Tread Lightly finishes

The lovely exhibition Tread Lightly, at the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanical Gardens, finished today.

I have really enjoyed taking people to see it, and hearing feedback from folk who have visited. I think it is a special exhibition in that it doesn't have a single piece of traditional art within it.  Every piece seems to me to be filled with imagination, inquisitiveness and ideas and exploration.

One person said they thought it was extraordinary - there wasn't a single piece in the whole exhibition that they didn't like. I've had friends recalling every piece and how it made them feel, and how it inspired them. Others spent the time just taking images of the shadows and the paper for what seemed like hours. So I think I'd have to say it feels as if it has been a success.

Another feature of the exhibition has been the placement of artworks within the gardens themselves; mostly ephemeral works that will drift and decay, some that will last a little bit longer.

I contributed my rusty tree wraps, that are hand-stitched, use lots of rusty fabrics (inlcuding leather) and have words like 'meaning', 'connecting', and 'belonging' written on them.

Here are some shots of them wrapped around a magnificent tree...

And some of their details...

Seeing them out in the bush again has made me decide to leave them outside when they come home...wrapped around a tree or a log or a rock to gently weather away. They have been outside before, and started getting some great marks on them; but now is the time for them to stay outside I think. They will have certainly weathered more in the past few weeks; we've had a lot of rain...

A new dance begins

Yesterday was a cold day on the mountain, but Susan' studio was warm and we had another special day, developing up the second books in our collaboration.  We had decided this time to give the other one some pages, well in advance, and then let them make a book from them, so in a way there was less pressure to work fast yesterday, as we were keeping the pages, not handing them back. Nonetheless we have given ourselves a deadline of the end of the month to have the books completed.

I arrived and Susan had the pages I had given her and a few other bits laid out, and we spoke about what she planned to do.  I smiled when she spoke about introducing metallics, and aluminium and other hard shiny bits.  I had sat in my studio yesterday and gone 'gold' and had quickly grabbed metallic pencils and pens to make marks on the surface of my papers.

There are times the synchronicity is intriguing...

We spent the day exploring our books - I started out with quite firm ideas this time and followed thru with my plans; but am now left pondering what to do next.  I have ideas, but have to find the best way to introduce them to the pages.

I think both of us have been surprised by the bits we have left out and the paths we have ended up taking.  I began thinking I would use the ochres and the purples Susan introduced; but then I found myself working much darker than that.  My pages here look very different to the bundle that arrived!

I spent most of the day piercing holes, stitching and weaving with threads, but some words and letters did appear...

Not much sign yet here of the gold...but it will come I think.

As Susan mentions, we both discovered that our books are developing along the theme of transition.  Mine is telling a story from darkness to light, yet just how that will be fully expressed is still in the melting pot. Once more, a delightful day, sitting across the way from each other in the studio, chatting about this and that and enjoying the oohs and ahhs of excitement as we discovered or tried something. It will be interesting to bring the books back together again and see exactly where we have taken them since we parted...

Thursday Thoughts...

“All ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.” 


Mark Twain on the myth of originality in a letter to his friend Helen Keller, who had been accused of plagiarism.


I think this topic is that one that could be explored over and over, inside out and upside down and all the ways about.  (I also apologise in advance for the weird spacing - html gone mad and I have no idea how to resolve it).

I am not so sure I agree with the notion that ALL idea are second-hand; I truly believe there are moments of inspiration and originality that have never been before.  I do think however, that it's probably true that a lot of our ideas are exactly what he says - consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources.


Sometimes we are aware of a direct link to something we've seen or talked about and we openly wonder "how can I apply that in my work?" Or we recognise that "I was thinking about snow; or I love that feeling when; or I saw the kettle in that light; or it's just like the dots on the guinea fowl feather" and off we went.


It doesn't happen a lot - but I sometimes come across something that is so directly linked to something I have done I can't believe it.  I made what I thought was quite an original little book several years ago - I cut circles, and folded them in half and stitched some fabric pieces into the middle and then sewed them all so they look like a ball and suspended it so that it turned on a bar. And then a few months later on the front of an exhibition brochure was a circle book, just like that (without the fabric or the suspension), and worst of all, by somebody I had taken lessons from. I died of mortification and pulled the book to pieces. Even tho I had not been taught that book by that person; I imagine I must have seen it in their studio when I was there, and the idea embedded itself in my brain, despite me having no recollection of it all. 


