Of rust and gunk and other things...

Barry and I spent a few hours on the weekend etching aluminium. Testing this and that and getting ready for some big projects. One of the things about etching aluminium with copper sulphate solution is the remarkable accumulation of "gunk" (technical term) that appears on the surface of the plate as you etch.

It can induce fear into the hearts of those etching - what on earth have I done? Is that right? That looks pretty intense - should I take it out?

Despite knowing it's going to happen, it still amazes me each and every time.

Of course when there are two of you doing it, one can take photos! Thanks to Barry for capturing these fear-inducing moments.

After a second dip in the solution.

And after all that drama...

Whilst Barry was etching, I took photos of my rust pile as we were working on the bench next to the ladder that holds all my rusty bits.  I had been taking the beauty of the rusty bits a bit for granted, so it was nice to get up close and personal with them again and see just how gorgeous they really are. Only the iPhone with me as it was also the timer, but they still make me smile.

Markers

It is Family Violence awareness month here in Australia and I am constantly devastated by the many women who are killed by partners or former partners.  And it's not just the deaths.  I think about all the women who survive, who escape and make new lives for themselves.  I think about the shelter we have provided at different times for women leaving abusive relationships where they were controlled and dominated and made to feel fearful in oh so many ways.

And so I make books.

I am making 52 small books to mark and acknowledge that each week in 2014 at least one woman was killed by a partner or former partner.  That number has almost doubled so far this year to two per week and my heart is filled by sadness and despair at the thought.

I am counting the women on the front cover - hand stitching the numbers from 1-52.  I acknowledge the work of Destroy The Joint and the UK based organisation Counting Dead Women in keeping track of these deaths and increasing our awareness.

I worked out that there are 1,399 upright strokes to be stitched, and then a further 100 or so horizontal stitches to be made. It is taking a long time and as I sit and stitch I send healing thoughts to their families and to those who are living in fear.

Inside the there are pages which are embossed, and further pages that are letterpress printed. One of these pages also contains a page where I have drawn and burnt a pattern (similar to the grid I was working on). Each pattern is unique and marks each woman as unique.  I have added the clock parts again, to recognise that it is time for change. Lots and lots of layers.

I'm nowhere near finished. I have stitched 30 covers - lots still to do, then pierce the pages and cover and hand-stitch the books. And house them.

This is slow work. Painstaking work. Each single book takes time, but 52 take a long long time. I don't want to have to do 104 books next year, but I fear I may.

Thursday thoughts...

“A bookstore is somewhat like an ocean—it may look the same but it is always changing if you are a careful observer.” 

Paul Yamazaki

Today I write in praise of one of our local book shops.  Our small town has a large number of book sellers and for the past couple of years we have run a boutique festival called the Maleny Celebration of Books. We have moved it forward to winter this year - with the idea of cosy-ing up with a book  in Maleny.

We meet regularly at Rosetta Books - after hours Ann lets us all in and it's like being in a lolly shop. Fancy being locked in a book shop after it has closed! Oh my, the books and delights that surround us; it's amazing we ever get anything done!

Ann has a wonderful coffee shop inside as well, so we sit around the communal table and whilst we wait or there is a lull, eyes turn to the book shelves. And yes, the quote is so true; each and every time I sit at that table I look at the books and the titles and the covers and they are all different to when I last looked.

I love the turnover, the refreshing of books and somehow it always makes me realise anew just how many books there are in the world - so many people write books - people buy books, read books and gifts books. 'Tis a wonderful place to be.

Of course if "you just go in for a coffee" there is every chance you'll discover a book that you really really want or need and yep, it leaves with you.

So here's to book shops, to readers, to writers and to celebrating books.

Join us if you can on 3, 4, 5 July - so many great things to do and see; books to read and enjoy and discuss.

The gang of great women organisers of the CoB!

Black and white and white

I looked around the studio the other day and was taken with how much doodling was lurking about - lovely graphic black and white bibs and bobs. As well as some white on white - yum.

These strips of paper were trial prints - and I love that the gouache was still so wet and glossy.

I think the straight line would be perfect for writing letters on or above or below into those wilder spaces.

or maybe vertically alongside it...

More trial prints- this time I think with Habu thread wrapped around a piece of timber. Very random, and I think I would need to be a bit more focussed if I were to do it again with a piece in mind, making those white spaces sit beautifully.

Different Habu thread, different piece of timber.

Stamped letters - white on white (or more accurately I guess it's white IN white)

 And an embossed page. Mmmmm, this one I like very much...

Black and white can be so gorgeous - and white on white is always a winner with me. It's fun to look around and get inspired and wonder where to take these pieces next...

Trialling this and that

Once more this week has seen me in the studio, trying this and trying that.

I don't know if others find the myriad of decisions along the way of the making intriguing, but it never ceases to amaze me how many choices I often face, and how many decisions I need to make.

