A week...

Last week was a good week of playing and sorting and prepping. Preparing for workshops always makes me dig deep again, practise, test and trial things to make sure I know what I am doing.  I know I do, but I do love to double-check!

And so in prepping for a letter and word cutting workshop I got to play with some different pieces of paper; a few different techniques; and generally just got lost in the play and fun which was great!

Here I was testing the BFK Rives grey paper - it is a warm, khaki-like grey.  BFK Rives is such a reliable paper for cutting; yet I had never cut the grey which is a bit heavier than the white/cream.  It worked well and gave some great contrasts, so yes, we will play with it in the workshop.

I looks so different when on the grey concrete.

Another technique I was trying was this random crazy wandering lettering all joined up. Clearly I am very rusty with this; but I think once cut it will look a whole lot better!

This is a good demonstration of the back and what really happens when I cut. I am being so careful that that I don't cut through an end point, I nearly always finish short. But that is a whole lot better than ruining your work.

This piece will become a template that I trace around and then cut from behind - always soooo much better.

And Nature was wonderful too.

Monday dawn - a wee sliver of a moon...

Friday sunset - a wee sliver of a moon...

I love how something (us or the moon) had rotated slightly by the end of the week!

And these small flowers always, always delight me.

And then I laughed. We had a cracker of a storm and some fierce rain this week. I smiled to myself that our new car has a sunroof - laugh! 

More protest posters

 We are headed off to Melbourne to attend a fabulous conference - Communities in Control. Run by an organisation (OurCommunity) we are proud to work  with, and for, at times, we love their passion for social justice and the way they enthuse the community and not for profit sector to keep going and keep making a difference in so many people's lives.

We are having a pop up shop of sorts and are taking down a HEAP of posters which we hope may find homes.

Through the week I finished off these two...

We (society) seem to have a default button where we assume men are telling the truth and women are lying when it comes to sexual assault, rape and domestic abuse.  I guess it's due to conditioning and weird internalisations of power and authority roles, yet in less than 5% of cases are women found to have made the claims of assault up. Hence my advice (in bright and healing orange) to simply believe her. 

If she has been brave enough to talk about it; you can safely assume in 95% of cases - it happened. Pretty good odds.

Late last year I watched with awe and wonder as Kamala Harris trod that tightrope of being a black woman in a position of authority, debating with a senior white male, and being assertive. What a tricky thing that debate was and I admire her so much for how she managed to smile enough, be polite enough, stand up for herself enough but not be aggressive.  All of that balancing act, that she must have been processing at lightning speed under lights. Very calmly saying "Mr Vice President, I'm speaking" was a great way to be heard - both to stop the flow from the other side; but also it allowed her to be heard because folk weren't distracted and calling her a rude or aggressive or angry woman. What a woman.

Anyhow here is my poster about that.

And here is the bright and vibrant inking time.

 After having played awhile with just which P was the right P?

I liked the contrast with the serifs in the final.

Thursday Thoughts...

“The most demanding part of living a lifetime as an artist is the strict discipline of forcing oneself to work steadfastly along the nerve of one’s own most intimate sensitivity”. 

Anne Truitt

The art life does oftentimes draw you into places which are tricky and hard; yet for whatever reason you simply need to explore.  Sometimes for me the making of art simply comes from the need to respond in some way to some sadness, or some awful situation.

When I ask myself in response to some difficult issues - what can I do? One answer is make art.

Unlike Ms Truitt I am not consistently or constantly working along the seam of my inner sensitivity in an ongoing unrelenting way.  I dip in and out of difficulty; and relieve myself with lightness every now and again.

For some artists I imagine it is true that they are constantly seeking to investigate and understand something for or about themselves, and their artistic expression is their work.

When I flipped this notion and thought what is your artistic life was about working steadfastly along the nerve of one's own most intimate happiness and joy how good would that be???

For me, women's work is never done...this bag was spotted at the march4justice in Brisbane. A quote from Margaret Whitlam, the wife of a former Prime Minister. Love it1

Prep, prep and more prep

 I have a few teaching engagements lined up in the next wee while; and as ever, the preparation take time.

I so often think making an art life is never just about the art - in fact so much time is taken up cataloguing, tracking down supplies, and in this case preparing heaps of pages!

This is a day long workshop making heaps of books, and because the group are enthusiastic newcomers, rather than do a difficult stitching or binding we have opted for a bunch of small books that they could safely venture into and make for themselves afterwards.

I like folk to get as much out of a workshop as they can and to this end, rather than spend a long time cutting pages and covers from large sheets of paper on the day; I have done all the cutting for them. Cutting takes time!

Here I have set out 20 paper bags and placed 5 covers on each bags (100 covers).

Each bag will have a few different colours.

A sample bag of sorts.

And then I added in the 20 pages each (20 x 20 = 400)

And because I do love a stack of edges...

And in this case a stack of openings too!

For another set of books I have cut Bristol Board. Each person needs 24 pages; so 20 x 24 = 480 pages.

Some better cut than others...but these are sample books for them to keep and refer to so I hope they can cope!

