20/52 'posted' .....

About five years ago my children visited Japan together, skiing I think, and Tim actually  came home with  a  number  of  perspex  boxes for me  which  he  had  purchased.   One of  them was/is  a  4 x 4 compartment box allowing for sixteen books to be displayed.  I have been waiting since then to come up  with  an idea  to  fill those spaces  and now that I am at week 20 of my 52  week  project,  I  have decided that sixteen of my books can be housed in this perspex framework.  

This is the first of those 16 to be housed (in fact it may be more as I may add multiples of books at a time) in this way.  I am anticipating that most of these books will be sculptural, or at the very least photograph worthy and not necessarily have artistic content inside the book.  This is quite rare for me as I have always used the 'book' as a vehicle for my artwork.

The book was made using cut down postcards with a simple coptic binding.  It is quite lovely to handle as it is small and fluid in the hand though I think that the photographs do it more justice than it deserves.

e x 13 .....

Thirteen Envelopes - which is the title of this collaborative project until we find its name.  At last I have begun to think about how to fill, create, rationalise this project.  Actually to be quite honest, I have just started into the work and have decided the rationalisation will have to come later.  I could not find a story line or thread to bind the ideas together so leapt in head first and started printing and embossing and will see where this leads.  Then I will think of the story line!  Certainly not the best way to work but I claim artistic licence to forge ahead blindly .....

The work seems a little like rehashing ideas that I have had already but I realised that in Fiona's and my collaborative work, these ideas have not yet been used.  Our play date was yesterday but we decided to work in our own studios as neither of us at that point had any idea what to bundle together to take to the other's studio.  We both felt we needed all our 'stuff' around us - to grab and inspire.

Yesterday afternoon we spent an hour together for show and tell, and in the actual showing to Fiona I realised that a story line in my work was starting to take shape.  Fiona has begun with a story and her work is coming along beautifully.  I decided not to take photographs of hers knowing that I would post only on her images and not include mine.  She can show hers off.

I must add, that it was a real shot in the arm just to get together and chat about the work.  How lucky are we to have this happy collaboration.  Sometimes when working always alone, I find it difficult to move onto the next thought.  Not quite true - I seem to have a thousand thoughts, but sometimes I just seem frozen.

some of the materials I am working with

the introduction of some etching marks

leather and paper embossing

more small etchings

beautiful small sheets of soft paper - delicious for embossing

gorgeous brown deckled paper bought years ago

this envelope story almost resolved

my favourite so far - you can't quite see my scratching marks on the transparent envelope

This project will be complete during the following week and Fiona and I will get the 'books' together.  There was a quote on an artist's blog, one who had been to see the exhibition in Brisbane a week ago, saying that my 'standing stories' pushed the boundaries of bookmaking.  I rather think that calling our collection of envelopes pushes those boundaries too but am reminded that a book, essentially, tells a story.  And as such in my mind, anything then that tells a story can be called a book.  When Fiona and I visited the 'Cover To Cover' exhibition a month ago, the curator had written 

                                              BOOKS ARE ANYTHING THAT CAN BE IMAGINED.

rust and standing stones .....

It is December and the silly season is upon us ... and once again I am completely disorganised.  At present I would rather be working in the studio but have been so weary from hard work on the land, that I drag my feet a little there too. I think for the next month at least I will be happy to post once a week.

It was wonderful having Fiona as my blogging initiator - but boy, what an act to follow.  I think I have only just worked out that it is okay if I don't get round to posting as often as she and Barry do ....... Maybe once we have finished clearing our land and are in the 'maintenance only' stage of living here, I will spend more time in the studio and have more of interest to show and tell.

I wanted to make some more of my 'standing stones' stories.  There are a couple in the shop over in Maleny but I haven't had any around at home to play with.   I cut and folded these yesterday and now that they are up and standing, I can see what else they need.  Some need stitching, some need piercing and so on.  It will happen over the next few weeks but this week and next I really must concentrate on Fiona's and my next collaborative piece - our thirteen envelopes.  We gave ourselves till before Christmas and that is approaching at a rate of knots.  I really wish I had worked on mine when we made the envelopes together as my inspiration was running high.  I am just not sure where I tucked it.

Fiona and I have a play day at the end of this week and we were going to head to Brisbane to see a couple of exhibitions.  We are however, going to spend the day making a solid start on our project.  I am sure that once we start, the ideas will return.  At least I hope so.

Here below are some of the photos I took of the second state of some of my 'standing stories' - still work to be done but I am liking the way the rusted papers work in with them.  I want to print some black and white ones next.

 

standing stones .....

One of the things I most enjoy about the three dimensional aspect of these prints is the way the light plays with the surfaces, teases out the folds and hides in shadows.  This doesn't seem to happen as much with the two dimensions.

I am finishing these off now as they head over to Maleny soon for my little exhibition - or display really.  I will be over there in the street though for two days explaining to the public 'what makes an artist's book' and also doing some demonstrations.  Apparently some of the authors who are in Maleny for the Celebration of Books will be in the street talking to passers by as well, signing their books I imagine and explaining their creative processes.  I enjoy that side of things - explaining the process. Most people have no idea how much work goes into printmaking, nor indeed into artist's books.