I'm working on the theory that's the unconscious bit Twain speaks of.


Sometimes the unconscious connections are far more subtle and it can take years to realise where the inspiration came from. It's a bit like dreams - waking up in the morning and recalling them, and then wondering 'where on earth did that come from?' and rolling back thru the previous day for anything that might have sparked the weird adventure from your sleep.


There is so much to be in awe of in terms of creativity and where ideas come from - I think Twain got it pretty well right all those years ago. 


There are however,  many other posts that could be written on the whole 'stealing ideas' and plagiarism aspect of this...

I look at this image now and wonder if it had anything to do with Wire Music?  

The Unbearable Whiteness...

Well this funny little project, which started out here and here, has gone for a whole six months, not just the summer, and is now completed in a quirky, fun and whimsical way, kind of like the idea itself.

Before I go any further, I have to make a disclaimer. I LOVE this book. I really do - it is so much fun and such a delight for me. Barry has to keep telling me to stop playing with it. Sometimes, I listen.

A quick re-cap - the impact of La Nina's weather pattern on us this year has meant a lot of rain. Almost 2 metres of rain in the first 6 months in fact. So we often found ourselves waking in a white-out; where the mist and cloud are so low and so close we can't see our back fence. I thought I would make a book using paint swatches I matched to each white-out, to capture the unbearable of whiteness of summer. The white-outs continued beyond summer so I kept going for six months.

I had been wondering how to include all the swatches in a book, and saw on one of Lesley's posts how she had used a concertina spine with a kind of origami pocket to hold luggage tags. Inspired, I headed off and found a pattern for the very same fold. Yay. Thank you Lesley, you have provided me with so many hours of entertainment with that fold!

So here it is, with 26 paint swatches - meaning on average we have had one white-out per week so far this year!

I love it in all of it's permutations.

For the covers I used the same fold and the same paper (BFK Rives), but I just dipped them in some weak ink. They turned out grey and a bit motley which I think gave a sense of the mist quite well, and a counterpoint to the shiny swatches.

In the first fold (the title page) I included a piece of paper which listed the colours for each day in case anybody really wanted to know.

It curves, it arches...

And here it is outside in the sun - quite a long book and had to photograph in its entirety.

But my, it makes for great shadows!

Still undecided on whether I should attempt the second half of the year and make a companion piece or not. Tempting...

Dark and Light

I mentioned this book that was causing me grief a week or so ago, and got a lot of helpful ideas about how to handle my response to it, and where to take it next.  In the end I borrowed a few of them and talked to Barry about it. I really did like the idea of a bonfire to start with, then I loved the notion of barbed wire.

In the end I decided to simply wrap it up. To bundle the pages and covers together and wrap and wrap and wrap until it couldn't be undone.  Somehow this made  me feel better - that the difficult stuff was all tied up and able to be put aside safely. It may be waiting for me again; or it may have found a new form.  Barry saw it all wrapped in black and asked me if I'd thought about weaving some white thread into it as a sign of hope...

So I did, because he is so wise, and it offers me a way forward and a way not to stay stuck in the dark stuff.

But I'm never there for long, so I thought I'd share some of the light things I have been playing with as well of late.

I have finished my last letters for the first ALAW alphabet. Phew, just in time. Sadly I haven't finished the piece yet - but the ideas are still there.

Secondly some lovely origami envelopes I have been making as I finalise my Unbearable Whiteness...book. I had planned that it would only be for summer, but I decided in the end to do a half-year, so today the collection of paint swatches is finished. Stay tuned for the final book.

And then, to find the balance between the light and the dark, I thought I'd show you a few bits from a wee book that the lovely Lesley from Printed Material sent me as a prize-gift.  It is a gorgeous book and has such beautiful paper in it, and Lesley encouraged me to "do something with it".  I think we all suffer from giving beautiful blank-paged books away only to have folk face them with fear and trepidation and never write or draw in them. So I decided I would make a little book of black marks.  Here are some of my pages so far...

What a ramble and rave, but the idea of light and dark shone thru this week. The week was dreary grey and white and misty; today dawned still and bright and blue!

