The get together

As part of our commitment to making these collaborative books, Susan and I agree that we will have them finished by the end of the month they start in. It's good to have a deadline, and one that you really want to meet, because you are working with a friend and who wants to let their friends down?

So today we got together at Susan's studio to see each other's books and as is part of our tradition, to photograph them together.

We have both struggled at times with these books and we talked a bit about it today. In part we accept that we have both faced them at difficult times - with the death of Susan's father, and with me coming out of Barry's brush with death. So we have woven some tricky emotions into the thinking and their making.

The other more practical thing we touched on was that by preparing pages and materials and giving them to the other, we had in many ways set them off on path that they needed to follow. Altho we said guidance, not direction, suggestion not dictation, nonetheless we both felt that we had to respond to the pages and the pieces and work really hard to make them our own.

Unlike the first  books where we prepared the pages - chose the size, the paper and the imagery - and handed them over for the other to add to, and then received them back to finish them off in our own style, these books meant we simply had to work with different and challenging materials and make them our own, and we decided that added to the sense of difficulty.

Here are some shots of them together - and I will show you mine in full soon.

Both in their cases... mine is on top here.

Some details of the cases... I am loving Susan's metal and her threads

The opening begins...

Together...

Susan's from behind and mine at an opening...

Despite their obvious differences, they still seemed to fit together very well. This may be because we are quite different in our styles and approaches yet quite similar at the same time - there is so much to learn and observe as we go thru this. We meet again next week to work out where to next!

As we said goodbye, we laughed a bit that despite our ponderings, deep thinking and at times agonising over the books this time around, that they had developed just as they needed to and become just what they were meant to - almost despite us!

A table-eye view

As I was working on the collaborative book last week I was trying to take photos of different elements.

I put the camera down on the table whilst the lens was still open and saw what it could see - a jumble of a mess on my working table.

I thought it looked quite interesting from that angle and so I took a few more.

You have to laugh - you can see by the chaos surrounding me that I was trying almost everything I had to hand in an effort to work my way through the book!

I'm sure other people's desks are much tidier than mine. 

And then you fly...

I wrote during the week about the struggle I faced with my most recent collaborative book.  I sat down with it again towards the end of the week and it just flowed - everything went where it should, every idea I had was on track, every step I made worked!

What a turnaround it was.

It just seemed like I was in the groove, that things flowed rather than stumbled and the conversations were going "oh yes!" rather than "now what"?

It is so hard to explain what changed, what was different. Was it me and my head or was it the weather? Was it familiarity or was it that things had had time to seep into my brain and be resolved in a subconscious way? Was it that I had done the hard yards and this was always going to be the easy bit? Who knows. All I can say it's much more fun when it flows.

Here are a few shots of parts of it...

It felt good to get it where it needed to be. I even came up with a wrapping/packing for it that was simple and yet worked. Susan and I will get together soon to show and share and have a chat about how the two books have evolved - I will share the proper photos of the finished book after that.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Sometimes you read a book so special that you want to carry it around with you for months after you’ve finished just to stay near it.”


 Markus Zusak


I picked up Markus Zusak's book The Book Thief at a garage sale - and tumbled headlong into the world he created.  I was fortunate enough to re-read it for our Book Group last year and loved having the opportunity to talk about the writing and the story and the sad beauty of it all.

I liked that he had written/spoken a quote like this, as it is almost how I felt about his book - I almost did want to carry it with me for a while afterwards, just to hold it close.

I think it's a special feeling when people can bring characters and stories to life that make you a wee bit sad when they are finished; that make you ache and worry about them; that make you wonder how it all works out or what happens next.

It's a gift that someone can make us think, to consider how another world is or how other lives are lived...

Explorations and the odd wrong turn

I'm having a slightly different experience this time around as I work on the second book in our (Susan and my) collaboration.  The first book had me uplifted and carried away - this second book is taking a lot more ponderous thinking.

At times I have felt as if I am wading through treacle in gum boots. Heavy going. And I'm not sure quite why I am making such hard work of it this time around, but I keep getting stuck in those lengthy conversations with myself that end up going nowhere, going backwards or arriving at dead ends.

I think, I almost think, I have found the resolution I need to make it feel like me, but just out of interest, here are some of the twists and turns I have taken...

Trying some gold dots around a tea-rusted washer on paper...

Inking over Susan's gestural marks paper and then adding a gold highlight...

Trying some gold letters against the dark background paper...

Using oil pastels to adhere silver leaf and then scratching marks out of it...

