Books, paper, letters, words...

I'm happy.

Books, paper, letters words - I've had  a happy few days playing around with these.

Today in the mail I received the catalogue for the show at 23 Sandy Gallery in Portland OR, USA.

I was thrilled and tickled to see a fragment of my book Fragile Gains on the cover and the postcard. How excitement!  The show looks stunning and I wish, oh wish, I could click my heels and head on over…

Over at the studio I have been playing with syringes and inks and paper, and writing letters and words.  I love the texture this is creating and am getting excited about the possibilities. Syringes make for more less-than-controlled letters and I kind of like the slightly random and wobbly and occasionally blobby version of events that occurs when I use them.

Barry and I are holding another Open Studio next month and I am working on a few "Peace in your pocket" books to have for sale then.  I am about half-way through overwriting "Peace is every step" on this page.

We will be open 10am - 4pm on Saturday 14 and Sunday 15 June. More to follow!

They are good days when you get to play with words and letters and paper and books...

Pieces for Peace

I have finished the wee book I will be sending to Ypres for an exhibition based around World War I.  I mentioned earlier that I had shifted from women poets to nurses and the book came along quite nicely once I had decided that.

I chose a fairly subdued palette - but then how could it be anything else given the horror of that time?The soft grey-khaki paper, the rusted braille paper, grey thread and the red cross.

It seems likely that many of the books that will make their way there will use similar colours and imagery - crosses, barbed wire, and probably poppies will appear quite often.  I wasn't trying to be original or avant-garde with this book; I was just trying to tell a story and be part of remembering, reflecting and honouring.

I de-bossed barbed-wire into some old paper a friend had given me; then wrote in small letters along the wire. The black depicts words that describe the nurses and some facts, figures and official type stories. The red is all quotes by nurses about some of the hardships and horror they endured.

Interspersed between the brown pages are slightly shorter pages of rusted braille paper, where I have hand-stitched the word for peace in four languages linked to Ypres - English, Flemish, French and German. I couldn't do a book about war without bringing peace in somehow; interspersed as a reminder that it is an ongoing universal quest. Each page also has a stamped red cross.

Where I couldn't, or didn't, fit words into the barbed wire well, I came back and wrote a black cross (like a grave cross) and a red cross (like the red cross) in the extensions.  I think I must have been channelling Susan subliminally!

The covers are also simple - embossed barbed wire this time and a single red cross on the front.

Each book in the exhibition measures 14cm (h) x 18cm (w), that is 14-18, the years of the war. I think it will be an amazing exhibition.  Barry has also made a book - see here; as has Susan, here. Helen has also made one, so Australia (or at least SE Queensland) will be well represented. 

Thursday Thoughts...

“Books are a uniquely portable magic.” 

 Stephen King

I think books are like portable magic in two ways. One, you can carry them around and thereby take the magic within them with you, wherever you are. Secondly the magic within them can transport you away to another land, another place, another way.

So OK, maybe one is portable, and one is transportable, but still they're both good notions!

There are always pros and cons for the paper book and the electronic books.  I think paper books fare better if they are dropped or get wet; I think they are also good in that they never run out of battery power.

Electronic books on the other hand can be read in the dark (as they are often back-lit) and also its easier to carry several of them at once.

Whatever the pros and cons between them, the good news is that both forms are portable magic.

I am once again playing along with Jennifer and Julie in their search for Roy G. Biv, the rainbow and we are up to Blue.

This image felt to me like a book that has taken me away - so more like the transportable than the portable, but still...

Treasures from our travels

Barry and I have spent a bit of time of late on the road, doing our work-work.

We headed west to the Darling Downs (lovely name) and spent a few days there working, and then drove further west to Goondiwindi where Barry had work in the Aspects Art Show.  It was a successful trip all round and Barry's beautiful work "Bending" was acquired by a collector in Goondiwindi, and also won 2nd prize in the Open Section, against 90+ other candidates.  He took home some nice prize money, and we were both so thrilled and chuffed. I was very very proud, even if it meant that the artwork I coveted would not be gracing our own garden…

©2014 Barry Smith - Bending

As is our want, along the way we stopped here and there, poking our heads into art galleries, coffee shops and collectables stores and found some wonderful treasures.

