Lots of Lettering

Or at least, lots of letter-play!  My mind must still be in holiday mode as I seem to be jumping from one thing to another at the moment, trying this out, testing this, wondering what if?

Nothing seems to actually get completed though, which is a bit of a worry. I am trying to tell myself that all of this exploring is ground work for something real and meaningful; that having done all of this I will know whether the ideas that are rolling around in my head like a bunch of a marbles on a gyrating turntable are worth pursuing.

I have some big commitments later in the year and I need to get a lot of work done - but I'm just not sure what. I am yet to settle on anything - technique, colour way, materials, subject - nothing! Everything is up in the air and as a way to stave off a mild sense of panic at times, I tell myself I am 'being open to the possibilitites'. So for now I am happy to pop on over and try a bit of this, do a bit of that and see what happens.

As I have been writing this, I kept thinking, this has happened before, and sure enough in early Feb last year I wrote almost the same thing.

There will as ever come a point when things have to coalesce and I have to get moving and making and finishing, and a part of me hopes that bit happens soon!

Here I am writing words on a small square of heavy paper - around 600gsm, then cutting them up into 1cm squares. Sometimes coloured sometimes white. Don't ask...

I have been enjoying playing around a bit with watercolour pencils. you know when you have in your minds eye a beautiful soft finish and try to create it?  This has been fun practising, but I am ever so glad I attending a proper pencils workshop in a few weeks with the talented Gemma Black; I hope things improve after that weekend!

I had left one of my backgrounds out on a desk trying to encourage/force me to work into it in a wild way.  Well, I think I met that criteria!  It is almost done - I have since added a few more things, but I'm not sure to will ever be a real piece...
 

It is quite possible that my only offerings for the next wee while will be snippets; its also possible I might just finish something. At this point I have no idea which way it will go. 

A random record of the weekend

It's been a hot weekend here on the mountain and I have jumped from this to that and over there as I haven't been able to sit still and concentrate for too long.

I was showing somebody some folded books that had been used in a display a year or so ago, and found that a few of them were no longer in pristine condition, so I thought I'd popped them in the garden. With the pumpkins. It will be interesting to record the changes over time - no rain on them yet, just scorching sun.

The pumpkin patch has gone completely wild again and is rambling all over the block...

Looking from the studio shed,

Looking up to the studio shed it has clambered through the hedge and is rolling on down through the coffee bushes.

And there are a few pumpkins here and there.

On a completely separate note (I did mention random!) I have been pondering dry point etching on copper plates - I have this image in my head that I think drypoint can help create.  I like the notion of drypoint because it doesn't involve the use of acid, and is possibly easier to control and/or amend.

Over the years I have purchased a range of sharp tools that can be used to scratch into copper, creating lines and marks and I thought before I even begin, I should really try and work out what each tool will do and how it will do it, so I made myself a little sampler so to speak.

But first the tools - pointy!

I inked up the copper sampler and printed it using different inks, all on BFK Rives paper.

First using Aqua Charbonnels

Then Charbonnel oil-based inks - my first attempt with the oil-based inks was barely there I had wiped the plate so clean, hence the note about less aggressive wiping.

My third run saw me trying to make other marks as well and it is this one which shows some promise I think.

And then as we sat down to dinner on Saturday night - the sky offered us this. Stunning.

Life is random, but good.

Thursday Thoughts...

“Something that you feel will find its own form.” 

 Jack Kerouac

Whatever the connection between intent, intuition, sensing, feeling, controlling, guiding and art may be; it seems to me variable and quite different on different occasions.

In my last post I spoke about how work can emerge without control or guidance; and yet at times some wonderful work appears after really, really, really, working hard to make it.

I imagine a lot of artists feel things and want to express them somehow - it's not always about simply describing something or trying to represent something that you see.

It seems to me that on occasions, from deep within, one feels the need to create or express and in this way, "something you feel will find its own form". Whatever is made or formed is a result of that feeling and is the result of responding to that feeling.

Perhaps the other way this quote works relates to that letting go, getting out of the way approach to art. Something you feel will appear in the form that is right for it, perhaps the opposite to something that you think - which you might guide or control more?

Not sure, but when work comes from feeling I think it has more chance of happening in its own special way.

©2012 Fiona Dempster A Subversive Stitch

This is one of my favourite pieces which really emerged from feeling and found its own form.  It is also the perfect way to start the year with the search for Roy. G. Biv - the rainbow search that Jennifer and Julie take us on each month. Pop on over to see what other folk have discovered...

The rainbow starts with Red!

Silence helps no one

I enjoy this creative life so much. Time spent in the studio is never time wasted, and I continue to celebrate those moments when things happen that weren't planned for. 

Serendipity, things coalescing... like alchemy. Some days I feel as if I almost sit outside myself and watch it happen in front of me, without me being in charge at all.

This book was completely unanticipated and unexpected. Suddenly there it was.

The story begins back in Brugge, where I saw a binding done by metal art worker Mathias Claerhout.  Strange combination! The book was under glass, out the back and not part of his real exhibition. It caught my eye and I tried to think my way through what I think he did.