This time around the decisions were around machine stitching, which side was up?  Did I want the nice stitching on the spine or on the inside? Did I want to trim the ends close or leave some thread dangling?

What size needle to use for some hand stitching? The bottom two sets and the furthest right set on the top row use a slightly smaller needle. I notice it, but do others?

What thread worked best for the hand stitching?
I quite liked the warmer and slightly thicker crochet cotton on these. But then, the needle holes were a bit chunky.

So I needed to check if the slightly thinner and whiter thread worked better - part of the needle question as well. So most of these are the thinner cotton with the bigger needle.  The top and bottom far right ones are thinner cotton, smaller needle; then the bottom left is the thicker cotton with the smaller needle. So many combinations!

I laugh and laugh as I realise the minutiae of  my making life, but in the end, I think these decisions matter. For me, it is in these decisions that the integrity of the final piece is born. Each decision that is conscious, mindful, and thought through means that the piece holds together in the end, and that everything there has a purpose; nothing more and nothing less than is needed. Or so I hope.

Of course, sometime I forget how to count, and end up with 5 strokes and a cross stroke, and decide I'll turn it up the other way and make it look like a wound that has been stitched!

But I do believe that thoughtful making produces a final piece that may look effortless, and natural and as if it were meant to be just that way, and no other...but many of us know that without these choices and decisions made along the way, the whole thing might just not hang together perfectly in the end.

So I smile and continue with my multiple minor decisions...

And end up with lots and lots of little samples.

Thursday Thoughts...

May the sun bring you new energy by day, may the moon softly restore you by night, may the rain wash away your worries, may the breeze blow new strength into your being, may you walk gently through the world and know it’s beauty all the days of your life.” 

Apache blessing

I don't mean to sit here giving you a blessing as you read this, but I stopped and read this one slowly today. And then read it again, and thought to myself what a beautiful way to describe the manner in which the rhythms of the world and the beauty of nature can be there to care for us.

We have felt the warmth of the sun on us in the past few days and we have all gloried in it - felt it's vitality and life-giving properties radiating over us. We basked in it as it warmed and nurtured us on the gentle slope down towards winter.

The moon has been full this week and filled our nights with white light - softly illuminating and helping restore us as we slept.  Sometimes it feels as if we need input from the outside to re-energise us and give us strength and the idea of the breeze blowing into me to do just that is a nice thought. The breeze mind you, not a howling wind!

And oh, what a gift for us all to be able to walk gently through the world and know it's beauty.

I am so glad I stopped and read these words today - my soul and spirit are renewed and I am walking ever so gently through the beauty of this world...

I never tire of this view. Each and every day I stop and gaze at it, in its different moods, colours and light. Some very special beauty in my world.

Pottering along...

I don't have much to share or show at the moment - too many things on the go, going in different directions and few if any resolved or completed!

So here is more of the doodling and pottering that happens along the way to something...

Several years ago I took photographs of the walls of the new Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.  I loved the incised outlines of city scapes and the skyline and how they had been incorporated into the architecture of the new building.  Not everybody does...

I made some embossing plates from some of the images (years and years ago) and made a book "Echoes of Edinburgh" - which has been and probably always will be the head photo on my blog. This piece sold years ago and I was quite fond of it.

I found the plates again the other day and did some heavy duty embossing with them just to see what they looked like altogether on a single page. Interesting, but a bit weird.

And then I started writing words into them, which I quite enjoyed, but don't think will be going anywhere special too soon. Although they do remind me of mazes, and maps and journeys and travel routes and dead-ends and...

Still its always good to have done something, who knows when it might be just the right thing for some other time?

And always good to go back to something and find another way of working with it!

Feeling grateful with the grid

I realise how fortunate I am to have a studio space where I can leave pieces-in-the-making around, and even more fortunate to have a husband who is also an artist.

I began preparing these grid pieces a while ago and really enjoyed them to begin with; and then lost my mojo. I couldn't see that they made any sense except as something nice to look at. So they sat and they sat and they sat. I kept walking by them, looking at them, wondering about them.

And then I started walking by them without looking at them. Not good.

They were very nearly scooped up and thrown into a drawer for another time, when Barry and I sat down to a cuppa together and he asked how they were going. I explained that I was almost ready to give up! He went on to rhapsodise about them and the story he felt they told, and how things really did come together.

I can't explain it all just yet, but he was right.

I felt so re-energised by that chat, that I dived in and moved things around, I worked out how I could tell the story I now wanted to tell, I burnt more squares, changed the paper, changed the layout, got the sewing machine out and told a story.

What a relief.

So here is how they look now.  Still not finished, still with more layers of story to be told, but they have morphed again into a new and different piece. Stronger and better. And the story is there, just not fully revealed yet.

For all of which, I am grateful.