Thursday Thoughts...

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.” 


  Raymond Carver


Oh yes. Today like quite a few others of late, dawned late. Light emerged gradually, slowly as if it was tired and heavy.  It was raining, the mist swirled all around the mountain and the wind had begun.

A day that begged to have one lie in bed all day and read.

My response was less positive than Carter's - I didn't want to get out and join the day as it was presenting itself to me. The notion of bed and warmth and books and quiet was much more attractive.  I sense from this quote however,  that he almost burst awake with the positive intent that staying in bed reading was a perfectly exciting and active option to choose; rather than my kind of fallback position.

I wonder what sort of life one would lead where the active choice of staying in bed all day reading was actually a reality?  It's a dream for many of us I think - the idea of being able to indulge ourselves like that is almost one of those perfect wishes. Spending a day with just books, disappearing for hours into their world, rather than the daily bibs and bobs that demand attention.

I know I've never done it, doesn't necessary mean I never will, but it does seem like a far-away idea. One day perhaps.

Out with the old...

And in with the new.

Being the less than well behaved calligrapher that I am, I have not looked after these nibs. Granted, they are nearly a decade old (I can hear the gasps of horror from around the globe, apologies for distressing you all) and therefore probably well past their due date.  Sure, I wash them after each use and try to dry them off, but sometimes I leave them to finish drying off themselves. Hmm.

But they have been working fine for me, the ink has flowed when needed, and they haven't been scratchy. Actually I think they look worse than they really are... but then I would say that at this point in the game I guess!  I'm also just not the type to toss things out until they really don't work any more.

On close inspection this week I came to the view that the last wet season REALLY took its toll on them and for the first time in my life I found I had seriously rusted nibs. I don't think even I could have attempted anything with them in this state. Probably also shows I haven't sat down to write anything calligraphic for a few months...

So it was time, and I sat down for an hour or so the other afternoon and changed them all over.

Here are the bright shiny new ones. They make me so happy I am almost not game enough to use them!

I am thinking it might be worth my while to buy an ultrasonic cleaner - one that really gets in to the crevices and removes the last smudge of ink.  Then I wondered if I could get an ultrasonic dryer because that would really help me, but I don't think they've been invented yet. Sigh.

I've also read that maybe I should rub them with olive oil after washing and drying because the oil would stop the rust thing happening...but it seems a bit weird to put oil on your nibs. I can only imagine it transferring onto the paper the next time I wrote because I would forget I had to wipe it off.

Maybe I just need to be diligent. Sigh again.

Does anybody have any good ideas about rust prevention and nibs?

Our next books begin

Susan and I sat down after we made our first collaborative books - back in April for World Book Day and talked about where did we want to go from here?

We have decided to try and make a few more books together, with a few different 'rules' or approaches each time to provide some guidance, but not dictate what the other has to do, and to add variety to the books we make, and to offer ourselves a bit of a challenge.

This time around we decided that we would do a two-step dance.  Our first book was a three-step dance. We each prepared pages, gave them to each other to work on, then we got them back to finish the book. For book two, we are each preparing some pages, and giving them to the other - and then they work on the book AND finish it. That is, the pages don't come back to us.

We also decided we would offer up suggestions for materials that might be used with the pages. We used words like guide and suggest, not dictate or direct. We are free to incorporate what the other gives us; or not.

We also agreed that this time we would swap pages well in advance - so we each have time to ponder, plot and if necessary purchase things we want to add in to the book.

So on Thursday afternoon, Susan popped over and we swapped pages. You can see what I sent her way and what she has started thinking about here.

These are the pages and pieces she brought me to work with.

The four dark chocolatey brown pages are the main pages - the rusted tracing paper and ink-marks on paper are suggested materials, along with the beautiful waxed linen threads...

I think they look sumptuous together and am already quite besotted by them. My mind is going this way and that and I am picking up things around the studio and asking myself "what if?" "what about?" "how would this work?". It's lovely to have the pages and pieces about and to keep looking at them and pondering...

And just because she is Susan and so beautiful and thoughtful, she also included a whole separate package of pieces I might like to use with the dark brown pages, just in case I didn't feel like working with the warm, strong colours. These soft watercolour pages and pieces complement the dark ones so well, but you can tell from my first five photos I'm planning to work with the stronger tones this time.

