More Validation

Well some things are actually getting completed in studio time - and others are getting nudged along nicely.

Today I pretty much completed my Validation boxed pieces.

Last week I worked out how to sew that pesky Polyester thread by sitting under a table, and this week I trimmed the thread and fastened it in place.

I started by removing the matte sticky tape I had used to hold the fabric in place as I stitched through that very open-weave fabric.

Getting the larger lengths off was pretty OK using small scissors and gently tugging, but I got rather tentative when I was around the stitching position, and left these little squares of tape there.

Here's the pile of tape appearing on my desk mat as I pulled it off all three.

And so I began to delicately, with surgeon-like precision, remove these tiny scraps of tape without pulling the thread out or accidentally cutting it off! It is pretty flexible and ends up in all the unexpected places.

Scissors and scalpels were both used, and I worked through a magnifying lamp as well. 

To be sure, to be sure, I then used a drop of Fray Stoppa (a product I have to stop things fraying when I sew, but which I have never used until now).  I figured I might as well try it here and applied a drop around the stitch to try and hold it in place. Toothpicks were the main applicator.

I left that to dry and harden, and then removed the white protective backing, to see if it really did work to have the piece just suspended in space like I had hoped.

I think it works.  I now have to clean the Perspex and think about pricing, but the main puzzles have been solved and I like where the work has landed.

Thursday Thoughts...

"I paint flowers so they will not die". 

Frida Kahlo

I think I love the simplicity and honesty of these words. With so little, she tells a complex story around the creative drive, the role of art as a memory keeper, the importance of capturing fleeting moments and sharing them.

I love flowers, but I don't paint; yet these words make me think about so many creative experiences where you want to keep something alive - a moment in time; a feeling, the sense of beauty and wonder; the need for protest, the child-like wonder, the awe and wonder of time spent in nature....

Sometimes art and creativity capture things for posterity - as part of the social, cultural and environmental record - so we know what we have lost; or what we still have to fight for. 

Frida says it all so well, and so simply.

A Flying Visit

 Last week Barry and I took off again! From having been nowhere for years, we have flown to Scotland and back, Melbourne and back and now Mackay and back in just under three months. All feels a bit odd.

We headed to Mackay to view the Libris Awards - The Australian Artists' Book prize.

We knew we hadn't won but we did want to see our books and view the others in the show and get a lovely fill me up of artists books.

However.

On arrival, we found this!

Part of me thought it was hilarious that we had travelled that far, and my book wasn't there. Part of me was astounded. Part of me hoped it was nearby somewhere.

And it was. The Council had purchased it to add to its Artists' Book Collection, and it was out the back having an archival box made for it. We went out the back to view the box making and then were able to have it taken back out into the show so that I could see it in situ. Phew. 

I am thrilled that the book has a new home in a collection where people will be able to view it and discuss the issues I was trying to respond to with it. The Gallery runs a "speed date the collection" event once month I think, where items from the collection are brought out and you can spend time with one, then move on to the next and so on, each time talking with somebody who knows about the object and can explain things. A brilliant idea I thought.

Barry's book was under glass, but they had changed the spread a few times so a different page was able to be viewed.

A flying visit like this one didn't really honour the the city, but we really liked the art deco and art nouveau buildings and lettering that we saw. And the big blue sky!

And the burning sky on the flight home.

New perspectives

 I have been thinking about my three hanging works of old gauze bandages and letraset. Like their book-based counterparts (still underway) they are about validating our feelings around this time - from the ongoing pandemic, through lockdowns, to opening up again, through terrible natural disasters, to dealing with the soaring cost of living, to worrying about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, to fearing the worst with Roe v Wade in the US and all the rest of it.

Barry helped me drill holes in the vertical part of the hanging lid and I then sat down to sew them. How hard could it be?

Sitting at the table it was very hard! Using misbehaving thread, trying to work out how long the stitch needed to be so that they would hang evenly, trying to even make a stitch that would hold on the open weave gauze, trying to get my unwieldy needles and fingers to get behind the slightly angled lid bit and so on.

More and more often, I find that if I am awake at night and return to sleep isn't coming easily, I start to work my through my creative dilemmas; the things that are blocking my progression and so on. This either leads me back into sleep; or resolves a problem, so I shall keep using it as a technique for a while yet I think. 

So, luckily, the other night I thought of a way to make it easier to sew: sew from underneath the lid as if I was in the box!

What follows is a photographic story of what it looked like.

Before I began, this piece sitting on a book cover which harmonises so well.

Underway - with tape on the back to temporarily stabilise.

My ingenious solution - blu tac the lid to underneath my desk so I could have easier access to the holes, the needle and thread moved better, and the height and position of the piece was easier to work out.

The view from where I worked.

Looking down.

So much easier to deal with the fly away thread.

I experimented with cotton, fine nylon thread - double thickness and single thickness.

I loved looking at my work differently and seeing it from a new angle.

I stitched and unpicked several times trying to get the height right and the levels within the boxes pleasing; as well as determine what looked best thread wise. 

A few more steps and then I think I am there!

Thursday Thoughts...

"More of your brain is involved when reading than it is when you watch television... because you are supplying just about everything... you're a creator". 

 Margaret Atwood

I have not read all of Ms Atwood's books by any means, but her intelligence and insight when she speaks about reading, books, democracy and the importance of them all is unparalleled in my view.  

I have oftentimes thought about the conundrum of reading versus watching and what is happening in them both. In particular, I read book a few years ago that was devastating in its abuse, self-harm, despair and self destruction.  The writing was such that I was utterly absorbed by it and felt bereft when I finished it - the people had mattered to me a lot.