I have a couple of other book page preparations to go, along with instructions and handouts, but we are on track!

And yesterday morning early, there was this tiny morning moon...

A quarter of the year...

 As you know I decided back in January to try and do a project through the course of this year, that would somehow help me mark the time of Covid.  I had realised that I was in no way prepared for recording last year; but felt that perhaps I could do something to record this year.

My hankie project was begun and I am regularly astonished that quite so many events are noteworthy! I really thought things would quieten down and I would make the occasional foray into the fabric with needle and thread and have some nice highlights or headlines as memories.

Instead, I can barely keep up. So many of the markers are small, yet impactful. The speed with which things can still change - things turn on a dime as they same - means that plans are on, off, stopped, started and each time these things have an impact. Very interesting and surprisingly it keeps you on the edge of your seat just a wee bit.

I am thrilled to say I have finished March!  I have transferred April onto a rather large handkerchief as it seemed so much happened, and have begun to stitch it. I have also begun the recording of May.

A selection of the sorts of things I am recording:

March

8 Bigger weddings and funerals in Queensland

9 Traces in Adelaide waste water from festivals

12 Brisbane Dr tests positive

13 Hospitals and Aged Care in Brisbane locked down

17 Our first flights - entry declarations and masks

23 No access to vaccine appointments

29 Greater Brisbane 3 day lockdown. Masks mandatory in QLD

April began with the Brisbane lockdown ending and finished with the terrible terrible news from India - 100 deaths/hour. In between times we have the absolute hopeless nature of our vaccine rollout "a dog's breakfast", Scotland beginning to ease lockdown, and Perth entering a 3 day lockdown.  One could say never a dull moment.

The three months so far are all different styles and different sizes. 

I learnt a lot from January's very pale stitching! I now have a suite of greys that are slightly darker than the original.

I am pleased I began this as so much happens that I actually forget all the little moments of worry. As I type this, Sydney has re-entered restrictions and folk from their hotspots now have to quarantine in Brisbane on return. 

Things may be improving in some places, but it  seems the globe has a long long way to go before things are settled. 

Thursday Thoughts...

 " Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who you are is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you re-read".

Francois Mauriac

An interesting take on the old adage.  Barry and I regularly cull our book case.  We have whittled them down to the singular, and work hard to keep good books moving around, sharing with others and keeping them circulating.  We do however hang onto the special ones.

As part of our recent move it was interesting to see which ones came with us.  We really were quite ruthless this time, hence the single bookcase. Amongst them are many that we probably plan to dip into and re-read; others that have been read and re-read.

Re-reading can be a bit of a mixed bag though. Sometimes the book offers more; delights you as if for the first time or provides the comfort or solace that you seek.  At other times the re-reading results in nothing more than disappointment. I have been left wondering what on earth I thought I saw in it; why did I think it so wonderful or worthy? How did I deceive myself so comprehensively?

Another adage of course is that books don't change, we do.

Happy to say I have not read, let alone re-read most of the books in the rainbow stack! I often glance at the titles and think, if I am ever really really desperate I might open a couple; but given they were gathered only for their colour that's not so bad.

Urban Grit

When  we moved from our beautiful bush block with gardens and views that went forever, we were fortunate to land with another view; lots of green with gorgeous silhouettes.  

From our front door however,  if we look up and across the way, we see a water tower.  It is brutal in its mere existence.  It towers, literally, and is quite imposing.  Most certainly not like our back view; nor the view from 601. As we walk into town from our new place, we walk past it and its gritty asphalt forecourt and storage areas. 

I am intrigued by how much I enjoy this functional juggernaut that imposes itself upon a rather composed and sedate neighbourhood.  At first I thought I would find it horrid; but I am kind of in awe of its sombre, stoic majesty and enjoy watching it tell its own stories.

Here it is in some of its many moods...

Walking by, through the barbed wire fence, against a thrumming sky, October 2020.

An impending threat of a sky, November 2020.

A cloudy moon night, December 2020.

Bouncy clouds against the blue blue sky, January 2020.

Glowing at night, January 2020.

Eerie storm light, March 2021.

Patchwork cloud fragments, April 2021.

It feels a bit like a sentinel, standing and guarding; watching over.  I feel quite friendly towards it now and often look to see what is saying agains the sky. The sky changes its language.

Nevertheless...

There is plenty going on - still a bit all over the shop, but nevertheless here we go...

For the time being, I think I have finished with my feminist posters. We shall see!

I completed the final fourth one - a revision of nevertheless, she persisted and am happy with the series.

I have been stitching - March is almost done... 

The full moon was behind cloud for much of the night but dazzled nonetheless.

And then I started to follow a what if...

I went to get some PVA glue to seal a collagraph plate.

It had clearly been a while...

Nevertheless I persisted, and went with another idea; how about if the thick sticky glue could create the texture on a collagraph plate instead?

So I pushed it and pulled it and moved it around, and left it to dry.

And the next day it had dried and seemed to have some texture.  I ran out of time to play with it but that's another what if...?