Bookmarks for fun

Sometimes I get busy with preparations for workshops; planning exhibition work; planning work I want  enter into shows and so on. Big things, time-consuming things, schedules and deadlines type things.

Sometimes I just decide I want to go play and make something.

And so I did.

Barry and I have this sort of shorthand phrase "just add it to the list..."

Whenever we are baffled by things or think somebody has done something outrageous, or whenever we feel that generational gap widen, we will say "just add it to the list of things in this world I don't understand"

I thought it would make a fun bookmark so I printed it in orange, and then stamped what look like ransom note numbers on them.

The number 1 is weird - you can see it as an outline within the weirdly cut outline, just. It is not pleasing to my eye. 

I kept track of all the random numbers I stamped - that's funny really, recording the random.

Not sure why this photo is so fuzzy but after a few attempts to improve it I gave up.

And as ever, I loved the edges and the hinting.

Some days, it's good just to play...

Thursday Thoughts...

“When you hold a (real) book in your hands, the molecules in your body rejoice.” 

Maira Kalman 

I oftentimes wonder exactly what is it about books? 

What is it that means so much? Why do they matter? Why do they carry companionship with them? What is it that makes them so important to me and to others? Why will I always buy books? What makes me want to protect and collect them? Why do I make books? What does it mean to use books as art? Why do people fear and burn books? What is it that makes them so valuable over time? Why in a digital age do they still feel so essential?

What is it about books I ask?

And hey - its because the molecules in my body are rejoicing.

Love it!

And in the absence of any photos my personal molecules vibrating; this complex ecosystem with sundews in the  bog at Forsinard Flow in Scotland is as close a representation as I could get.

Peace and old words

 As you know International Day of Peace is 21 September, which means it is rolling around soon!  Given we now have a platform that makes selling easy, I thought I would get a couple of sets of peace pebbles up there for folk if they wanted their own little messages of peace around the place.

This photo of the pebble grid before writing just melted my heart. So calm. So serene. So gentle.

And then I wrote on them (a couple had to be replaced due to over enthusiastic ink-filling of my nib).

 

And as ever, I just love their simplicity.

You can find them here if you feel like you'd like a set for yourself or to share.

And then some lovely other shop news - one of my Library of Lost Words has been purchased and will be winging its way to its new owner soon.

Which meant I had to photograph the only other one left and here it is in all its old and rusty glory.

I love this word 'jobler'!

And 'stiricide' means icicles falling from a a roof! Or at least it did in 1656.

The original stories can be found here and here.

This actual Library can be found here.

I do love these wee works - and thank you to the reader who bought the most recent one. Another reader has bought one previously as well! We must like words and stuff.

Playing around with words and flowers

In those in between and random moments I have been pondering what it would be like to have some of the key words in the Women Friends poem printed on a large sheet of paper.

Using our beautiful century old Amalia wood type from Italy, I worked out how many I could get, given the limited number of letters in a fount.

Half way through I remembered we had lower case as well!

So I set them up in the large proofing press and inked them and rolled a few out.

One thing about century old type - it is all a bit variable in its height. As you can see, the lower case m on the left gets hit very early and a number of the other letters must be a lot lower and they barely get contacted at all (INE in shine, l in melting).

Before I invested a significant amount of time into properly proofing the words - checking heights, building them up, trying to get everything evenly inked and evenly heighted (a personal made up word), I thought I should just sit with the pages a while and se if they were going to be of any use anyway.

The second run was better from an inking perspective, but the height issue remains.

So today I cut them down a bit, to see if they might work as backgrounds, then I got distracted by needing to do some prep for next weekend's workshop, so I didn't photograph anything beyond this! Soon I hope.

On another note I finally pulled the threads out of the tibouchina dye pot.

Remember this splendid colour?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. I got nothin'.

Isn't it all an amazing experiment???

So as you do, I grabbed a few more heartsease flowers, added them to the original heartsease pot and threw these threads in there to see what might happen. Still waiting to see.

Thursday Thoughts...

"My life with Miss Sarah got off on a wrong left foot". 

Sue Monk Kidd

Oh my goodness, this simple one line describes so pitch perfectly how some relationships just start bad and head south from there.

I like the double-strength espresso-type description: a left foot; and worse still, a wrong left foot!

Awkward, clumsy, unbalanced, unsettled are all words that spring to mind as I read the description.

It somehow manages to convey that the bad start continued; and I feel for the speaker/writer who probably never regained any sense of certainty or sure-footedness from there onwards.

As I read it, I realised how many culturally absorbed norms we have about left (not being good, etc) and how often feet play in our sayings about certainty and uncertainty.

Surefooted, to wrong-foot somebody and so on.

Not much else to say about this one; just one of those delightful capturings of an experience, done with so few words...

And then there are relationships that get off on the right right foot! Munadillah was an exchange student with us way back in 2012. We hit it off with a blast. We have visited with her in Indonesia, and here we are in Warsaw where she was studying on a scholarship.  She travelled all the way from Norway to the cottage in Scotland in 2018 for a quick visit!  Some friendships are made in an instant...

Spring flowers and threads

 Life is funny when it comes to how you get an idea for something.

I was watering a pot of dark blackish hearts ease flowers that we have near our front door.  I flicked one fo the flowers and it left behind a purple stain on the tiles. And I thought ohhhhhh....I wonder if they would dye thread?

