Workshop in Gympie

I have just returned from  a really delightful a weekend, teaching book making to the art group in Gympie. It is about an hour and half hour drive from us to them and Barry drove me up yesterday and came to collect me today - and I am very appreciative of that drive.

I do always love walking into an art room/workshop room and seeing the fabulous colours, and the mess on the floor and the tables.  You know you are in a good place when there are paint spatters here and there.

My table...sigh.

And then this lovely collage of one group's previous work.

On Saturday I taught Black Beauty - a sampler book using one sheet of paper with a variation on the Japanese stab binding.  The idea is that folk get to test and try their various media and see how they work on black paper.

We often don't think that black has that much to offer; or that perhaps it is a bit sombre or funeral, but in reality it is great to work with - full of mystery when you work dark onto it; and giving other colours a real chance to shine or pop when you put them onto black.

So everybody made a heap of samples, we stitched the book and then we all went home; exhausted after a full day and with no photos of the finished items being taken - sorry!

On Sunday we moved house to another lovely art workshop space and learned about single sheet binding.  It is always a tricky business yet these folk had great staying power and problem solving and made their way thru the complexity of the stitching and each and every one finished two books!

The first book was a pre-cut sample book, made of mat board.  It is good to work small and learn the sequence and rhythms of the stitching on something not too precious.

Their second books were their own - with covers either cover in paper; or left beautifully grey with a window cut out.

I did manage to grab a a few shots of finished books - Freda's sampler; Cate's book and Marjorie's book.

I loved Marjorie's approach to it - she wanted to do a covered cover, and a cut-out cover so she combined them. Brilliant.

All up a very full two days, lots of learning and lots of fun.

Thank you again Thursday Afternoon Art Group for the invitation and for a fabulous visit!

Thursday Thoughts...

“today … may i be me …. being & becoming.”

E.E. Cummings

It is funny how some quotes sit in amongst the pages of Thursday Thoughts quotes for quite literally years. I scan them as I scroll on by trying to find the one that speaks to me today.  Each week is different of course, and as I twirl through pondering Art, Life and Books, this week I think about Life.

And today this wee quote says - think about me please...

It seems to me that this would be beautiful morning mantra. To start each day with this thought - that my hope for the day it to acknowledge the me that I am - to be open to that, to be honest with that and be accepting of that.

And then to be open to the me of the becoming - the me as I grow, change and learn.

A lovely balance between acceptance and hope.

A gift.

Glimpses of pages...

I have been working steadily on these books - perhaps intermittently - but definitely intermittently steadily!

I have a variable edition of 5. They are different sizes and different papers; yet have the same words and images.

Initially the plan was to do 5 x book cloth, hard covers; but I have begun planning some variations on the covers as well. I wonder if its because I get bored easily?

Nonetheless I am in love with the title typeface and think it offers the gravitas of stones that I was hoping to portray.

It so funny the many little decisions you make along the way - like using a serif typeface because it feels stronger than a sans-serif one.

Five title pages...

A colophon. That beautiful typeface is Caslon Old Face Open Bold!

A few peeks inside - the words and the stones...

It is edging closer.

And in preparation for the weekend - bookmarks for participants!

Quiet preparations

An art life can take you from dreaming and experimenting to making  to pricing to establishing shops and websites, to buying supplies to tidying up and to teaching.  And a whole bunch more I am sure.

This past week has seen me getting ready to teach for two days in Gympie.

Next Saturday I am teaching Black Beauty; and on Sunday I am teaching Single Sheet binding.

I think it alway helps to refresh and renew your teaching kit, your handouts, and your exercises.

Sure, some things work and you know they will; but its also good to test and try new ideas and of course, each group is different and needs its own tweaks anyhow.

So several hours have been spent in my new aerie revising and re-writing; cutting and preparing and testing and stitching. Making notes and tips and generally collecting all the things I will take with me as well.

I love having books around for people to go through, to look at, to learn from and to be inspired by.

I also spent quite a while cutting mat board down to size for their trial books. And of course got carried away with the grids!

Preparing packs of black paper for Black Beauty to allow folk to test how different papers react.

And checking and double checking my teaching notes!

And my timetables.

Finding the odd little things to play with if folk are racing through their books.

Always heaps to do in advance, but so satisfying knowing I am going in well prepared. Fingers crossed.

Thursday Thoughts...

Art is about what religion’s about, getting you airborne. Getting you out of this box, which is life, into the expanding universe –which is what everybody wants. 

