The Shape of Things - Exchange no. 4

 One of the benefits of being in Scotland is that it allows Annwyn and I to post and exchange our books for less! Exchanging the books here also provides slightly less angst - the Royal Mail remains very reliable, whereas international postage still seems a tad unsettled.

And so during the week our books were popped into the post and we have each since received them. I don't bring my own version of my book with me so I can't show them alongside each other, but I can show you Annwyn's beautiful book and the two I made, one of which I posted. Annwyn has blogged about the books here.

Annwyn's book is called The Shape of Two Sides. It is a beautiful dos-a-dos type book, but with elegant stepped pages within, which flutter when you play with the book. Some of my papers adorn the covers.

Viewed from above, you get a hint of the stepped pages.

And when it stands to open, the sweep of the pages becomes apparent.

One side of the book open,

Followed by the other...

Detail of an opening. It's really hard to show how lovely and tactile the silver ink is on the prints, but it is delicious.

And in return, My Shape of Things IV. They come presented in a black paper pouch with red hand stitched sides.

The covers are Perspex, with some of Annwyn's lightweight prints pasted inside.

Inside, the books tell a story of Spring...

But the details of mine will wait for another day when I will go through the different stages and the final outcomes.

Suffice to say it is a true delight to receive Annwyn's books and it always feels extra special when we are here.

Thursday Thoughts...

"A victory doesn’t mean that everything is now going to be nice forever and we can therefore all go lounge around until the end of time." 

Rebecca Solnit

Oh my goodness, when I first read this phrase I had a large internal chortle! I love the idea that we could all just go lounge around until the end of time! 

But in all seriousness, I think Ms Solnit is being so practical and realistic. We so often hope that if this one thing happens - the problems we face will be resolved. If a certain person loses an election, the country will be saved. Kind of sort of, but not really. Problems and issues remain and we just have to keep right on fighting for justice, taking smalls steps towards peace, increasing our dose of kindness and care for others.

The multiplicity of things that surround us all need our ongoing care and attention, despite the lovely and desirable option of just lounging around until the end of time!

A little bit of this

 I am slowly overcoming jet lag and a fierce head cold - the combination of which was a tad unsettling for a while. As we are in Scotland this time around mainly for Barry's exhibition, we have spent a fair bit of time doing things like re-measuring walls and tables, finding timbers to cut, rocks to use as props and so on. We have had some lovely adventures as we head off trying to find things.

We also managed to fit in a session of Biblio! Not the same as when we are in Maleny and we go and have a leisurely breakfast and coffee; instead today we had morning tea and a piece of slice and it seemed to work pretty well. Fingers crossed we can maintain the habit!

This afternoon/evening we were lucky enough to do something different - and attended a wonderful two hour workshop with the folk from Gongcrafts, who live in a village nearby. It was all about naturally dying wool and we had a fabulous fun time.

Dying with reeds. Stunning results and oh so happy!! 

What fun it was to play and learn, discover and investigate, and take some beautiful yarn home. Thank you.

Flowers as we arrive...

 My last blog post before we left was about flowers as we go, so I am book-ending that for the moment with flowers as we arrive...

A balmy evening walk in Pitlochry and my favourite new thistle - with honey bee.

Delicate flowers growing in rocks by Loch Loyal.

This plant is everywhere along the roadsides at the moment - I delight in its vibrancy!

On arrival, the hebe still had a few flowers.

There were some sweet peas for gathering and bringing inside - the scent!

Heather is still in bloom, tho fading a bit.

A morning posie of some weeds and others...

Thistles against a remnant stone cottage at Sleiteil

Sea Pinks at Portskerra Harbour

Montbrecias and the last of the lupin seeds at the cottage - a bold and stunning arrangement.

So many flowers to offer joy. 

Thursday Thoughts...

Spend enough time in a state of frenetic shallowness and you permanently reduce your capacity to perform deep work. 