Here is a pile of boxes and rusty tins that I picked up. I keep imagining artworks in them, but for now they are stacked and tidy.

This is a wee treasure Barry bought for me on the way home. Is it not the most precious sewing machine? He just kept thinking that it would be perfect for sewing on paper.  He has lovingly cleaned it up for me, discovered the manual on-line and has explored it history (circa 1880). We are now on the hunt for some needles and then - off I go!

I also found these wonderful old hand-made nails; and these nibs.

But I think my real highlight of the trip was this. I was looking through some paper-ephemera and saying to the man in the shop how I loved the handwriting, He said, oh, if you like handwriting, you'll like this…

And I did.

He brought out a 1792 land transfer document from England.

I fell in love with the word possession and that was it.

The script is so lovely and the two pages of vellum are held together so beautifully I had no hope. Lucky for me it was not really expensive and I am thrilled to now have it at home, where I will at some point, transcribe the document and get a real sense of its purpose, and then see where that leads me.

Of course, there has been a fair bit of follow-up work-work to do; but that seems like a small price to pay for such a rewarding trip away!

Fragile Gains 2/3 complete

I have to send Fragile Gains 1/3 off to the US tomorrow, so I really wanted to finish Fragile Gains 2/3 so that I could make sure it was as close to perfectly the same as 1/3 as possible for the edition.

That might sound a bit weird, but I had never set out to make an edition of this book, and so things evolved as they went along. I documented and recorded some of them, but not all of them. I never thought I'd have to make another one, so it didn't really matter to me that I knew exactly what I had done or how I had done it; I was happy to have made it.

The manner in which my work often evolves as well can be tricky - my notes might say I was going to try this, and I end up doing that and that and that, and then don't write it down.

For example, as as I went to photograph the two books this morning I realised that in 1/3 I had burned the front and back of the header on each page where the names of the book and chapter were; so there is nothing legible at the top of each page.  If I hadn't kept 1/3 to check and compare with as I went along; I may well have forgotten to burnt out those extra letters in 2/3.

But the burning of the page has turned out to be the easiest part. Trying to recall exactly how I managed to do the binding was the hardest part. I spent an hour yesterday stitching then unstitching, then stitching again, and unstitching until I could replicate every step of the way. Etching the two aluminium covers is also a slow and painstaking task - and fraught with worry.  I spent nearly an hour trying to soak and scrub the shells I had used to write the title off the aluminium.

Yet, despite all those concerns, here is an image I never imagined I would see - Fragile Gains x 2!

When open you can see the pages were the same to begin with and have a similar look to each other now they are finished.

 And then I just got a bit carried away loving the transparency of the pages together…

Recognising the small variations that occur in anything hand-made, I am really happy that I have managed to edition this book effectively - one more to go and that will be it…

As a final PS - here is what I mean by etching the covers can be fraught; after preparing them and waiting ages for them to dry I etch them in copper sulphate. They never look pretty as you are doing it and at about this point I nearly panic…

Thursday Thoughts...

“We pass through the present with our eyes blindfolded. We are permitted merely to sense and guess at what we are actually experiencing. Only later when the cloth is untied can we glance at the past and find out what we have experienced and what meaning it has.” 

 Milan Kundera

I sometimes think I should have been born Libran - so often I see one side of something and then see the other side equally well.  Perhaps I'm balanced and open-minded; or perhaps I'm indecisive and a fence-sitter!

This quote certainly brought me along to see both sides; because I think in my life I have experienced both of them.

I agree completely that often, things do not become clear or well-understood until there is distance between us; until we are far away enough to see clearly and perhaps to look with different eyes.  Meaning can sometimes best be discerned after the passage of time.

At the same time, I think that being present, aware and mindful of the moment can be filled with meaning that makes sense of our life, the world and our place within it. Sometimes this understanding is clear and brilliant and so easily acknowledged at that very moment. Without having paid attention to it we would know less about ourselves and what we are doing and trying to be.

