Slow days

I was a little bit weary and worn this week with not a lot of energy on a couple of days, so very sensibly opted for some quiet down time.

On Friday afternoon I was good for very little else than to sit and wind thread.

Whilst in Scotland I had bought some new 'dolly pegs' to wind the threads that I was dyeing over there onto.  I had taken some of my vintage pegs with me, but clearly got so carried away that I needed more pegs!

On return I thought I really did prefer the vintage older peg look, so went hunting and found some online.  I added them to my collection here and thought one day I will transfer those threads.

A little voice in my head was going 'yeah, as if you'll ever have spare time for that!'

Hooray for not feeling great.

There was something lovely about the line of pegs on the coffee table.

Looking this way and that.

And close up and low.

Here are the Scottish threads that needed transferring - quite a few in the end. The new pegs just don't have the same feel at all.

And here they all are on their new old pegs (pile of old new pegs to the side).

Fortunately I still have a good selection of old vintage pegs to work with - so more dyeing can happen!

The flowers that are featuring are our NSW Christmas bush.  It is blooming here at the moment and is such a beautiful cut flower.  I have it in vases all over the house and on window sills and ...

As the sun sets and streams through the windows it highlights it beautifully.

A really low red glowing smoky sunset gave me this against a timber post.

And also whilst I wasn't feeling too flash, I managed to finish this colourful and happy jig saw that I had been playing with in the studio.  I found it a nice way to empty my head before I began working and then when I wasn't feeling crash hot, I could just mindlessly add pieces to it and feel as if I achieved something!

It has been put away and a new project has begun in that space so all good.

Fear not, I am bright as a button now, just had a slow and quiet few days.

Of pegs and threads and garden moments

So, it is go gently and quietly time - keeping an eye on the weather as the wind roars back and the temperatures soar.  No new fires below, but watchful eyes keep looking and checking.

I seem to be back to little bits of normal, which seems to be made up mostly of pottering.

I had ordered a bunch of old wooden pegs and they began to arrive last week.

Over on my Instagram page I wondered "what should the collective noun for old wooden pegs be...? and I got some fun answers.  I think my favourite so far is a pinch of pegs!

But the pegs then brought me back to winding threads again. A friend had been pickling beetroots and couldn't bear to toss the fabulous juice out and asked if I might want to use it - so of course I did.

Here are the threads straight out of the pot - all a bit dazzling and eye-popping.

But after rinsing and drying they have arrived back to the beautiful subtle tones of the other threads, and look quite at home on their pegs.

We have been observing lot of road work out the front and so yesterday afternoon went out around dusk to check out what was happening and lots of road had been cut up and removed and was to be replaced.

But it was the moment of walking along our path and looking up to see the moonrise, then turning my head to see the sunset at the same moment from the exact same place that made me stop with wonder.

Those moments, so unexpected, and yet so appreciated.  Moments of beauty and wonder and reminders of the way the world turns, the comforting assurance of days and nights and seasons.

We wandered past the avocado tree which is full. So full. I have never seen so much fruit beginning on it.  I think it must be the dry season we have had...

And to finish with a wish for safety for folk facing fires and for folk fighting fires.

Slowly slowly with pegs

 I have been saving the threads I have solar dyed from the gardens and kitchen both here and in Scotland for several years now.  They have been randomly wrapped on old pegs, labeled with hasty calligraphy and left in bags and boxes. Waiting.

I suddenly realised that for one of my exhibitions next year, that they might come into their own; so I brought them out of their cupboard and began to play around with ideas and notions.

I must admit, just spending time with them, selecting complementary ones from Scotland and Australia and gathering them together has been a delight.

The original pegs - a mix of square and round heads, messy labels and quite random wrapping of threads. Some pegs look like they have trousers on!

As mentioned, I really do enjoy their company and how they look - I think they are forever photogenic.

But those labels were bugging me, so I created new ones, and made them tidier. Much happier.