It's one of the beauties of this work - we get challenged, but in the nicest, most supported way possible.

Our planned Book Day is Friday 6 July, so we have a wee while to play with ideas before committing. I must say, I am looking forward to another day of studio delight!

Thursday Thoughts...

“That’s who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.” 


John Green (An abundance of Katherines)


I'm not sure when or how I came across this one - but it made me stop and nod to myself - 'yep, they're the best'!

I know I'm around folk who love me, know me, and still love me, when I can say out loud the weird or wicked things I am thinking.

Those people that I can take the handbrake off with and let the fun thoughts, hilarious thoughts, cheeky, wild, wacky and wonderful thoughts loose with.

Sometimes these are people I have known for a very long time; sometimes they are lovers; sometimes they are friends I have only just met but with whom I feel safe enough to say things.

It's most often these people too, who I feel safe letting my best or most special dreams out of their little boxes with, knowing that they will be heard, supported, critiqued kindly or enthusiastically cheered on.

It's good to have these folk in our lives.

On the third Thursday of each month Jennifer and Julie go in search of Roy G Biv (aka the rainbow). I try to join in by posting an image that matches the colour for the month - so no prizes for working out that this month it's orange!  This is a poppy from our garden last spring - the sense of vibrancy and delight matches my feelings for those I can think out loud in front of. Thank you.

Dark is hard

I did these pages a few years ago - when a few of us went around to Noela's for a play day. In this instance she had us splashing black ink onto big pages with brooms and dripping it on and generally just going for it. That's me making them in the last photo on this post...

I rediscovered the pages about 6 months ago and decided to do something with them. I found some words that seemed to match them, coloured in a bit here and there with red, cut them up and then glued them together to make book pages. I even made some covers.

And then the book sat there, for about 5 months, waiting to be stitched.  I picked it up again last week thinking I would just start stitching and found that I couldn't.

Perhaps the words were too raw - they start with "when you lose someone you love". And as I picked up the pages and turned them, the dark energy of them almost overwhelmed me. I hardly wanted to hold them let alone work on them. I kept saying to myself "I have to soften this, I have to soften this".

So I have been trying to, and experimenting with a few things. In  a way I think I am trying to take some of the hurt away that the marks seem to express, and just let the words speak their gentle truth.

I tried wrapping each page in another page of tracing paper. I thought about gluing the tracing paper onto the pages muting them and their message. I laid some Japanese tissue paper over them wondering if that would hide some of the sadness and grief within it. I tried making soft curvy and gentle marks into the tracing paper to counteract the darkness of the pages.

I'm not sure it will be possible to soften it sufficiently, and I'm not sure I will actually make this book.

It has been quite an intriguing process to go through - I had no idea when I picked it up thinking "that's a little UFO* I can get on with" that I would be faced with this raw energy that made me back away. I've never before felt that I can't complete a project because of how it makes me feel. So I'll wait and see what happens next.

Until another day perhaps.

*UFO = un finished object

Pottering and playing

Unlike last weekend we have been experiencing beautiful sunshine this weekend and really, the word is probably basking. Just sitting or standing wherever the sun can be on your back and soaking it all up, feeling the warmth seep into your bones and relax you.

Things are still moving slowly here, but they are all moving in the right direction and we enjoyed time just pottering here and there on the block and dipping into the studio now and then.

I managed to get some things organised and tidied away and sorted and settled in the studio which made me feel better; and along the way played some more with rusty bits and tea.

I got some lovely marks and have enjoyed cropping parts of the paper and imagining book pages and details, burning and more marks...

Don't ask me why or how, but out the back I found these rusty old chains - for car tyres in the snow! Clearly not needed here in sub-tropical Maleny... but here is the after and the before shot.

Here is how the back of the studio looked with four pages rusting - on the table, on the concrete, on the pebbles and on the old rocking chair.

 And some of the lovely marks left behind...

I got a little over-zealous and over-enthusiastic about the tea. I just kept dripping it on and as result got some wild and almost fierce marks which was fun.  I am so grateful to everybody who made suggestions and especially to Alice who explained why tea works with rust! See here for a fascinating explanation.