Thursday Thoughts...

People might tell you that reading is a way to hide from the world, and sometimes it can be, but in my experience, people who love books are also interested in myriad other things. They love music and movies and travel food and (gasp!) even television. As a friend of mine says, books make you a glutton for life. They show you how much there is to be experienced in the world. So let them do that. Let them make you curious. Let them make you hungry. Let them give you more questions than answers.” 

 Rebecca Schinsky’s 5 Reading Rules for Book Lovers of All Ages

Sometimes reading certain newspapers or watching certain news shows I acknowledge to myself that one of the main reasons I enjoy them is because they are pandering to my biases - political especially.  There is nothing quite like having your views agreed with, celebrated and supported.

And so it is with this quote - it feels so good to be thought of so highly simply because I am person who loves books!

Don't we book lovers and readers just sound like the best, most interesting people in the world?!?!?

I think that for me, books have always been a way of exploring the world beyond my orbit; discovering lives unknown; and understanding multiple possibilities. They can make you curious and hungry for experiences.

Even tho my introvert nature means I need to sit quietly and read books; often preferring that to actually engaging or talking with people; it never feels as if reading is shrinking my world; it always feels as if it is expanding my world and my knowledge and my understanding. Reading has been with me every step of the way - books have shown me so many things, comforted me, explained ethical and social dilemmas to me; helped me understand different relationships and choices.

Reading often sparks off an interest in something new or something I never even knew about - music, movies, food, art, gardening...it's all there to kindle a flame in you.

We came across these drawers full of library cards in a university in Prague.  We had to pull them out, and rifle through the cards, wondering what wonderful books they related to, if they still existed or if somebody had borrowed them...

New work appears

I sometimes think artists could sound like new-age hippies with the way we sometimes describe how work happens, appears, emerges and is made.

I know I benefit enormously from doing something like rusting pages, and leaving them out in the studio for me to walk by, sometimes noticing them sometimes not.  When I do notice them they often seem to be suggesting what to do with them now. See - only hippies would hear blank pages talking to them right?

But this is kind of how this work came about - it is a coalescing of many things. Like my burnt squares, grids and watch parts, this work came about after thinking about grids again, hanging banners and floaty things.  Somehow, the pages I had assumed would be come a book have become something that hangs.  It's not finished yet, but what follows are some of the working stages.

The back story is that I mis-read the directions for a workshop with Olive Bull a couple of years ago go and cut up so many more pages of paper than were needed it was ridiculous - in the end I think we needed 15 pages and I had cut up 55. So they sat as blank pages in my paper drawer for a  while.  I was doing a big day of rusting - I had plans! and I did all I wanted to do but there was so much solution left, I really wanted to use it, so I rusted pretty much anything in sight - and I remembered these dark grey pages were lurking, so 24 of them got rusted too!  Then they just hung around for a few months, until the weekend, when it suddenly became clear they would make beautiful hangings of some sort.

These are some of the left over pages that I still haven't rusted - so yes, I did cut way too many!

The weekend was really about grids and hanging as I experimented with how you could attach bits of paper to each other without stitching or tying them...here's a random thing I have left hanging on the wall. The bottom right card was also my first play with some lettering, which led to other things.

But from here, I thought about connecting the rusted pages and hanging them somehow. Barry loaned me a mobile so I could see what things hanging looked like. I don't have any early photos of this, just this one with some words, which kind of mucks up the sequence but I'm sure we'll cope.

Are you still with me on my somewhat random journey?

I realised I needed words and knew that the darker pages needed light - so I wrote some words about peace, with the sense that light can appear from dark  (a bit like Emerging from shadow oh so long ago), and then started to do the pencil layouts.

You can see I drew up the scale of the grey paper and tried a few layouts - for non-calligraphers I figure it's interesting to see some of the background work we do when creating a piece. Above, you can see me playing with how to capture the w and the e and the o and the f to fit the style I was playing with (and even the R); and deciding that I would emphasise the words DREAM, PEACE, US in capitals rather than lower case.

So from imaging a bound book, I have ended up with a series of hanging, connected pages.  I have only written four of them; the words for the other three didn't appear, even tho I sat with them and thought about them a lot. So instead, I let that go and will return when the words appear.

I used a white pencil to write the words and introduced a metallic on occasions for emphasis and highlighting.

And then wondered what they looked like stuck on a wall...

And such is the way work evolves in my brain and in my studio. Nothing linear about it at all, nothing that starts with pre-conceptions, nothing that necessarily makes any sense until it is done. And then it feels right.

I remain in awe of the process and so thoroughly love participating in it and observing it!