Rosalie Gascoigne

I take or leave the link the religion, but I think Rosalie has it sorted about art being about getting you up and out.

I think her use of airborne is lovely - the idea of being elevated, lifted up, carried away...

Life can be good, and it can be dull, and it can be wonderful...but the joy of art being able to take you up and out into an expanding universe beyond the everyday is marvellous I think. An expanding universe reminding us that things continue to go forward, to grow, to change and that art encourages and supports that.

Carl Milles, Millesgarden Stockholm, 2017.

'Away with Words' exhibition

I was invited to participate in this show in the exhibition space at Entangle - living art at Dayboro.

Barry sells his home and garden wares at Entangle; it has a great vibe and is lovely place to explore.
Dayboro itself also has great antique shops, good coffee, a nice park  and art galleries and is worth a wander or a day trip.

The title of the exhibition felt exactly right for me - so I took down several pieces that included text in some way.

My Artist Statement for the show was this:

I love words. No matter what I make, text is nearly always present – in beautiful calligraphic words, in letterpress type, or in burnt book pages.

Each of these works is personal and tells a personal, yet universal, story. Under Construction is a series of meditations on the wonder of nests – the skill and effort of the tiny birds that live on our block. Cartography II seeks to find our place in the world; the journeys we take; the times and places where we feel at home. Wordless I, II and II consider how we can lose our words; how we can be silenced; our voices can be muffled - whether from grief, abuse or by simply belonging to a marginalised group. When our words simply disappear.

When making, I work slowly and meditatively, and all my book and lettering processes take time – from setting type to designing layouts for calligraphy or hand-stitching books. My work is quiet and thoughtful, as I strive to make work that can be quite complex, appear simple and elegant.

Cartography II

Under Construction II and III (Photography by Penny Riddoch)

Wordless I, II and III

All work is framed and for sale at very reasonable prices! Let me know if you are interested but can't make the trip to Dayboro.

The exhibition runs until 26 August - Entangle Living Art, Williams St Dayboro.
Open Wednesday - Sunday 10am - 4pm
Nola from Entangle M: 0449 533 620

Practising and printing

I can barely recall where I was up to with these books; but it has been an interesting process and I have discovered and learned a lot along the way.

I have chosen to print six 'verses' of a poem I have written, onto pages on which I had I printed lino prints based on photographs I had taken of Stone Circles in Scotland.

I had this test page to play with the layout and was happy.  I mentioned the tricks of getting the layout right way back here in June.

Onto the real pages, and I placed a sheet of white paper with the poem printed on it where I thought it might sit.  This was because each page I had printed was different - the height of the print from the bottom of the page; as well as the page sizes themselves.  Why not throw a bunch of complications and calculations into the mix hey?

And then I had a bit of a brain wave - and worked out that if I proofed the verse on goyu paper; it was transparent enough for me to see how the words related to the image, without having much of it masked by the white paper.  Another learning; another win.

So I measured how far the left side was from the edge of the paper and set the press up to locate the print in that location. I did these for each of the five books - measured distance form the bottom; and distance from the edges; moved the chase around in the press to achieve it; marked the press where I needed to line up and then printed.

I have grown fond of this tear in the paper on one of the pages; the grey graphic page.

The pure white page.

 Detail of the tall thin grey stone marks page.

And so by the end of printing, I now have this collection of goyu paper to remind me of proofing with it. It feels like I probably won't forget that trick tho, it worked really well.

Thursday Thoughts...

"No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters". 

George Eliot

I think I have pondered quotes like this before - about how when we re-read a book we often bring a different perspective to it; a different angle and I still think that is true.  I am quite often astonished to find that a book that I thought was life changing and brilliant,  on a re-read seems pretty ordinary or not so amazing after all.

I guess that perhaps its is also about the time at which it was written and/or when you read it.  Perhaps both the times and the the person have changed in between readings.

This happened to me recently when I was feeling like I needed a really good inspirational and thinking-about-art-and-life book; and one that I had raved about, I turned to re-read and couldn't for the life of me understand why.

And I didn't finish it which utterly astounded me. I flicked back and forth trying to find the hook that had reeled me in last time, and just couldn't find it.  Perhaps I have moved well beyond what it was saying or teaching; perhaps I am no longer in a place where it resonated.

George Eliot knew a thing or too and she certainly knew this!

Not the same book.

Photograph of me cleaning my ink rollers on the weekend.