Embossing the paper...

Adhering gold leaf this time and making marks and embossing...

Threads I had stitched into the book then discarded...

Susan's rusted tracing paper with graphite and gold rubbed onto it...

It will be interesting to see how many of these options and approaches make it into the final book!  I am wondering if it's simply the colour palette that I am not used to and can't quite find my way around...

A gorgeous gift

As many folk may know I was supposed to attend a big calligraphy workshop/conference event in Portland, Oregon in late June. Because of Barry's health situation we decided to cancel and I was unable to attend.

My good friend Gemma, was one of the tutors there, and it would have been a lovely way to catch-up, even tho we both agreed that travelling to the US seemed like extreme lengths to go to see each other! Gemma now lives in Hobart, Tasmania which is really down south for us and we rarely get to visit.

Anyhow, in the post on Friday a package arrived from Gemma and here is the little magical box within it... some tiny, gorgeous metal type!

I was so excited as I opened it  and I just loved loved loved it.  I also loved that to the side was a separate package with the ampersand in - I know how much Gemma loves ampersands. Gemma had bought it in Portland and sent it to me as a memento of the conference I couldn't attend.

I love all the little bits in it...hearts, clubs, diamonds but no spades? Some dollars and cents and more ampersands including a very funky one at the top. A lovely bracket on the right, some twirly decorations, a fraction and lots of stars.

This is a precious ampersand.

You can see how tiny some of the type is by the scale of the pen.

What a happy day!

Thursday thoughts...

“Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union. Loneliness is small, solitude is large. Loneliness closes in around you; solitude expands toward the infinite. Loneliness has its roots in words, in an internal conversation that nobody answers; solitude has its roots in the great silence of eternity.” 


  Kent Nerburn


Occasionally I come across words that touch me deeply, that let me sit here on my mountain, often late at night and feel as if somebody I don't know, thousands of miles away has reached out and said "yes, you're right, this is how it is".

I often don't even know that I had been feeling or experiencing or thinking along these lines, and then - it all falls into place and the words express it beautifully.

Now and again I ponder why I think solitude is such a pleasant way of being; how I feel it nurtures and renews me and is so often what I  crave after being in company for a while or in the city too much. I have always known it is never about loneliness, but about something bigger and more beautiful than that.

And so it is.

©2011 Fiona Dempster - Umbakumba lagoon

"...expands towards the infinite."
"... in the great silence of eternity."

I'm going to let these words float and flow around me for quite some time.

From old to renewed

I wrote about the sad state of affairs of my nibs a little while ago.  I had lots of suggestions that really the rusty nibs were beautiful in and of themselves and that perhaps Barry could re-use them; or they might make little sculptures on their own somehow.  All great options!

However, I had a couple of other thoughts in mind to pursue, so with the idea of possibly resurrecting them I set off to discover how to remove rust from metal.  Funny how you can go so far down one rabbit burrow you lose sight of the path you have just been journeying on.  I went this way and that, searched here and there, found some whiz bang brush for car rust and the like and Barry just looked at me quizzically and asked "why don't you just try tea?"

I. Was. Floored.

Of course! I have been using tea to remove rust from chains and the like, transferring the marks to paper for the last few weeks - so why didn't I think of it?  So off I went, to see if it was possible to use the tea to remove the rust.

I made up a strong brew and popped the nibs in. Straight away the rust started to drop off in small bits and into the water - changing it to a lovely dark colour (mixed with some ink I think).  I left them in for a few hours, then dragged them out, painted some paper with the rusty inky water and placed the nibs onto paper to see what marks they might make. Added more tea as I went along.

I popped them into a new brew of tea for a bit longer, and they came out pretty well - the tannic acid did its gentle thing and removed much of the rust.

So far so good.

 Not sure why this middle one below didn't work so well - perhaps it was stuck inside another one.

Then I sat for an hour or so and gently rubbed them all with fine steel wool to remove the last bits I could see.

Barry asked me how much nibs cost.  I said they weren't that expensive, but I get mine from the US or the UK now so there is a transport cost factor as well as a time delay, so I wanted to see if I could retrieve this set and have them as back ups in case of emergency. The likelihood of a calligraphic emergency is probably not all that high, but you know...

I think the tea worked quite well, and am pretty sure these nibs have legs for a bit longer yet.

They are now safely stored, in a box, resting on some absorbent paper. If the whole experiment ends up failing and they go totally rusty again - then it's off to the sculpture, jewellery or assemblage department for them for sure.

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?