I came home and transferred my thoughts and sketches across into my visual diary-notebook. As I did it, I thought I should have a quick go at this, so I played around with some pages I had lying around, left overs from another play day quite some time ago. I think I got it.

Then I thought about words, and what would suit this form. I went away and wrote some words using my made up script from a few months back.

I found some book cloth and made some covers, used a bit more book cloth to hold the outside pages together. Fiddled a bit here, there and then stitched, and then there it was.

I don't say that to sound trite - I find it remarkable that years of experience and practice, materials I have prepared and accumulated, my pondering and thoughts, all come together and what emerges is a piece I never knew I had in me.

 I wrote this about it earlier today:

 "The supposedly private nature of family violence means we don’t speak, we don’t intervene and we don’t step in; yet more than one woman is killed each week in Australia by a partner or former partner. 

The construction of this books reflects the hidden nature of this violence, how trapped these women often are, and how hard it can be to leave and try to be safe.  It also demonstrates how hard it can feel to step in from the outside and help. Along with some sobering statistics, it tries to remind us of simple things we can do to try and not be bystanders.

The sombre colours and jagged lines express the danger women face as they live their lives, and try to leave; and the despair they feel for themselves and their children".

Another book that focuses on women affected by family violence, called Silence helps no one.

The subject appeared as I went along and thought about what the binding was telling me - what sort of story did it tell? And so it came into being.

Rusting away

I have found myself in the studio over the past few days planning for this, preparing for that. My book "The Nurses", which was in Belgium, is on its way home, and will be heading to another exhibition in a month or so. In between, another gallery has asked if they can show it, but it is at the exact same time that the next gallery has it, so they asked "could you do us another one?".  Hmmm well, maybe I could do another one like it...

So in order to begin I have pulled out the bibs and bobs that went into the last one, the old paper, the embossing and de-bossing plates for the barbed wire, but I just didn't have any of the grey, khaki rusted brown braille paper left for the hand-stitched peace inserts.

I scrambled around and found I still had 7 sheets of the brown braille paper, and thought, well it must be rusted!

On Friday I made up a solution and had my trays ready, and from there I just rusted everything in sight it seemed.

The brown braille paper got done.

Then some white braille paper.

Then I found some white pages that had been cut and were sitting around waiting for something to happen - and so they got rusted too.

I remembered I had cut up heaps of grey Canson for a book workshop that never got used, and out it came as well for rusting - some portrait, some landscape.

And as I wandered about looking for ready-made-for-rusting materials I came across some luggage tags, and thought why not?

The studio floor was covered in wet and rusting paper for about two days.

Sunday, I collected and collated and pressed and now it is all stacked waiting to be the inspiration for something else.

And after all of that,  the good news is I have the paper ready for "The Nurses v.2"!

Thursday Thoughts...

Books take you under the skin of life, and into all the layers of the wind. Once you’ve seen that, it’s so hard existing on the ordinary surface. You’ve got to keep reading, to stay in the deep. 

Sarah Elwell

I love the deep that books provide - like going underwater, deep deep down into the dark, and then the gradual re-surfacing. The re-adjustment to life on the surface, being reminded of what is going on around you as you lift your eyes and mind from the book.

This is a beautiful description of that experience and like a diver trying hard to avoid the bends, I really do prefer to re-surface quite slowly and without a rush.  To re-surface too quickly leaves me feeling jolted, startled and not quite ready for whatever has brought me back.

I can feel quite disoriented if the transition happens too quickly. In a way it's like waking from a dream and trying to work out what is real and what is the dream...

That descriptor of entering into the layers of the wind...what a marvellous vision that again transports you. The very notion that the wind has layers startled me, and then of course I realised that it does, the clouds tell us so.

I think I am a bit addicted to the deep; when I am reading it feels like home and a beautiful place to be.

Emerging from the Deep, Heron Island.

Waxing and rolling

One of the stranger blog post titles I have used, but I was doing two different things but not enough of either of them to warrant their own full post, so here they are together.

Firstly, the waxing.  We recently purchased some really large chunks of bees wax from a friend's garage sale.  The wax was pretty icky (a technical term) and it was a little bit hard to see the beautiful swan underneath the ugly duckling outside, but Barry encouraged me to buy it so that I could use it for encaustic and other lovely wax things.

I'm sorry there are no before shots; nor any action shots of Barry going at it with the machete to cleave off the worst parts and make the chunks small enough for me to manage...

We thought that if I melted it down, then strained it through fly-screen wire, and poured it into waxed paper cups, then it would be in good shape for me to use, and it was!

Here are some of the 'ick' bits I strained off, and some cooled wax - you can see the perfect soft, creamy golden colour of it.

As I was melting, straining and pouring them and letting them cool, I couldn't help thinking I was making lots of coffees for folk. They even look like black coffee, white coffee but then when they harden they don't look like coffee at all...

Here they are finished and stacked in the cupboard under the electric wok for easy access. You can imagine the simply divine smell that came from an a afternoon of melting kilograms of wax.  It was interesting to see quite a few bees buzzing around the studio door.