I also re-wound them so that they are more uniform in the wrapping, and unwound them from round headed pegs all onto square headed pegs.

And because I haven't yet worked out how their labels will be attached, I wrapped teeny weeny rubber bands around them to hold label, peg and thread together in the interim.

And then I lined them up and thought they were looking rather rigid and less lively than before. Less lively was OK because they were too wild for me before, but now they just looked a bit too tight.

And so I started unwinding a few threads and thought now we are beginning to play and breathe again.

And then because I thought the warm white background might be a bit bland, I tried out some grey paper, which I think has potential.

Of course, this all happened over hours and over days as I meditatively wound and unwound threads, played with positioning and responded to how they looked by trying some new things. The piece is well underway, but there are still quite a few issues to resolve and decisions to be made.

Slowly, but I hope, surely, we will get there.

Commission of Angels

A while ago I mentioned things were works in progress and underway. I wrote that post on a Sunday, blithely suggesting that I needed to deliver things by Wednesday. Just after it was set to publish, I realised that I had miscalculated badly and that I actually had to deliver it on Monday (THE NEXT DAY) because we were going to Tamborine Mountain on Tuesday to visit family.  How had I missed that in my planning???!!!???

Big breath in and I went to work to see if I could get it all together. And the good news is that I did - but I tell you I could really do without that additional pressure.

The commission came from somebody seeing my two pieces called Four Friends at The Red Thread show.  They asked if I could make some more.  Their daughter is part of a group of 6 amazing women who their mum has called The Angels. The type of women who are there for each other under all sorts of pressure and stress; long hours, half way across the world from home and through lockdowns and other major events.

The job was to create 6 works with six 'angels' depicted (aka pegs with red thread). To begin, there were peg dramas (did not have enough pegs for 36 - had to buy pegs and hope they arrived). Pegs arrived; beautiful organic beech pegs - but yay (not) they had a waxed coating which would not take staining with tea.

Now what? On Barry's advice, I used boiling water to remove wax coating - tick. Stained them -tick.

The client had brought me her red embroidery threads, so I used six different reds to stitch the top and bottom running stitch lines. I wanted each work to be unique - no two pieces have the same combination of red threads for the angels.

The client also wanted to incorporate the notion of angels some how and I tried to find a way to do that uniquely and discreetly.  Rather than putting halos or wings on the front; I did something on the back.

Once more each set of angel's wings is unique.

I googled my fingers to the bone trying to find six 'easels' that would be big enough to fit the works on. You know when you try every combination of words you can think of? Search every art store you can think of? And then have the happiest of moments when you find them in a catering business for holding menus at buffets??? 

And they could deliver express, so we were still on track.

All of this was happening BEFORE I realised I had less than 24 hours to complete them. At the point I realised, I needed to wind all the thread onto pegs; pierce all the holes, cut all the copper wire and attach them. I had to draw all the angel wings, title them and emboss my mark on them; then attach the backing to the front, and photograph them for posterity...

Ta da! We did it!

The Angels then winged their way across the oceans; and I hope they have landed safely with their namesakes..

It was a lovely job to do and I enjoyed it coming together; but there were a lot of 'moments' with this one!

Taking fabrics and threads further

 Work is progressing and whilst things are a little bit here and there still at this time of year, it feels good to be back and moving things along.

Both of these works are for a solo exhibition I have in Scotland toward the end of the year, and they form part of 6 relatively major works I am doing for the show. I have sorted out two pieces; I have these two underway and have no idea about other two yet - so am waiting for inspiration to arrive...

Nevertheless, we progress.

The fabric I was prepping back here has taken the next steps. I have measured lengths of differing widths as I will need seven pieces of different widths (well, one at 14.5cm, 2 @12.5cm, 2 @ 9cm and 2 @ 7.5cm wide) and different lengths, ranging from 1.7m up to 2m long, so quite a few lengths really. There has been a lot of measuring and calculating.

