the main focus of my body of work for 2013 and formed the basis of my work for Barry's and my joint exhibition.

Towards the end of last year I came across an article in Bound and Lettered Vol. 10 No. 4 by Carol DuBosch, where she shared work her students had undertaken as part of her assignment to them to be "activist scribes". I was awe-struck, stunned, dumfounded and inspired by this work and thought I would work towards something like that in 2014.

It soon became clear that women's rights and issues would be my theme for 2014.  It may be old-fashioned to be a feminist, but a feminist I am and there are so many stories where women are considered lesser, crimes against them are held as nothing, they still get paid less than men for doing similar work in many places and so on. I have a minor outrage button that gets pushed often as I read the newspaper or watch the news…

So this book is my first foray into that realm of work for the year.

It is called Fragile Gains - in my mind, many of the gains we have made remain fragile, and require vigilance to ensure that they are not lost.  In many places, the gains really are fragile and can be lost through a change in government or through less than democratic processes.

And so I worked with book I had bought in Portland (at Powell's, one of THE great bookshops of the world) - Nora Ephron's Crazy Salad. It was all about women's issues and had been written back in 1975. I read it, enjoyed it and then realised it would offer me something in terms of an art-book as well. It also kept the link to Carol and her students beautifully - I met Carol when we visited Portland on our last visit!

The words I found and kept were:

Equality
Choices
Liberation
Education
Safety
Leadership
Feminism

I ended up creating the binding and was pleased with how it worked. The pages are so fragile I needed to ensure they didn't rip, and that there was support for them when they are turned.

An awful lot of planning and thinking and problem-solving went into this book, and in the end…it says what I want to say.

Thursday Thoughts...

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
 

 James Russell Lowell

What a lovely image this conjures up - as bees move between the blossoms, touching lightly here, gathering pollen, moving over here, depositing and sharing…

Books do a similar dance I think - the writer writing things down, the reader picking the book up and gathering from it what is most important or that which matters most to them; sharing thoughts from the book or even the book itself with others.

Cross-pollination of thought, ideas and minds…

Beautiful!

Close up of a poppy at our place - a happy hunting ground for bees!  This gorgeous orange comes to you courtesy of Jennifer and Julie's ongoing quest to find Roy G. Biv aka the rainbow! Head on over to their blogs to see other orangeness or simply join in and let them know you're playing...

A Letter A Week - still on track

So far so good, altho I feel as if I may be tempting fate by celebrating that I am managing keep up with my own project this year! I am possibly a bit in front, but when I did the calculation I realised that four letters a month only gives you 48 letters, not 52, so I need to stay on top of it and publish some a bit early.

I am still enjoying playing with the coloured pencils that Hiro gave me when we visited Japan last year.  and I am learning lots about how sand compacts - it is quite incredible.

E got me started again - with an Emerald theme

Here is F - with a theme of Fuchsia

Then G got hard. It has a Green theme, but my it was tough work poking the pencils into the sand as you can see!  After G I had to empty all the sand all and start all over again.

And so we made it to H - with a Hot Pink theme and the pencils were behaving again…

The things you learn. Pop on over to A Letter a Week to see some incredible and imaginative alphabets appearing!

Next steps

After I had worked out how to get my pages prepared for binding, I turned my attention to the covers.  I knew I wanted to use aluminium as the covers - it is light, yet a metal, sturdy, yet not too overwhelming. The colour would also match the shim I was using to bind the edges of the burnt pages.

I decided I wanted the back cover to look a bit like the burnt pages themselves.  So I did a sugar-lift etching to get the look.

First of all I painted the sugar solution on in a manner that was similar to the burnt page look. Kind of.

I let that dry, then covered it with bitumen. And let that dry. Patience Fiona, patience!

And loved the way it photographed from above - could become my new profile picture!

Then it was boiling water to get the sugar to lift (hence sugar-lift!), and into the etching solution, a copper sulphate and salt mix.