So I definitely recall those moments when I have come to understand things after time and distance; but I've also know moments of complete understanding in the present and the moment.

©2008 Barry Smith

Looking back, trying to understand.

The Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres, Belgium. The poppy marks my great-grandfather's name.

Another book continues...

I mentioned a month or so ago that I was exploring a book based on World War I.

In lots of ways I have continued along my earlier path; in lots of ways I have diverged.

I bought two books of war poetry by women; but on ANZAC Day (a day of wartime remembrance here in Australia on the 25th of April each year) I suddenly realised I wanted to write about the work of nurses in the First World War.  Luckily for me, our fabulous local book shop Rosetta Books was open and they had the book I was after.

So began a story more about the experiences of nurses in WWI than a book of war poetry written by women.

I am still playing with imagery and pages - their sizes and colours and layouts, but the thread of a story is emerging.

Lots of barbed wire cut outs for de-bossing the pages.

Still playing with ideas, paper, pencil, pen and layouts. The notion of the red cross emerges…

Lots of 'notes to self' on the play page.

A stamp made from a rubber/eraser.

Stamped in red.

Playing with stitched words…

Nothing completely definitive yet, but the story is beginning to be told...

Good news for Fragile Gains

I received good news about Fragile Gains, my book about the fragility of gains that women have made over the years, and the need to safeguard and protect them.

It will soon be winging its way across the ocean to be part of an exhibition in Portland, OR.  The juried exhibition is called "Book Power Redux" and explores how books and artists' books can have a political and social message.  Can books change the world they ask?

The show runs from 30 May to 26 July 2014 at 23 Sandy Gallery, then moves to the University of Puget Sound in Washington state from mid-August to mid-October 2014.

 It looks like a remarkable show, and one that you could spend a long time at, poring over the books and investigating both their message and their presentation.

I have had a few queries and enquiries about the book and have decided to make it a small edition.  It is such a time-consuming book; but it is precious and I would be thrilled if a few versions found homes.

So, I have been back in the studio, slowly burning pages…

Don't you love how the light changes from far away to close up!

I really enjoy looking at the pages when they are stacked on top of each other, and all the background bits show though; all the layers…

And the remnants of the candle I use to light and re-light my incense sticks.

The covers still need etching and the pages now need to be prepared for binding; but hopefully I am edging  a bit closer each day.

Thursday Thoughts...

“A work of art is abundant, spills out, gets drunk, sits up with you all night and forgets to close the curtains, dries your tears, is your friend, offers you a disguise, a difference, a pose.” 

 Jeanette Winterson, from the essay collection Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

Oh, such a passionate response to what a piece of art can do.

It can move you to tears; it can take your breath away; it can make you sit humbled in its presence; it can make you exclaim out loud and smile…

I imagine we have had some of these responses, not necessarily all of them. But the way Jeanette Winterson describes the abundance of how a work of art can make you feel; the scale and magnitude of the wonder, joy and exuberance of it all, is just fabulous. I love the notion of it sitting up with you all night like a really good friend, drying your tears...

I would love to feel that way about a work of art!

It feels as if it would be completely overwhelming and a life-changing experience. That you would wake the day after a different person, changed in some way as a result of experiencing the work. Powerful and passionate.

I can recall tears as I regarded Michelangelo's "Pieta" at the Vatican; of standing in a room with Rosalie Gascoigne's works and feeling humbled, honoured and without words.  My face has lit up and I have danced around works that made me smile gleefully. And surely, the emotional connection to art is what makes it all worthwhile.

The ability of a piece to shake you, move you, snap you out of wherever you were and place you in a new context because it expresses something so brilliantly…is truly wonderful.

Andy Goldsworthy's installation Garden of Stones at the Museum of Jewish History in New York. Once again, in this city of millions, we were alone. Just the two of us with this work. We sat in silence, quiet and reflective. And the work stayed with us for much of the day as we talked and reflected and considered what it meant, what it represented and how it made us feel. Good art can do that.