Thursday Thoughts...

“If you could say it in words, there’d be no reason to paint.” 

 Edward Hopper

In contrast to my post about being a woman of words, I find this quote beautiful in its truth and simplicity.

Even when I am working with words, there is so much more going on in the conversation my work is having with the viewer, observer, or reader.

I have often heard that a piece has moved somebody - beyond words; that they are left speechless; that tears are their only response. So whilst I am a lover of words and it is via words that I make my way through the world, I think art goes beyond words, and how it makes us feel and respond is priceless.

And for those of us who make visual imagery and art; I think the truth does lie this way - if words could depict those feelings and sensations, utterly and completely, then there would be no need to paint. But they can't, and so we make.

This piece - Time to Change - moved many, and yes I sat with folk in tears when it was exhibited.  I hope given the times we live in that artists find ways to express their sadness, their fear, and their hope in beautiful and meaningful ways, because sometimes words just can't.

Testing, testing...

So often my work involves lots of trials (and sometimes errors!) - but definitely lots of testing and trialling before the real work begins.

This week I have begun work on the latest commission for Melbourne and it is interesting to watch it evolve and take shape.

I usually start with the concept - and this one appeared so quickly and felt so right, I was hanging out to begin.  I had imagery in my head, but of course as I worked my way through, I realised the many things you need to take account of when you are creating work for a specific purpose and with a particular destination in mind. The constraints of a commission if you will.

I am working in a similar palette to the words on windows; but these words will be hand embroidered. I had imagined white on white or cream on cream; but as I worked my way through I realised that the subtlety of that just wouldn't work; when the key message was "read these stories".

I thought many folk just wouldn't see them, let alone read them and if they did, they might consider the words simply dreams or hopes rather than reality.

So here we go with purple again. The upholstery on the chairs is this vibrant gorgeous purple.

And then in amongst my various stashes I tried to find the right threads to work - trying this with that and using a roll of chocolate as my guide...

This variegated silk thread looked promising - but I thought I might not have enough for the four panels. It will get a run somewhere, sometime tho!

And the carpet is grey so I wondered about introducing greys that worked with the purple...

And of course, like I showed in the previous post, I had to then try and work out how many threads to use (2 strands or one?), which colours and which fabric...

So many decisions. As ever.  Lucky I have resolved the first steps - with Barry's help and advice around colours - and am about to transfer the words to fabric and start stitching.

And as a random addition - this is how our sky has looked a few times this week - massive storms moving arounds us, but not hitting us (which is good from a storm perspective, but we are all a bit keen on getting rain as the land and gardens feel parched).

I work with words..

In what has been a difficult week in so many ways, I have found myself back in my world, where my heart feels safest, where I do what I do.

I work with words.

It certainly became clear this week when I looked at all the things I was involved in art-wise and the words were everywhere.

I started the week playing wth a new stamp

I finished a last minute request for two pebble alphabets and names

Before heading to Melbourne where I worked with words of peace and hope

And windows...

I returned to discover my first photopolymer plate ready for me to trim and attach to MDF to make it type high  - it will be fun to use my own calligraphy and letterpress together.



Barry is busy making work for a couple of shops he supplies - the Christmas rush is beginning - so I sat and wrote a heap of swing tags for him on Saturday.

I then began part two of the Melbourne commission - working with women's words. In my typical cut and paste way.

 And then tracing and transferring

And testing stitching, threads  and fabric...

All those words in a week.

I felt speechless earlier in the week - literally lost for words - and so I sought solace in the safety of working with words - of peace, of hope, for women, and for those I love and care about.

Thursday Thoughts...

“We read to find the end, for the story’s sake. We read not to reach it, for the sake of the reading itself. We read searchingly, like trackers, oblivious of our surroundings. We read distractedly, skipping pages. We read contemptuously, admiringly, negligently, angrily, passionately, enviously, longingly. We read in gusts of sudden pleasure, without knowing what brought the pleasure along. ‘What in the world is this emotion?’ asks Rebecca West after reading King Lear. ‘What is the bearing of supremely great works of art on my life which makes me feel so glad?’ We don’t know: we read ignorantly. We read in slow, long motions, as if drifting in space, weightless. We read full of prejudice, malignantly. We read generously, making excuses for the text, filling gaps, mending faults. And sometimes, when the stars are kind, we read with an intake of breath, with a shudder, as if someone or something has ‘walked over our grave,’ as if a memory had suddenly been rescued from a place deep within us—the recognition of something we never knew was there, or of something we vaguely felt as a flicker or shadow, whose ghostly form rises and passes back into us before we can see what it is, leaving us older and wiser.” 

Alberto Manguel, A History of Reading

That would probably be the longest quote I have ever used in my Thursday Thoughts ponderings; but I didn't edit it because I really think the landscape the words traverse through its entirety say most everything needed to be said about the act of reading; and that to have removed parts of it would have been to somehow reduce in great part the value of reading experiences.

Almost my longest ever sentence as well!

Reading does all of this and he expresses it so beautifully - we read  searchingly, distractedly, admiringly, full of prejudice, weightless and then the shudder...

Reading is not a homogeneous state as anybody who has ever had to read for study or work knows; it is nothing like reading for pleasure. Reading for pleasure can also be different - filling in time, trying to distract yourself; or so deeply entranced by a book you just want to disappear and not take part in your real life for a bit.