And just like that I was back at the solar botanical dyeing I was in a frenzy for two years ago!

Into their glass jar they went, and sat in the sun they were.

As I was preparing to throw this bunch of lavender out; I thought wonder if... so into a pot they went as well.

And this is how the lavender came out. A soft green from the stems. and the 'juice' smelt divine.

And this is how the hearts ease came out - so happy with that blue!

And here they both are wrapped around their old pegs, after having been rinsed and dried.

And so then, I wondered about the tibouchina flowers.

But I have to report that thus far, they are very uninspiring 

Afghanistan

 Our hearts feel so heavy, and there are layers of grief and sadness.

As the stories emerge from Afghanistan,  I feel deeply and achingly sad for the many women and girls facing who knows what. I feel scared and horrified. I feel so very helpless, and yet no hopeless. 

I wanted to touch something real and hopeful and beautiful and I reached for my book Two Trees.  It is a collaboration between a number of women book artists and some women in Afghanistan.  I purchased a copy several years ago; but it has always resonated as a beautiful connection of cultures; and the solidarity of women across the globe.

There are many, many people involved; but one touch point is the group SAWA (Support Association for the Women of Afghanistan) in Australia.  It is here that I purchased the book all those years ago.

The idea was that the Australian artists would make concertina books; and then through as series of wonderful people and relationships with organisations, women in Afghanistan would choose a book and respond to it by adding words. And then the books would be returned to Australia.

I sat quietly and went though the book from start to finish again; reading in more detail the stories behind the works; and behind the workers and artists who made it happen.

And I was thrilled to be reminded, that the books had been purchased by the State Library of Queensland for their collection. One day I hope to visit them.

And on the website I discovered a new book had been produced, after a new collaboration.

And more tears - the works that were exchanged and collaborated on were handkerchiefs.

Some hankies were sent and didn't make it back as the women's lives changed and they weren't able to participate or complete them. But many did and it is so beautiful to see how they added to the handkerchiefs in stitching. Sometimes minimally; sometimes in bold sweeps of colour and thick, dense stitches.

So if you can. Please go to the website and purchase one of these books (or make a donation). Three of the key women involved (including Gali the lead artist) have been working all the hours of every day to try to get a visa and safe passage for one of their colleagues in Afghanistan - a women's rights advocate whose life is in danger.

Having secured a visa; they wait desperately for her to be evacuated somewhere safe, as the opportunities for that close by the hour.

Go gently.

Thursday Thoughts...

"Pen poised, I sit to attention, in my suit, on the edge of my imagination, prepared for the beautiful line to arrive. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not — either way I am powerless to influence the outcome. So often we stand bereft before our ingenuity, with nothing to show for our efforts. Yet at other times we are ushered in". 

Nick Cave

This is by Nick Cave the Australian musician, lyricist and author (not Nick Cave the American sculptor). I love our Nick Cave. I was probably a bit scared of him in his early music days - so dark and somewhat menacing; but in more recent times he has faced tragedy and from there he has opened up his big deep beautiful soul to people.

May I recommend Nick Cave's The Red Hand Files.

These are the words of a writer, on the magical process of writing. I love that image of sitting there, on the edge of your imagination.  That feeling that nearby; thru a shadowy door; sneaking by in a costume is the idea...the thing, the line. Just out of sight, just on the edge of your imagination.

It seems such an apt descriptor for any creative process; how one can never be quite sure that 'it' will come. The beautiful line, the imagery, the gathering of materials; the outcome...

It feels to me that he truly knows and has experienced that honesty of creativity - sometimes you can be ushered in; at others times you stand bereft.

And you wonder when a thing you thought might be the start of something, will ever come to fruition...

A wee small book

I am still pottering away thinking about what to make, why and how, for the small showing we are hoping for in October.  

I sat with a stack of business card sized bits the other day and played this way and that, and decided to test out an idea.

First of all i though about de-bossing or blind embossing a curl of string.  I had made a plate years ago which had worked out well and wanted to see if it still held up.

Tick that box.

I realised I needed a MUCH longer plate so made one about 45cm long and happily glued the string down. Much messier when working on this scale, and I probably ended up using more glue than I wanted to, it just kind of got everywhere...

So I merrily embossed away and then decided to put them all together like this, using a figure 8 stitch on either side of the card.

As ever, a huge fan of those slightly wild and dishevelled looking threads.

It stretches out quite a way.

And I am most happy with it. I have another one to trial and play with too so shall see what happens there before deciding if I will use them, or just keep them for myself and a record.

And then this was funny. Somehow I saw an ad for this app which did magical things to your photos - especially for online shops.  We are working hard to to try and make sure our photos look decent on the website and in the shops; but clearly we could be more professional.

I thought I would give it a try - it removes the background and lets the object float without distraction.

Before...

And after.  

Interesting.

I can see how it makes the object the focus, but does remove any context. But I laughed more at how unless you pay a bit of money for the Pro version of the app, clearly you get their branding on your images which nobody is ever going to want on an online shop1 Laugh, very clever.

I was also playing with how to add text so the title is not really the title, more about a work in progress...

And because Spring is springing, here is some lavender on the kitchen bench.