Filling envelopes

Susan and I have both had fairly hectic finishes to the year and have been struggling to get to the finish line  with our third collaborative book.  You may recall way back when, we began the books by selecting a shared array of papers and making thirteen envelopes each - using the same papers and the same sizes. So we had a set of matching envelopes each and our task was to create the work within them in our own ways.

This has been another approach in our collaborative efforts so far - each time we set slightly different rules, and collaborate in slightly different ways.  For whatever reason, this time around I was fairly devoid of thoughts about what to do next, and literally left the envelopes in their package for a couple of months.

Together we determined that we should have them finished by mid-December, and as you all know, its gets crazy and random this time of year, so we figured we really had to focus soon!

Our trip to NZ gave me an opportunity to ponder a story that might help hold the disparate envelopes together in some way.

Susan and I had planned a trip to Brisbane on Friday so we could look at beautiful bookworks, then decided NO, we have to DO something not just look at others' works. We thought we would work together in one of our studios for the day, but then decided that neither of us was sure enough of what we might need to take to the others' place to work with that instead, we would work separately on Friday and get together late in the afternoon to compare progress. And we did.

This flexibility is one of the things I love most about our collaboration - we aren't thrashing ourselves to stick to timelines and guidelines; we understand that each other might need some time to work things thru; but we are both committed to producing the work for ourselves and the other person, and we love to get together and share.

As ever, we were approaching things similarly but differently and the two 'books' will look and feel quite different, yet each will feel like us I think, and will share the common foundation of the envelopes.

Here's a few glimpses of where I got to by Saturday.

I think we are both finished now and will do our usual 'get the books together' thing sometime during the week I hope, and shall then be able to reveal the fuller story...

Thursday Thoughts...

“We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing - an actor, a writer - I am a person who does things - I write, I act - and I never know what I’m going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.” 

Stephen Fry

I love the idea that I am a person who does things, not a person who is a thing. So often those early conversations begin with "and what do you do?" which is I suppose trying to get a sense of how you spend your time (or earn your money usually).  And often times we respond with I am a....fill in the blank.

In our early days here, both Barry and I struggled with how to answer this question and describe what we do. We were so used to saying what we were - and in Canberra there was a code that was very well understood and a hierarchy that went with it so that everybody could slot you in once you had answered their question.

I often think it is easier to say I am, rather than I do, because you then begin to list all the different sorts of things you do and its hard (for me at least) to make it a coherent story. And sometimes the variety does people's heads in and they just want it summarised into something they can understand - like a noun.

Nevertheless, I think I shall take up Stephen Fry's challenge and try to think about myself more as a verb than a noun, and try not to get stuck in somebody else's pigeonhole.

Then again, not all pigeonholes are bad...

I fell in love with all this lovely pigeon-holey storage at the Centre for Book Arts in New York. Sigh.

Coast to coast...

We are making our way home now – leaving NZ behind to get into the hurly burly of Christmas preparations and celebrations at home. Yesterday we made our way from the west coast across the massive mountain ranges in between to the east coast. Even tho it is officially summer here now, we left a misty, foggy, grey Hokitika – grey to match the rocks, stones and pebbles that we collected each time we walked the rivers and the beaches.

 As we passed through the mountains, the sky lightened and the sun shone and we stopped at Springfield to check out the best Big thing I’d ever seen – the Big Donut!

Over on the east coast we headed to a beach at Woodend to see the sea again. We found a brilliant blue sea and sky, sand not rocks, but just as much wind. This fabulous temporary sculpture or installation was just waiting for us…

And we spent today in Christchurch, observing the damage and the recovery. A beautiful and vibrant city.

NZ wanderings continue...

We are currently on the wild west coast of NZ - lots of wilderness and no mobile signals or wifi in many places. Laugh - funny how we come to expect the internet wherever we go!  Hence the only occasional reply to comments and the only very occasional comment on others' posts. I promise on return I'll do a fine catch up!

We left Te Anau, and headed for Milford Sound which was lovely, then had a couple of days r&r in Queenstown which is the adventure capital of the world. Barry and Fiona failed to engage in any adventure activities and in fact I ended up getting a haircut!

We stopped by Wanaka on the way out, and I fell in love with the area...

And here is a photo of my favourite man in Wanaka...

We moved onto Haast another wild and empty place and went for plenty of bush and beach walks - we are sleeping well at night.  I have fallen in love even more with the rocks and the stones.  They are ancient and they are wonderful, and they are everywhere...

We stopped off at Jackson's Bay - way beyond Haast and the harbour is framed by the mountains.

Of course, we find the most interesting marks on the boardwalks where we walk...

Then it was up to the two glaciers - Fox and Franz-Joseph.  A few more lengthy walks and again an early night.

And just in case you want to know a funny fact about Fiona - I really don't do bridges. I am not at all fond of walking across them, I get the weirdest sensations and impulses, and I managed to do TWO suspension bridges in a day - quite the feat!

The countryside is magnificent. I am particularly fond of the lakes (or sea) with snow-capped mountains. For an Australian, the idea of the sea, a coastal rainforest and the snow all begin so close together really does my head in! Our rain forests are tropical and in the far north and our snow is well inland and very south.

We head a wee bit further north now, then cut across again to the east coast, ready to make our way home. I promise more art on return!

Thursday Thoughts...

“The object is not to make art but to be in the wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” 

 Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Ahhh...that state where the making of art is inevitable.  It's a magic place to be.

I imagine quite a few people have worked this out - that it isn't actually always just about showing up doing something, anything, to get artwork happening.  I know a lot of folk who spend time trying to create the space for art appear - to do the quiet meditation that will settle their minds and their thoughts; to play music that will encourage freedom and expression.