The many pleasures of reading, if you can just begin...

Book Wall up close

A number of years ago we needed to build a retaining wall near the studio. Barry very creatively decided to build a book wall, and it has weathered away over time, with the books absorbing moisture and buckling and cockling and turning up their leaves.

It has been fun to observe - it is just next to where we pull up and park the car, so I generally look at it each day.

We have also planted plenty of orchids in and around it, as well as a baseline row of violets.

I stopped to photograph one of the tiny wee orchids the other day, and then fell in love with the overall look, so here are a few close ups...

Gentle layering like sedimentary rock..

Lovely lovely curves.

A violet tendril weaving its way through deteriorating pages...

And finally the wee dendrobium orchid...

And then when you step back, here's the wall a'weathering...

Pondering clouds...

It's funny how things can be with you for quite a while, and then you look at them with fresh eyes and begin to wonder what else they might become.

The spark for this re-consideration was a visit by a gallery manager who wanted to take a look at a book of mine. In preparing the studio for her visit, I stopped to look at some of my small Amongst The Clouds prints and wondered how would I explain what they were?

That got me thinking and I thought that they needed to become a book; yet how to bind clouds?

The words are printed on small sheets of goyu paper - soft and feathery edges; light-as-a-cloud paper.

They look mightily structured when you see them in their formation here.  and somehow that just didn't feel right for clouds.

So I started jotting down thoughts about how I could sequence them; how could I stitch them? What thread could I use?  All the questions that I have to ask and answer in order for the final work to have integrity. 

On reflection, I see these pages as a conversation I have with myself - posing questions, answering questions, making points asking myself to pay attention to certain things...intriguing. Quite literally you can see the conversation and the statements back and forth I think.

And that was the real question wasn't it? Stitching Clouds...

But I have come to a form of resolution, melding a bunch of ideas about softness, and drifting, and not being held; about forming and re-forming...

And now the prototype sits waiting to begin...

Thursday Thoughts...

“A certain darkness is needed to see the stars.”

 Oho

Pondering life today.

We all know how true this is in real life; if we live in the country or visit areas unpolluted by city lights capes, we can experience that gradual transition from day to twilight with the evening star's appearance, followed by a proliferation of stars that only become visible to us as the sky darkens to night.

And as I think about this and life I understand that it is sometimes darkness or dark times that allow us to see things in different lights. Sometimes darkness reveals to us a friend who is "a friend in need, a friend indeed". Sometimes darkness enables us to see the value in something we had taken for granted.

They are small things, yet large things.

And I am grateful for the stars that appear in our lives when there is darkness.

Detail from starry Starry Night...

A little bit of this, a little bit of that...

I have a lot of projects on the go  at the moment and each one makes small steps, progresses a bit and then I turn my attention to the next one. Some of them even get completed!

Interestingly most of the projects have several parts, so I might get to hang the signs at IGA for the fruit bins and floor; but there is another bigger sign to install yet. Similarly with the new building work in Melbourne I will install Part A soon; but Part B won't be done until the end of the year.

So I feel like I am doing little bits of this and little bits of that...

Some of the this...

Once more I have been sorting type.  I have created a bibs and bobs kind of set of drawers - filling the type cabinet we recently bought with random and mis-matched type drawers. And I love it!

Barry planed all the drawers to fit and I am now trying to honour his hard work by filling them up with type.

Within the random set of drawers I have also created an "Orphan Annie" drawer where I am putting all the bits of type I come across that don't really belong to a full font. I love the random look of them and so want to print something with them!

And the set of drawers - courtesy of Barry.

And some of the that..

Barry and I have attached the two signs about the original floorboards in IGA. Not easy to select the right position, but ion the end we went for down near the floorboards so that people might glimpse them from afar and check themout as they get closer to the counters.

The lighting is tricky and it will be hard to keep folk from putting boxes in front of them, but at least they are there for the curious and inquisitive.

Nothing But The Print!

As our final exhibition and event for the Print Council of Australia's 50th Anniversary, our organising team for the PCA's events is holding a small exhibition in the Window Gallery at the Pine Rivers Gallery.

It is a gorgeous space and an extra benefit, it is 'open' 24 hours a day!

We called it Nothing but the Print and each of us simply offered up 2-3 works with no theme or instructions. I had been thinking about it as a display (given we had no theme or coherent plan) but you know, I think it looks like a beautiful boutique exhibition!

Tory, Susan and I headed south to deliver the works and help with the installation. Here we are laying out works thinking about what works, what goes with what, what will fit where etc.

Two of Jo's lino prints.

One of Cathy's pieces was 3-D within a frame, so we tested whether it could sit on the easel and be brought closer to the window so folk could see. We liked it that way!

Saffron's Sanguine Arcs waiting to be hung...

Judy had done some beautiful prints on hand-made paper bowls; protesting the detention of refugees.
Displayed on the mirror they really looked beautiful. and made you want to explore them...

My book Lost for Words.

Susan's Tidings of Magpies.

Tory's Bonded.

Steph's The Bower.

Karl did a great job installing - and he will do a little bit of magic with lighting and and an extra plinth and will straighten everything to perfection; but when we left yesterday afternoon we were pretty pleased with how it was looking.

And just because I think it looks great - here's the window again!