I have used about 2/3 of my first cup and the wax is simply gorgeous to work with. Sometimes you spend a long time doing background work or preparation work just so that when you need to use something you can - this was one of those tasks, and a good one for the start of the year when I am full of good intentions!

And then to rolling.  On my list for about a year has been to have a play with a 'roller' Barry purchased years ago.  It is for for rolling jewellery metal through but I had some ideas of things we might be able to do with it - just had to find time to play. So we did.

Firstly I wrote out some words and cut them from stiff card.

And then we got going with some aluminium and the roller, and tried to press the words into the aluminium. Impossible to photograph, I'd have to say that nonetheless I was pretty happy with the marks we managed to make.

In case you're wondering, my iPhone has a purples case which gets reflected beautifully...

Lots of food for thought and opportunities to see if we can take this places I think. We have a bit of work to do getting the balance of the rollers right and working out how to not have it pull too much to one side, but oh, the possibilities do excite me!

Favourites from 2014...

I like this time of year for the opportunity it offers to stop and reflect, and to look ahead as well.

One part that always surprises me is the look back over the artworks that I made this year, the ones that I really enjoyed, that made me smile or made me proud. It is quite amazing to realise what I managed to get done, even tho I never feel as if I have accomplished that much.

There is a lovely feeling of meeting old friends again as I wander through, as some have been sold or shipped overseas and aren't in the studio anymore. There were some good ones, some so-so ones and a few that didn't make my heart sing; but here are my favourites from 2014 - as ever, in alphabetical order because I honestly can't choose between them!

1.  Conversations one of my collaborative books with Susan. This one is just so special, containing both of our prints and conversations with friends, I still love holding it and turning the pages...

2. Fragile Gains is a book I am really proud of. Again pursuing a feminist theme, it speaks of how fragile the gains women have made are; and all three copies are now in collections in the USA.

3. Home is a gorgeous simple print on exquisite goyu paper, that spoke to so many people - it sold really well at exhibition and I think I am up to about 32 in an open edition.

4. Library of Lost Words came out of a moment or two of whimsy and just happened. It worked so well and I love it.

5. New York was my place-based alphabet for A Letter a Week, and I love its soft whiteness and all the memories of our last visit.

6. The Nurses is special; it honours the young Australian nurses who went to World War 1 - such an enormous voyage to serve and care for 'our boys'. We were fortunate to travel to Ieper in Belgium and see it on show...

7. Queensland Literary Awards  another collaboration with Barry, it is such an honour to make  these awards and we love them!

8. Urban Grit graced the front cover of Colophon (the journal of the Australian Society of Calligraphers) and was a piece that pushed me out of my comfort zone after  a fabulous workshop with Laurent Pflughaupt.

9. White Ribbon Day is another book in my collaboration with Susan. It reminds us that more than one woman dies each week in Australia at the hands of an intimate partner. A tough, but important book for me.

10. Words of Hope are not so much a piece but a sharing for those who were thought of and cared about in amongst the darkness and despair that sometimes surrounds us. It felt good to send them out into the world on behalf of people who cared.

Thanks again for joining in the wander down memory lane...here's to a year to remember!

Thursday Thoughts...

“The present moment is the
 substance with which the future is
 made. Therefore, the best way to
 take care of the future is to take
 care of the present moment. What
 else can you do?”



Thích Nhất Hạnh

We're back. We had a little break, but we like thinking about things too much and there are too many wonderful words written to not spend time with them, so here we go again...

I chose Thich Nhat Hanh today, partly because I love his words and partly because he is very ill and I wanted to honour him somehow for his gentle work for peace. He suffered a massive stroke a few months back and is quietly living and breathing in a gentle, coma-like state.

As we face a new year and our minds turn to planning and hoping and wishing and promising ourselves, it seems good to be reminded that whilst we may like (as I do) to have plans, that we shouldn't let them rule our lives and be the only source of guidance. To do so, means you miss out on living a bit I think.

On the one hand I realise the deep and everlasting truth of Thich Nhat Hanh's statement; on the other hand I struggle to really believe that all shall be well if I just leave it up this moment to do stuff.

Perhaps it's true because I am using this moment to plan?

It's possibly about actually doing things now that will be useful tomorrow or prepare you for the future - that in fact each thing we do should be valued for its role in making the future. Perhaps its as simple as realising that sitting down and reading a book is a good way to ensure that you will be more relaxed tomorrow?

I'm sure it is very helpful when you are fearful or anxious of the future, tomorrow or even the next hour or so.  We can do little about what will happen in those times ahead; the best we can do is focus on being present, here and now and doing whatever we can in this moment to look after ourselves or others and prepare for what comes.

I think for me, I can get to the point of understanding that it helps remove worry and anxiety by giving a bit of perspective, and still allows me to use the moment to prepare for the future. It doesn't really mean never think about the future, just see what happens moment by moment...

One of my favourite Thich Nhat Hanh quotes - peace is every step in a wee book.

Wishing you all a year of wonder, creativity, sharing, learning and peace. ..