I don't often actively do anything - but I guess I have a few habits. I find that if I actually GO to the studio there is far more chance of me being creative artistically than if I don't.  I also turn the radio on and listen to the ABC just to have a quiet conversation in the background.  Sometimes I will flick thru books and see if I respond to anything; sometimes I will just tidy up and find things I had forgotten about as I am putting other things away, and a new path emerges.

It takes all sorts of things to create that space or state I think. Sometimes, and I don't know how, (but if I did I'd bottle it) you just show up and the creative art making is just spilling out of you, you are almost falling over yourself as you get this together and make that happen and follow that path...that wonderful wonderful state of artistic creativity is just powering along. You know, when you are in the zone?

One of the things that can sometimes help me along is to go for a walk, with a camera and see what I see and what happens next.  The other morning as part of our daily walk I started out looking for violet and ended up getting almost the entire rainbow, there was so much colour... and then my mind turned to something about rainbow flowers and I wondered if a book might happen and then it just all went for a lovely meander into the state where anything is possible.

And then I woke up. (not really!)

Another NZ postcard...

Barry and I are continuing to have a ball as we drive around the South Island of NZ, so here is another postcard. On the advice of a friend, whilst we were in Dunedin we went to visit Tunnel Beach. For some reason we thought it was kind of like drive up to the beach walk a hundred metres, walk through this tunnel some bloke dug through the rock to get to the beach. Laugh. It was an hour down and back, down some of the steepest slippery slopes I’ve ever met but boy was it worth it. We finally made it down and saw how the man had cut a tunnel through the cliff so he could access the beach. Amazing. 

And then we accidentally came across this guy – a young male New Zealand Sea Lion having a nap. Glad we didn’t wake him!

 We headed west from Dunedin via the Catlins – wild and rugged country right at the bottom of the island, with not many people or places in it. We hit the jackpot when we arrived in Papatowai and discovered the Lost Gypsy Gallery – a kind of gallery/bus/theatre made of found objects and filled with self-winding automata by Blair Somerville. I’ll let you look it up to see how amazing it really is; but here are some images of our brief visit there. They also made awesome coffee in the coffee caravan next door.

Then we headed along to Te Anau, and stopped by the Lake. The sun is high in the sky until late evening, so with fish and chips besides us and a glass of cold NZ sauvignon blanc, all was well with the world.

Of rust and rocks

Barry and I have headed off for a few weeks to New Zealand.  We spent some lovely days in Auckland and then hopped down to the South Island where we are pottering around and generally having a great time.

Our first real stop was Oamaru - a beautiful town that in amongst its various claims to fame, also calls itself the Steampunk Capital of NZ. We had the best fun touring Steampunk HQ - mostly because we wandered out in to their back yard where they had loads of junk and pieces in different stages of progress.  Barry has posted on many of the wonders as well - it was a rust-lovers heaven...

We drove further south to the Moeraki Boulders. Susan had introduced me to them and recently made a book inspired by them, and I was keen to see them for myself.

Again they were wonderful. I spent the whole time thinking about worlds, atlases, maps, exploding worlds...they were incredibly powerful in their own way. We had lunch overlooking the ocean and have now headed down Dunedin way...

Wi-fi internet is fickle in places, so most of my travel posts will be like postcards I think!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Printer’s ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries.”

Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop

"... a book can keep exploding for centuries". What a great line.  It makes me think about how words written down centuries ago still remain true or act as a warning or as a guide for us so many years later. That the power of words and books to change the course of history remains, even long after they are written.

In some ways it is an alternative take on 'the pen is mightier than the sword' I suppose - but the links to books, burning and gunpowder are great. Somehow the inclusion of a timeframe in these words adds something for me as well - that sense the words and books remain and can continue to impact many years on; even tho gunpowder can destroy so swiftly.

As often happens when I ponder art and books I am touched by how similar the two worlds are - for writers and artists; for books and artworks.  I think fabulous art can echo down the ages as well and remain a powerful protest or celebration, long after whatever war was on has finished.

A bit like this page below - after the words were printed, then destroyed by burning, beauty remains...

©2012 Fiona Dempster - burnt page, beauty remains...

Play time in the studio

Muna left on Sunday and we spent a busy time on Saturday trying to fill every spare minute. We had a couple of half hour gaps in the schedule and so we headed to the studio to see if we could make another book.

In stages we came up with this book, and its cover, given what we could find quickly.

Muna stitched a protective cover from tracing paper - it is never easy to handle the tracing paper in a sewing machine, but it all worked well.

We had bought the cover paper together last weekend at the Markets here in town. It is a nice tangible reminder of her time here and the places we visited.

A hybrid binding one would say... I had several folios of paper punched with holes that I had removed from another journal and we decided to use them as they were cut and ready to go. Then we decided we wanted a hard cover and the hybridness really began as I didn't think we could learn and stitch a coptic binding in half an hour!  So we fiddled and faddled and amended and created an interesting version of a hard cover onto a pamphlet binding.

The final product was beautiful and will definitely be treasured...

Dreamboats for COMA

Once more our intrepid and fearless leader Ken has organised a show for COMA artists - this time at the TreeFrog Gallery. The show runs from 22 November to 03 December.

Our life has been one big rush in the past few weeks and I am only just managing to keep up with my work commitments, my community and volunteering commitments and hosting Muna. I have had not much time to do any new art for the show and I was worried if I rushed something it just wouldn't be good enough.

Ken has kindly allowed us to enter works - old or new - so long as they haven't been shown in a COMA exhibition previously.

I thought this grouping of my Dreamboats looked like a substantial piece, and as the gallery is filled wth timber I hope they will look at home.

Depending on how things go, I might send along a couple of other wall pieces - warm, rusty ones...