One of the reasons I think the abuse felt worse was for the reasons Ms Atwood suggests - rather than observing the images of something, I had to create the scenes in my mind. I was actively participating in bringing the scenes to life - a participant creator of sorts - and somehow that made me feel complicit.

Some sort of comparison can be made between watching being observational and only skimming across the surface; and reading being participatory and coming from deep within. 

I think this is such a good way to describe what reading can do - you create a visual image; you make up the sound of the voices; you imagine the setting and the clothes if they are not described in detail; you determine what a person looks like...

I had never really thought about the act of reading as being creative, but she is so right.

Leakey's Bookshop in Invenress - so much creativity awaits!

More this and that

 Studio time is not producing results just yet, but I must say there is plenty going on!

Having said that, it is fair to say I have finished these wee cards. Once again Kindness, Care and Hope are feeling important and I have printed two sets using different typefaces. I expect there is another set yet to be printed, but at least these two are done.

They are a lovely way of using up paper scraps, and also just lovely to have, to hold, to pop in your pocket, to stick on your fridge, to give to a friend or to set by your computer.

If you feel you might need a set of these or would like to share them with a friend - just get in touch and I shall pop some in the post to you.

I enjoyed time in the studio with a fellow printmaker last week and she was doing some beautiful work with some lovely words.

As she printed we stopped and looked at the print, and notice one small part of one letter wasn't printing as cleanly as the others.  Looking at it inked up, it was hard to see what was happening, but we decided to swap out the letter 'u' out and replace it.

Good decision.

At the top you can see the new print, and at the bottom the original, where the tiniest part of the bottom of the 'u' was not inking or printing perfectly.

And here is the culprit - with the tiniest bit of wear to that exact point. Ink was in fact pooling in it as the press inked it up; but it was too low to transfer to the paper. So many moments of problem solving with letterpress!

Whilst she set and proofed type I did a colour swatch of my new watercolour paints. Yum.

And then you just have to love a coffee shop that has tables like this!

And this beautiful fragment of moon one clear night at dusk...

Calligraphic progress

 I have been asked t0 make a book, using a portion of a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

It has been a while since I pulled out my nibs for a commission and there is always a sense of hesitancy when I return to lettering for somebody else. Can I still do it?

I started out early in the week using rubbish paper and ink; and the results were not what you would call encouraging, so today I got out some of the paper I will use for the final piece and decided to sit down and try to write something 'proper' with 'proper' ink.

Always so much better than messing about with rubbish ink and paper, and I don't know know why I didn't start there!

Working wth beautiful BFK Rives printmaking paper, I tested and trialed a series of inks. I was checking for colour and strength; but also for whether they ran.

I was working out which nib width would work (got that right first time!) and checking how long each line would be and how much height a verse would take-up.

I recorded information about each line after I had written it.

All in all I tried out 6 inks, the last one being walnut ink which I mixed from crystals, so I tested out 3 dilutions or strengths of it.

Here's the documentation to remind me. The nib I used (William Mitchell size 3 1/2), the ink I used, followed by the line length and the x-height (4mm).

I liked the strong walnut ink best, so completed the verses with that.

I knew I had made mistakes along the  way. Here I had a lapse and forgot the type of 'g' I should use, so just did the correction it straight afterwards. I also wrote birds not bird.

And here I had the word baleful in my head as I went to write bailiff, and left the second 'i' out so just stuck it in where it was supposed to go afterwards.

And just because I like this angle.

I was testing for colour and bleeding and your can see how a couple of the inks really did bleed on the paper and that the walnut ink held a crisper line.

And so afterwards, I measured the longest line in each of the three verses, worked out how high each verse was (approximately) and then tried to place them on the page where I think they will look best.

If only I was technologically competent, but I do love and trust the old 'cut and paste and move around by hand' method.

It felt like I had really progressed and could begin to see how it might look, and the spaces and places left within the book for illustrative works.

As I worked through the writing I oftentimes wondered how other calligraphers do it. Do they, like me, have the words to be written by the side of the piece they are working on, and glance over to the original, say the words quietly in their heads, repeat the words as they put pen to paper? I slow the words right down to match the pace of my writing. I oftentimes only choose three - five words to focus on at a time, so I am constantly going back and for the between the source and the work.

And I wonder where the mistakes come from - bird v birds? bailiff v baleful? I must have just drifted away in my mind between the glance to the left and the glance to the paper in front of me.

And just because we are getting some lovely, fleeting early morning winter light here are some orchids from the studio garden which I brought home. Their elegance and serenity is such wonderful companionship in the kitchen.

Thursday Thoughts...

“I have made many mistakes in my life, and I am, in retrospect, quite grateful for all of them” 

 Augusten Burroughs

Absolutes are never really my thing, and I read through this one and thought - wow, he seems very confident about this! And on investigating him, it is clear I missed the cultural moments when he was a  runaway best seller.

Nevertheless, the ideas contained within this quote made me stop and reflect, look back, and think about mistakes I have made. 

There are enough to consider. There are the big ones where you know you behaved badly and which leave you feeling icky many years further along. There are moments when you stuffed up and yet things worked out OK! There are moments that felt like the end of the world at the time and yet with time and distance you can see their value and indeed be grateful.

One of the challenges in this for me is that he says he is grateful for all of them. As I look back, I get the feeling I am grateful that I made a number of them, but by no means all of them. How can one be grateful if a mistake you made caused others significant harm? If the mistake you made meant you missed a great opportunity about which you remain wistful? If the mistake you made created economic uncertainty that limited your life choices?

Perhaps his modifier of quite grateful covers some of those.  My sense is that if the mistake had really negative impacts it is OK not to be grateful for it. You can acknowledge it, somehow find acceptance of the path that followed it, but I am a bit wary of gratitude for bad things.

I am grateful for many, but not all of my mistakes.