Cal Newport

Now this I can relate to!  At times when one is busy, finding only fragments of time to make, it seems as if there isn't time to sit, to dwell upon, to ponder, to really consider the fullness of what you are trying to do.

I can find myself taking easy options and making the simple choice. Not pushing it further, not turning it around to look in a different way, not asking the questions of it, not taking the time to enable something to be the actual best it can be.

I find that a bit with reading news or long form journalism. I am more likely than not to scan and to skim rather than sit for an extended period of time reading lengthy articles that explain in a fuller way - I sometimes grab the headlines and go.

This is a really good reminder that if you spend all your time skimming over things, never dipping deeply into them, you can lose that skill of working slowly and deeply. 

Go deep, Canada 2005.

Flowers as we go...

 There has been huge amount on in the past week, and as result,not much art! 

I have however had odd moments where I could practise playing with a setting on my iPhone and I have really enjoyed the drama I could create with this spotlight/stagelight effect.

We wandered through Dad's orchid house on Sunday and I managed to get these lovelies...

It certainly helps that there are so many beautiful orchids out at the moment; but I think this effect really showcases them too.

Peace weathergrams 2023

We are well ahead of ourselves here, with International Day of Peace still a month and more away, but we have deadlines to meet and other places to be.

We have packed away some peace flags and doves to take with us to Scotland, but until then we have hung this year's on our magnolia tree to fly and dance in the breezes.

Looking lovely in the late afternoon sun before hanging.

With this shot (altho a bit fuzzy), I like that there is a weatherlgram, and a dove, and in the background you can see a metal nest, a timber birdhouse, some rusty birds on sticks and on a dead tree, and a wee green metal bird!

Hanging side by side.

And looking glorious in the sunshine

Stretching to reach the high spots.

We do small things to build peace by piece, by piece...

Thursday Thoughts...

 "From listening to the stories of others, we learn to tell our own."

Margaret Atwood

I think there are a couple of things at play here and it seems to me that in part, Ms Atwood is saying that by listening to how people tell stories - the things they emphasise, the gaps they leave for imagination, the way they build anticipation, the comical anecdotes they include, the surprises they spring - we develop a sense of how to tell our own stories in ways that entertain or educate or engage.

But for me it has a deeper level as well - that as we learn of other people's stories, we can build and bring together things we may not have understood from our own lives, and make sense of our experiences or feelings. Sometimes we might learn it is OK to speak of things previously unspoken. We may learn that we are not alone and can therefore share.

For me, these words also bring together the notion of listening before telling.  So often we feel we need to tell other people things, and we commonly do so without first listening. Ms Atwood suggests first listen, then learn.

Finding my way home... 2010

Flax and stitching slowly

 I began basting this lovely fabric way back here.  I had in mind some work to trial and play with seeing if it was possible to do pebble -like things with it.

It took about a month for it to get done and in between times, lots of other ideas for it have floated in and I am now considering taking the scissors to some of it! Stay tuned.

Front.

And back. Love how wild the stitching gets in places.

Holding and thinking about the fabric made me to pick up some other threads. I had done the basting using a single strand DMC embroidery thread, but began to wonder about the actual stitching into and onto the fabric with this flax.

I had been gifted two skeins of flax on our last visit to Scotland and had wondered what I could do with it. I had grand plans for making a lovely cord like I made here, but may I say the flax had very different ideas!

Barry helped me to undo one skein and to try and pull a single thread out so that I could create some cord. That took quite a while and I realised that I was never going to be able to make cord.

This is the skein unravelled, but the next step of trying to extricate a single thread is so time consuming it is very hard to contemplate.

These next shots show what the flax does. It attaches itself to itself. It is sticky. It is knotty. It has absolutely no interest in separating itself from the skein. There must be a technical term to describe this tenacious characteristic.

As they say, nevertheless I persisted and over several days and nights sitting in front of the tv I managed to release a few metres of flax thread. You can still see how even wound onto the card it is still fluffy.

I hope it will be worth it as the thread looks like it will be the perfect shade for stitching onto the fabric I have prepared.

We shall see!