I spent some time this weekend tearing the fabric into widths and then calculating lengths and how to create the right length from a variety of fabrics. My brain did get quite mushy towards the end of it all, but here is how the piles are looking in preparation.

The next steps will be joining the different fabrics to create the right lengths, and then I begin stitching into them; once I have designed the stitching that is. As ever, my work is slow...

In between times I have been taking the work with the pegs further. I have found the frame I want to work with and have trimmed some paper to size to do my trial. I have selected the paper for the final piece after comparing three different ones for strength, weight and colour. 

Here I am checking that the pegs won't be proud of the frame when I have attached them to the paper and the canvas. A very hi tech approach - the eyeball.

I have worked out the layout, the direction of the pegs, the distance between the two columns of pegs and the distance between each peg in the column. I have worked out which way the thread will unfurl from each peg and think I have come down on the side of attaching the labels to the paper slightly underneath the peg (above the peg seemed to distract bit too much, although that is not yet completely resolved). 

I have played around with how the threads will come across from each column and intersect, what colours those threads might be and just how I might stitch them.

I have also selected the colours and the sequence of threads for the stitching , and also how I will attach the pegs to the paper; and then to the canvas. I still have to purchase some thin silver-copper wire for that. Each peg will be held in three places, so I will be piercing 6 holes per peg; and then piercing stitching lines across the page as well.

I intend to do a template-test-trial first just to make sure my ideas pan out; then I will have to do the final.

So, it is good to have started early with this one too!

2000 posts, plus pegs and type

 When I was trawling through Blogger trying to work out how my ability to comment and reply had been randomly removed from me, I noticed I was about to make my 2000th post. Wow. 

In the days of FB and Insta and TikTok and all, people often wonder why folk continue to blog.

Fortunately I have moved on from any angst I may have once had about lots of people reading what I write, of wondering how many comments I get, how many posts get read and so on. I have come to the belief that primarily, I seem to blog for myself, and that is fine.

Whenever I am wondering when I made something, or did I do something a particular way - I turn to my blog and go searching. It is actually the most reliable memory of my artwork that I have and I am grateful for its existence more often than seems reasonable.

I also blog because I know that some folk are interested in what I do; that some folk like to see how I do things; and because I like to share thoughts about making, and processes, and highs and lows; and also because it that it is just lovely to still be part of an online community that is generous and kind.

So a HUGE thank you to all the folk who read, who comment, who email  and message me.; and who keep me motivated to make a record of my work, and the odd other event here and there - including flowers and travels. Thank you.

Yesterday I taught a one person workshop and we had a grand time. So much wonderful experimentation, testing this, trying that.  As part of my Introduction, I pulled out some type for comparison.

The tool on the left is a pica ruler - picas down the left hand side and inches down the right. I love the ingenious little hook at the top which makes it possible to hook it on a piece of furniture and measure how long it is.

With this type I was showing type at 8pt and type at 72pt. BIG difference. I was also showing how 72pt is generally as large as they make metal type, because after that it gets too heavy, and too expensive to make. Beyond that point size, they usually head for timber. Some timber, like the A here, is 72pt as well. 72pt is about 2.5cm (or an inch); whilst 8pt is approximately 2.8mm.

I have only ever worked with 8pt once. You can see why really...

And in this shot I am comparing the smallest type in the studio to the tallest/largest type in the studio.

The M here is Italian, and is measured as 30 ciceros (no points used with Italian type). A cicero measures about 4.5mm and therefore, 30 ciceros makes this block of wood type around 13.5cm long. Italian type is also a tad higher than the type we generally use.

In between times when the weather was cold and time inside was the best kind of time; I re-rolled some of my natural-dyed threads from round pegs onto square/flat pegs.  I like flat pegs and they are hard to get hold of; so when I come across a stash of vintage ones I nab them and then sit quietly rolling from one type to the other.

Before.

After.

There is a way to go, but I am getting there with the transfer.

The current stash from Maleny.

And the current stash from Scotland.

Still plenty of round pegs to be replaced!