I wanted to use words on the front cover so I drew them onto the aluminium by hand - very freely - and then coloured them in with shellac. And let it dry. Then the front cover was popped into the same solution. Here is my test run...

Lucky for me and my patience, they both etched as I wanted, so I didn't have to repeat the process!
And then it was onto choosing which thread to use when binding it all. I can feel the finish line edging closer with this book...

Thursday Thoughts...

“your handwriting. the way you walk. which china pattern you choose. it’s all giving you away. everything you do shows your hand. everything is a self portrait. everything is a diary.” 

Chuck Palahniuk

This made me stop and think for a bit.  And after cogitating, I came to the view that he's probably right!
Certainly handwriting is very individual and somewhat unique I think, the way you walk is pretty much 'you' as well, even tho you probably wouldn't know it, seeing as how you probably rarely observe yourself walking.  But you know how you can sometime recognise somebody in a crowd by the way they walked, held their head, waved their arms??? It does become very individual.

And then it comes to those moments when we choose and make decisions - where we often get to play out our preferences and styles, where more of us is revealed.  Not so much at those times in our life when you are trying hard to fit in perhaps; but often even then it shows up! I was joking with Barry the other day about how hopeless at fashion I was as a young person - I had no idea and of course I only got to buy the 'cool' clothes when they were on sale. Fo which you can read they were out of season and destined to be not cool as soon as I bought them. So even when you try to fit in your self portrait is painting itself…

I found it kind of nice to think about all these little bits and pieces as a self-portrait or a diary; tell tale signs of whom I am and how I am just me.

Studio chaos and mayhem plus good news!

I'm not sure if this happens to other people, but my studio looks like it has erupted and spewed forth bits and pieces of everything, from everywhere.

Not a good look.

I find I get totally engrossed or focused on something and keep having ideas about it, needing to jot them down, sketch them, grab some paper that might be needed, try a bit of this, make a bit of that. Compare this with that, then a new idea is generated from that comparison and it's off again in a new direction. That is the current state of the studio.

Which in its own way is good I guess - it means I am working - but there comes a time when the madness and chaos no longer offers me goodness, creativity and bursts of enthusiasm; when the chaos actually offers me strife. And so we arrive at tidy up time.

Take the time to step away, breathe in and out. Potter here and there, put things back where they belong, tidy, sort, create harmony all over again.

It seems to be a bit of a cycle for me - start tidy, make mess until there is only a small area left in which to work because every other surface is covered, then tidy. Repeat.

Before the tidy up began…

I can't even begin to explain what half those things are doing there - they simply represent my grasshopper-flea-like mind jumping all over the place!

This is where I got to with my tidy up - I can think clearly again now and approach the next steps and stages gently…at least until the next time.

And then this arrived in the mail!  Bound and Lettered Vol. 11 No. 2  features an article on the exhibition I coordinated and curated last year A Letter a Week - Artistic journey Through the Alphabet. What is even better, the fabulous photos taken by Anastasia Karyofillidis are used throughout the article and made the front and back cover! Congrats to Noela and Lisa for the featured works on the covers as well. Happy dance here!

Apologies for the shocking shiny photos; but I was too excited to worry!

Finally, I focus

I mentioned last weekend that I seemed to have a quite a few projects on the go - pushing this one forward, thinking about that one, beginning to make a move on the other…and how that works for me for a while.

Without deadlines or time pressure, I enjoy pursuing them all and driftily dreaming about them. But then something happens and I begin to feel a need to focus, to push one project along and complete it. Get it finished, tick the box and cross it off the to-do list.

It's funny, but I don't ever really know what clicks into place or why I choose the one to focus on, but it happens and then I turn into focus-obsessed person.

It has been that way with this book - suddenly it consumed my thinking and my time in the studio.

I burnt pages until I made myself a bit  woozy with the incense…and learned to slow down and do them in small bursts.

I read books and tried to work out how to bind my burnt pages. Didn't find anything, so had to go play and explore, did a few trials here and there...

I made up a couple of possible binding options, which I rejected.