Standing Stones .... I like this grouping as a triptych 

couldn't resist some piercing for texture

If any of you are in Maleny over the weekend please come by and say hello - the display runs from Friday this week till about Tuesday next week. I am only going to be there on Saturday and Sunday from about 10am till 2pm - or a little later if people are wandering by and looking interested!

waiting for finishing touches 

drought dry artists' journal .....

I often count my blessings but most especially when I am out with my camera, or just with my eyes, transfixed by small details that others just pass by.  I live with a beautiful man who hasn't a creative bone in his body and he has learnt to wander off when we are travelling, as I become transfixed by the minutia or lost in awe as I photograph old peeling paint and decay.  Very often, most often, he will be ahead of me as I linger playfully with my camera, and he calls me over to an area where he says there are plenty of the patterns or marks that I love.  I actually think being with an odd ball like me has opened his eyes to the visual world around him - though he would deny that!  Anyway, I am very grateful to have been given these 'extra eyes' as they enrich my life.  I am sure that this holds true for all creative people.

This artist's book I made after visiting an area down on the border between New South Wales and Victoria.  I called the area home for about six years and had spent many many hours wandering out by the weir, a large dammed area of the Murray River.  On this particular visit the area and surrounds had been affected by fire and severe drought and what was normally a vast weir, was a mere trickle of creek following the old river course.   The remnants of old trees and their roots normally covered by water, were revealed - black, tortured, magnificent.

The book is a series of pen and ink, actually bamboo and stick drawings.  Some of the pages are lined with transparent paper on which I have made fine markings.  They overlay the drawings beneath and add another dimension.

I made a double cover for the book - one covered greyboard with one of the drawings attached front and back, and then a double hinged perspex cover actually attached to the original cover on the back only. The book itself is sewn with coptic binding.

I think the photographs speak for themselves.  The drawings are very spare but to me, remind me of the time I spent wandering amidst the scorched roots.  It reminds me of the desolation that was there at the time, when in happier days the hills around are lush green and the weir is huge and overflowing.

So, while the camera can do a fine job at recording what was seen,  I am going to try and be more diligent about making books which reveal what was felt.

two books meet ...

This afternoon my daughter Pip, who is visiting from Sydney for a couple of days, and I visited Fiona to bring our books together for their photo shoot.  Fiona and I have created two magical books this week to celebrate World Book Day.  Not perfect books, but magical.  I chose this word quite carefully as there has been a sense of wonder and unexpected surprise, a gorgeous alchemy of our thoughts, words, marks and effort as our books began, merged and finally unveiled.

The light in the studio was luminous and even so, it was quite difficult to capture the books together .  Fiona's long and lean, crisp and rigid, mine rectangular and softly bound, mellow, not wanting to stand.

Of the many taken, a few images stood out for me - these really just show the structure of our books and not the content.  They actually blend together tenderly with their threads and markings, tracemarks and  images echoing each other's and yet they remain simultaneously individual.

shadow play

My completed book although this photo was taken before I titled it 'In Between the Mountains'.  There is a story about this which I will share at the end of this blog.

Fiona's words concealed through scratched transparencies 

etchings  and pierced translucent paper

hidden etchings - the transparent layer lifts to reveal these in detail

Fiona's white pages and thread from our day working together 

My last page bringing all the ideas I had together 

Fiona's delicious threads

This shared collaborative experience has been both intriguing and absorbing.  Throughout, our sensibilities have been in tune with each other and I think this remained so right until the finishing touches were being made on the books.

I must share this story with you ...........

I brought along my book, with eight pages, to be worked into by Fiona.  All I had done was make two of those pages from some of my etchings and suggested was that I was doing a soft cover book which I wanted to be read in landscape format which meant that the binding was on the top of the pages, not left or right.  Fiona introduced her beautiful words to my book, though did so on tracing paper in order that I could conceal them in my mountains, or let them peek in between.  She also worked two of my pages with smaller white pages secured under thread lines.  Beautiful.  Once I began to work back into the book I decided I really wanted to have Fiona's words visible between the mountains and I pondered hard over whether I should just copy them or trace them onto the page.  Somehow it didn't seem right so I asked Fiona if I could bring my pages back for her to rewrite the words onto the page ..... and of course she was more than happy to oblige.

It was not until I was home again, fiddling with the last touches, that I realised that Fiona had actually written a second verse instead of using her initial verse twice.  She had absorbed what I had worked into my pages, into the story I was telling, and I think tied it all together in the second verse. By so doing she had supplied my book with the cohesion it needed.

Here are the two verses that Fiona has written in my book (the first verse written by Aaron Siskind and lent to me!) because you can't read them without holding the book, taking back the transparent layer and looking closely 'In Between the Mountains' ...

'if you look very intensely
     and slowly
         things will happen
                 that you never dreamed of before'


'in the hollows
      and the voids
             between the mountains
                    quiet dreams of beauty are born.'


That says it all.