The burning book 'Endure'

As Susan has mentioned, these books evolved with loads of angst and a fair bit of confusion.  I had thought about this book as a burning book - in that we would give each other pages and then we would burn the pages we received in whatever way worked best for us.  Susan had thought we would burn the pages beforehand and hand them over! So the handover was pretty funny - she gave me burnt paper; I gave her pristine pages ready for burning!

Still, we wangled our way through.

I worked with the idea of book-burnings and how even tho people have burnt books throughout the ages, you just can't stop the ideas being transmitted and shared.

The quotes I worked with were:

“Books can not be killed by fire. People die, but books never die. No man and no force can abolish memory... In this war, we know, books are weapons. And it is a part of your dedication always to make them weapons for man's freedom.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.” Alfred Whitney Griswold, Essays on Education

"Every burned book enlightens the world."
 Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Burning is no answer."
 Camille Desmoulines
reply to Robespierre, January 7, 1794,
 on burning his newspaper Vieux Cordelier

“The paper burns, but the words fly away.” Akiba ben Joseph

“You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels, and will continue to quicken other minds.” Helen Keller

My pages were large - we had agreed on the size - and I wrote in walnut ink using a syringe. An interesting tool which reduces your control as you form letters. It helped that I wanted the words to be there but somewhat indecipherable, so the tool was a good one to use.

Incorporating Susan's paper was hard, so I stained it with walnut ink and burnt it some more, trying to make the colour tones closer to the pages.

Unsure how to bring the burning into my pages - it could be as minimal as simply using incense sticks to burn in each O - or I could really destroy them - I ended up in the middle, with a gradual decrease in size of the page, burnt edges and with remnants of burning at the base of each page.  I was able to use Susan's paper for this and added some of my own burnt paper.

Detail of the base of a page.

Page 1 before riveting. I used three layers of perplex (as we do for the QLA books) with the inside piece having a cut-out to contain the elements.  We drill holes from a template and then together, Barry and I hand-rivet the perspex together.  This time I chose copper rivets to tone in with the book more. Once the 'sandwich pages' are each done, I then sew the book up.

I stepped the pages down as I moved throughout he book, which meant I had to fill the void above somehow.  I chose the words from one of the quotes "The paper burns, but the words fly away" and wrote them separately, then burnt around their edges and placed them within the perspex., floating, flying away...

The two covers are more solid, with edges burned and the Os on the other side of the pages burnt through and their remnants captured at the bottom.

You can get a sense of the scale of the book from these shots. Firstly laid out ready for stitching.

 Then me stitching, with some of the pages folded up.

And so to photographing the final book - I will get a professional to do this for sure as I really can't do it justice here, with my made up dark sheets over windows and table... but I hope you get a sense of what it might look like.

There are one or two things to fix before the work will be shown publicly, but I know now what I need to do and have the time to do it.  I think the books will be proud centrepieces for our exhibition of Pas de Deux at Noosa Regional Gallery in October-November this year.

Thursday Thoughts...

“There’s always a lot of magic, but our way of seeing is very small and we mostly just call it Nature. Why, we are not at all surprised that we can pick an apple in the autumn that was a pink flower in the spring. That’s natural magic and we don’t really notice it.” 

 The Hounds of the Morrigan, by Pat O’Shea

They often say "the miracle of nature" and I guess it is. This quote so beautifully describes a moment we observe throughout the year, but probably don't stop to appreciate enough.

That whole transition from pink bud to edible fruit is natural magic at its best, and illustrates the point so beautifully. There is also a sense that we are almost sleepwalking our way through sometimes, and forgetting to notice that miracles and magic are there every day.

What I think I like about this quote are the notions underlying it. To me it is a beautiful and simple way to remind me to:

a) be open;
b) take notice;
c) observe with wonder;
d) celebrate magic or miracles; and
e) appreciate the little things.

I know my life is better when I do stop each day to notice, to reflect, and to appreciate.  When I am just busy or rushing, I lose that silken thread connection to the natural world which offers us so much beauty and wonder. Taking a fragment of time to be aware, to observe, to notice and to give thanks or simply smile, makes my daily life so much richer and content.

One of my favourite pieces of nature and it magic and miracles - nests.  Every time I come across one I stop in awe and wonder. How such a wee thing can work so hard, collect so much material and then weave it so perfectly that it creates a safe and welcoming home for a precious babe - astounds me. 

Burning books meet

Well, after much angst and anguish our books have met and we are all very happy.

Both Susan and I have been a bit bewildered by how we crossed wires on these books and have struggled to work with what we were each given and just about every step of the way felt like we veered off course but struggled to right ourselves again.  Honestly, it was that hard.

We chose to make big perspex books - mine stands 60cm high and Susan's is slightly shorter.