But finally got the pages sorted…

Onto the covers next!

Thursday Thoughts...

“The aim of art is to embody the secret essence of things, not to copy their appearance.” 

Aristotle

I'm not exactly sure what the word for a perfect copy or replica of something is; but I know that art attempts to capture something else, and Aristotle all that time ago talks about the essence of things. Capturing this, expressing this, giving people the feel of it and the sense of it is so much more that replication.

For this I am grateful. I am grateful that artists continue to seek ways to express things that aren't obvious; to show us or make us feel something other than what we might see just by looking.

The more I grow as an artist, the more I realise I don’t want to be copying someone else’s works; matching my calligraphy to somebody’s version of perfect. I find I want to have a contemporary expression of calligraphy; not always trying to replicate the writing of a 10th century monk; or a scribe in far away places...

So I don't tend to copy the old hands and use them, I often find a way of making words read as if they are current, contemporary. I feel that all art should be reflective of it's time, while honouring it's past and it's traditions, it doesn't need to simply copy and repeat the past.


My desire not simply to replicate the past is making my work far more personal and meaningful to me. I’m not sure if it makes a difference for others who view it; I just know it is more meaningful to me. Perhaps at times I am even capturing the essence of something!

This is a recent piece of play - believe it or not, there are words here; with a script I developed then exploded (a la Massimo Pollelo) and then overwrote with different size pens, walnut ink and white gouache.  There is meaning in this for me - I know the words I wrote and what I am trying to say...

Treasures from our travels...

One of the best things about travelling is going to flea markets and op-shops, thrift stores and garage sales (or lawn sales) in different places and checking out the trash and the treasures.

We have a favourite market in New York - the Antiques Garage Flea Market at 112 W 25th St. In fact we visited it three times during our stay!

I have been unpacking bits and piece and popping them on shelves in the studio or just sorting through them.

Here are some of my favourite finds…

A child's box with beautiful pens and things…

Some bakerlite Q-cubes in their original leather pouch, letters to play with!

Tins of old watch faces and parts…

And just to prove you don't have to go away to find precious things, here are some magic bits from  here in Maleny!

Some of these bits and pieces will find their way into work; some might get used and some are just gorgeous to look at and make me smile!

Snippets from the studio

I often find at the beginning of a new year that I have lots of things ahead of me, lots of things I can begin, lots of things to plan for and lots of things to explore.

And in my own way, I am not good at parking several of them whilst I focus on only one. Especially when the deadlines are not that close, when the due dates are all a bit out there in the future sometime...  I find I work best by progressing a bit of this and a bit of that.

In line with my approach to slowness this year, I am also trying to build in time just for play - with no goal or end in sight, just the chance to do, play, explore, discover and delight!

So there are no finished works or complete pieces in my studio yet. There are lots of little bits and pieces, bibs and bobs all taking tentative steps forward; some being delved into in great detail and ideas thrashed about, tested and re-tested.

My journey in the studio is very iterative - one things happens, another thought appears, a new possibility emerges. It is always slow.

So here are a few snippets from my week.

Playing with printing fabrics, and gauze and silk cocoons...

Little bits of collage…

Colourful swatches for a maybe book…

Playing with water-soluble graphite pencils…

mmm embossing….

White marks on creamy white paper, preparations for a book I hope…

Burning pages, another book in preparation…

Sketching feathers…a gentle book in mind

Playing with folds and envelopes and places to keep treasures…

There are three serious projects in there as well as lots of play which is a fine balance so far.

I have spent quite a long time trying to resolve a binding - poring over books to see if anybody has down what I think I need to do; or if I will have to create my own approach. Which I think I will.

Sometimes just being able to spend time in the studio, mulling things over, leads you to the unexpected place, but the right place.  I did pages and pages of calligraphy and colour swatches and washes and designs for this one book and then out of the blue the brush marks came and solved it all. For now at least!

Hopefully soon there will be something fuller, more resolved, more real, to show you. Just looking at the above reminds me how eclectic I am and how much I jump around from this to that!