Pottering along...

I don't have much to share or show at the moment - too many things on the go, going in different directions and few if any resolved or completed!

So here is more of the doodling and pottering that happens along the way to something...

Several years ago I took photographs of the walls of the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.  I loved the incised outlines of city scapes and the skyline and how they had been incorporated into the architecture of the new building.  Not everybody does...

I made some embossing plates from some of the images (years and years ago) and made a book "Echoes of Edinburgh" - which has been and probably always will be the head photo on my blog. This piece sold years ago and I was quite fond of it.

I found the plates again the other day and did some heavy duty embossing with them just to see what they looked like altogether on a single page. Interesting, but a bit weird.

And then I started writing words into them, which I quite enjoyed, but don't think will be going anywhere special too soon. Although they do remind me of mazes, and maps and journeys and travel routes and dead-ends and...

Still its always good to have done something, who knows when it might be just the right thing for some other time?

And always good to go back to something and find another way of working with it!

Feeling grateful with the grid

I realise how fortunate I am to have a studio space where I can leave pieces-in-the-making around, and even more fortunate to have a husband who is also an artist.

I began preparing these grid pieces a while ago and really enjoyed them to begin with; and then lost my mojo. I couldn't see that they made any sense except as something nice to look at. So they sat and they sat and they sat. I kept walking by them, looking at them, wondering about them.

And then I started walking by them without looking at them. Not good.

They were very nearly scooped up and thrown into a drawer for another time, when Barry and I sat down to a cuppa together and he asked how they were going. I explained that I was almost ready to give up! He went on to rhapsodise about them and the story he felt they told, and how things really did come together.

I can't explain it all just yet, but he was right.

I felt so re-energised by that chat, that I dived in and moved things around, I worked out how I could tell the story I now wanted to tell, I burnt more squares, changed the paper, changed the layout, got the sewing machine out and told a story.

What a relief.

So here is how they look now.  Still not finished, still with more layers of story to be told, but they have morphed again into a new and different piece. Stronger and better. And the story is there, just not fully revealed yet.

For all of which, I am grateful.

Thursday Thoughts...

“The end of art is peace.” 

Seamus Heaney

Towards the end of a difficult week in world matters and in some folks' lives, it was hard to choose a quote about art, but this one is salve for my soul...

I know that not all art produces peace as sometimes its goal is to disrupt, to stir, to agitate, to say out loud awful truths that cannot otherwise be spoken, to shame and to shock us into action.

But a lot of the art that attracts me, that I enjoy, and that I seek out is peaceful. Is quiet. Stirs something within me. Settles me. Allows me to believe in beauty and wonder and hope for the future.

And perhaps even at the end of that disruptive art and challenging art lies peace. If as a result of its message, action is taken to redress social wrongs, then perhaps it too can lead to peace over time.

I would love to think that art is a way toward peace. That at the end of art lies peace.

As I think about my own work; much of it seeks to remind of us quiet and solitude and peace; and yet some also wants to draw attention to social issues. My hope for that work is that we can resolve those issues and create a better world.

I doubt world peace will appear out of  a single artists' book I make, but it helps to think that collectively we are making art that carries peace and hope within it.

Type Type Type

In between all the other bits and pieces that keep you busy with your life, I have been exploring my connection to type and letterpress.

Towards the end of last year I became the very excited owner of an 1890 Lightning Jobber press.  What a great beginning that was, and I was able to play with the ad-hoc wood type I had collected and some small pieces of lead type I had gathered.

I promised myself to try and build up my world of type and after visiting Caren (Ampersand Duck) in Canberra  I knew I had to purchase some type.  I have spent the past few months investigating where and how to buy type and am now in the midst of orders - waiting for some type to be cast and sent to me. More excitement!

In the interim, I found a few bits and pieces on the internet - very tiny 10pt Gill and a larger 36 pt Gill  Italic Caps. And so it begins.

Working in Melbourne a month or so ago, we had an afternoon off and went for a wander in Fitzroy and came across Used Pty Ltd and what was in the window, but this 1890s type case drawer. It made the perfect birthday gift, and last week was delivered to the studio here on the mountain. I love how it matches the era of the Press - altho the Press was made in New York and the Drawers in Bombay, India.

So clearly, now the only option is to fill those type cases!

I love the two display cases on top as well - a bit like lower case and upper case.

Slowly, gradually I am building up  my knowledge and understanding, and my equipment.

I also recently took receipt of two great Typeface compendiums which will let me flick through and compare different typefaces and their sizes and help me when I next need to order some.

Its a wonderful beginning and I just need some type and some time to focus and see what I can produce.

ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC Day - a day when we stop and remember all those  who have fought and died in wars.  It is a sad and sombre day for most of us.  It is a quiet day for us, full of reflection and introspection.

Barry and Susan and Helen and I all have artists' books based on World War I in exhibitions at both the Caloundra Regional Gallery and Redland Art Gallery, Cleveland at the moment.

Through the week, we were sent a short video that was made from a series of vox-pop interviews at the opening of the Caloundra Exhibition. It appears on ABC Open, and captures us talking about the thoughts behind our books...

If you've ever wondered what we sound like when we talk, and not just when we write - this is how it goes...

You can find the video here

Here are some images from my books at the Redland Art Gallery in Cleveland as well. We attended an Artists' talk yesterday that Helen Malone gave on the books in the Personal Histories exhibition that were focused on World War 1. It was a beautiful session with Helen giving thoughtful insights into her reading of our our books, and showing us all things we didn't know were there...very special.

No Return...

The Nurses...

Absences...

And here are my wee books in the main exhibition - A Life of Words...

Thursday Thoughts...

“…she made her home in between the pages of books.” 

 Maggie Stiefvater

The word home is such an important and evocative one.  It asks us all sorts of questions, to which the answers no doubt change over the course of our life.  Where is home? Where do you call home? Where do you feel most at home? What makes a place home?  So many ways of pondering and thinking about the notion of home.

When I think about where I feel most at home or what suggests the sense of home to me, there are a few answers; but one of them is most definitely books.  With me, beside me, in my hand and reading them.

Books offer a real sense of security and contentment, they are fulfilling and friendly and allow me to be myself. All good aspects of home.

Today is UNESCO World Book Day so it's great that Thursday Thoughts turned to books this week! It is three years today since Susan and I began our collaborative books, and we met again today to talk books, prepare for our exhibition and reflect on the magic that the project has been.

We will be exhibiting our collaborative books and other individual works at Noosa Regional Gallery in October - November this year. More details will be available soon!

The pages within my collaborative book in this pair, always feel like home - it talks about conversations I have with people I love and care about.

Playing around

This is one of those posts where you realise how besotted I can become with some pieces and imagery of them.  Often they aren't great masterpiece-type pieces; and that is definitley the case with this one.

I had a strip of paper left over from something else.

I thought I'd like to use Barry's metal letter stamps to stamp into it, over and over and over again, repeating the phrase in my head - too many poppies too many deaths.

And once again paint my poppies on the other side, with a view to displaying it somehow.

I ended up coiling it, tying it with string and then pulling up a couple of the inner coils...

And I liked it from this angle, and from that!

Looking inside...

Looking elegant and all white.

Lying down

And from the side...

Besotted I was, with a little bit of whimsy...

I only had the iPhone with me in the studio so am probably not doing the poor thing justice; but it is a delightful piece in its own wee way.

Under Construction

In more ways than one.

I have been pondering some artworks around nests again; thinking about the fragments which birds collect and gather and then use to weave their beautiful homes.  How to represent that and how to keep it all together.

So these thoughts are very much 'under construction' which is also the working title I have given the works in my head.

I hope agains hope that I can somehow pull it together into a coherent story; but for now I am just moving things around on the tables, making this go with that and seeing if something jumps out at me.

I have lots of thoughts, lots of prints and somehow need to make it all coalesce into something lovely.

Looking at different colour schemes, different materials and textures. Thinking about wall works and book works.

Inadvertent images from printing torn tissue paper - the gaps where the words bled through and the scratchy marks. I like them, but can I use them? And even the scrap brown paper I was using to protect the press suddenly looks beautiful and interesting as well!

Do things look better upside down?

Some very soft backgrounds instead.

All possibilities and all wonderful fun, but it's down to the serious business of making it work now!

Thursday Thoughts...

"Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.” 

Osho

The thought that there is some sort of balance within life is always a comforting thought for me.  This idea can be represented in so many different ways - the turning of the seasons; the fact that night will follow day; and I am sure there are oh so many more.

But I like this one about trees too. Partly because I am always in awe of the root system a tree has; and I love the proportions of it all, how what we see above the surface is so perfectly balanced and counterweighted by what lies below. It's just the loveliest notion.  And when I think to apply it to life, it helps. It helps to be reminded that for the tough times, there may be equally good times; and that for the joy, that there will be some sadness.

I like my life when things are in balance. When life feels a like a strongly rooted tree, reaching into the shiny sky and welcoming the day.

It's that time again when Jennifer and Julie are searching for the rainbow, and this month we're up to green. Pop on over to see what other greens folk have discovered and join in the fun.