They are both concertina style and stand majestically, but we have no photos of them standing majestically together because they are impossible to photograph!

This come about  primarily because of the reflective nature of perspex; and this combined with their size means that they catch lots of reflections.  And worst of all our house has loads of windows, few if any blinds or curtains and an angled roof with lots of timber trusses - so not even a flat white ceiling to reflect.

We have done our humble best to capture the two of the meeting together quite demurely.  But some of the angles and details are still delicious. Enjoy!

Here's a lower angled shot of the two, side by side, but still with a great streak of clerestory window light across them...

Because this is what happened when we tried to shoot the from straight above - see what I mean about reflection?!?!?!

So it was down to the really lower angled shots, and details...

I think that despite the photographic challenges and the ups and downs along the way - we are both thrilled with the books. They are glorious standing statements which both express us well - once again, they look like us.

I'll post more fully on my book in the next wee while, telling the story and showing better photographs of it standing...but for now, it's just so great to have them done and to have seen them both together.

Burn baby burn

Susan and I are nearing completion of our 9th collaborative book - our burning book.  We hope to catch up next week so that the books can meet. I have a few bits to finalise and tidy on mine, but it is otherwise pretty much there - big sigh of relief.

But the burning bug has been caught big-time.

I was thinking about grids the other day and how calming I find them to be. Simultaneously I was tidying up the studio and came across a bunch of old watch parts that Barry and I had collected in New York, and somehow the two worlds collided, and then intersected with burning which was well and truly on my brain.

Here is where I started; you can see the few scrawled notes on a page of my notebook. Note I didn't end up cutting up a print and it didn't turn out black and white. The burning bug bit.

I started playing with some squares and some incense-burning patterns.

And things just grew from there, I kept thinking of different patterns I could burn, different combinations, different distances between holes until I had 42 squares and possibly two long thin pieces.

I don't know, maybe they'll become something, maybe not.

I added in a random selection of clock parts - note to self, must raid more of Barry's stash.

Some close ups horizontally,

Vertically,

and one by one...

Clearly it isn't finished - I have a lot of soot to remove and need to think about how to attach the watch parts and the paper and to what and with what other embellishment (or not). I also need to look closely at the layout and design, the different curves and straights and heavies and lights and the size of each watch part,  but it was  surprising outcome from two or three scrappy thoughts.

It has once again been a kind of meditative delight, sitting slowly burning holes, thinking about what and where next, but with absolutely no pressure at all. It was play and exploring and light and yet somehow rather lovely.

And one day during the week I sat down and sewed myself a little top using fabric that Jennifer had sent me ages ago.  It worked out quite well (I am no seamstress) despite having to make loads of adjustments to the Japanese patter. I am edging closer to mastering this!

I didn't want it to look like a bullseye in the centre of my chest, or worse two large circles up the top, and yet I wanted that lovely rusty detail to be featured.  It worked out OK and I have worn it twice already.

Front

and back.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Art is a line around your thoughts.”

 Gustav Klimt

Hmm. I liked the notion of this without really thinking about it.  The more I think about it, the harder I find it to work out why I responded to it!

I guess for 2-D artists who use lines and strokes to express things, it is a great description. I like the idea that artists express their thoughts using lines, that the lines and marks on their work are expressions of their thoughts.

Lines that can tell a story.

But then I keep coming back to the line AROUND your thoughts - which makes me feel as if somehow the line joins up and encloses things which is slightly different to simply expressing your thoughts.

In the end, I think its the imagery it evoked for me that made me like it - I immediately saw scratchy pencil lines and marks in my mind...and was lucky to find a photo that sort of describes it.

Leon Ferrari

Untitled (Sermon of the Blood)

Another show and more peace...

I spent a bit of time on the weekend playing some more with my graphite pencils - the water soluble ones.

I wanted to see what a long line of writing might look like with lots of lovely graded grey letters.  I also made more colourful initials, but the thing I needed to know was could I put a bunch of letters together into words, and then a bunch of words into a sentence and have it look OK.

So I wrote some words  - Each day is a new chance for peace - and got out the pencils and the water and the brushes.

I had fun and liked what emerged...

I am always fond of a nice long thin piece.

Soem details of the letters.

After I looked at it for a bit, I thought maybe a red dot over the 'i' would work.

I think I've almost got the hang of how to apply the pencils and the water to get a softly graded look.

And in other news, my book "Silence helps no-one" which is about family violence, has been selected for the Manly Library Artists' Book Award 2015 show, so I shall be posting it off to Sydney soon! It is wonderful to be in such great company and I wish I could see the show - so many wonderful books.

Details of the show can be found on my "Works on show" page at the top of my blog.

What a monochromatic blog post this was!