2021 tick .....

For many, and I suspect most of us, it is wonderful to be saying goodbye to 2021 and welcome this New Year which we hope will be brighter, more gentle and more connected.  By that I mean that we have the opportunity to connect with those we have missed over the last couple of years, or places that we miss and have been unable to visit because of restrictions.  By no means do I think our troubles are over with this pandemic, but I hope this year allows us all more freedoms to spend time with those we love, and enjoy the places we love to spend time.

This drawing below is called 'hope' which is apt I think.  So many of my musings have begun with I hope this or I hope that.  This was not the only inspiration for this work.  I drew upon Emily Dickinson's poem

'Hope' is a thing with feathers - 

that perches in the soul

and sings the tune without the words

and never stops - at all.

 'Hope'

This series of five drawings are all done on architectural drafting paper which gives them a luminesecence which you cannot tell with the photographs.  And they are quite large - 900mm x 700mm.  It is one of those bodies of work that comes from that place where you let go and something else takes over.  I do not often work with this kind of emotive work, never comfortable with wearing my heart on my sleeve, and it is a deviation from the work I had been doing largely last year.

'Gathered'

I am hoping (there I go again!) that the work speaks for itself and speaks about the various aspects of feeling vulnerable and protected simultaneously over the last year.

'Sheilded'

'Solace'

I spoke in my last post of the exhibition 'Red Threads - Holding and Connecting' which was being held in Fiona and Barry's wonderful Deckled Edge Press Studio and which you can read about in Fiona's post.

'Held'

I am happy to say most of my work, large and the smaller ones too, found its way to other homes.  I had very lovely feedback from visitors to the small showing that they just stood in front of my work and gazed.  Lovely supporting words to hear. I think every artist wants to know that people take the time to really stop and look at their work.

Though there is much to say I am now preparing for teaching a few keen artists who want to explore the art of making books.  The studio is ready for show and tell next week and soon thereafter we will commence.  It will be great fun for me to revisit the techniques and design of artist's books as I have not made any for some time.  

Wishing everyone a much happier year this year.  I will add that my year was pretty easy and not that much different from other years.  We live on ten acres where every day I look down through the trees and along the coastline of the Sunshine Coast and am so thankful to live in such a gorgeous spot.  Not too difficult to isolate here - though I have missed that steady connection with family and friends.

the red thread ...

 

A showing of recent works by

Susan Bowers, Fiona Dempster, Stephanie McLennan and Tory Richards.

A collection of prints, mixed media drawings and artists' books

The theme 'The Red Thread' has given us all the opportunity to explore in our own way what it means to have threads holding and connecting us to each other and the world especially at a time when the world has seemed very strange indeed.

Sometimes it takes an exhibition or in this case a 'showing' of work to motivate you back into the studio, and back into the blogging world where I am quite shocked to realise it has been years since I last posted to tracemarks.  I have missed it. Now that I am here over three years later, not only has the format for blogging changed by I think my work has too.  Certainly I have been exploring concepts that have seen me wearing my heart on my sleeves a little and I will be posting more on that, and on the works that I am submitting for show, at a later stage.

I am including below one of the images of a series of five large drawings - 900mm x 700mm - which have been done with the idea of spiritual connections.  The intangible forces that surround us and hold us. As is often the case in a small version of a large work the detail is lost.  As you may have read in previous posts of mine that I have not been able to work with intaglio etching and since then have been searching for a way to reproduce the plate tone I so loved with copper plate printing.  This is the closest I have come to realising that effect with drawing.

'Hope'

maleny printmakers .....

I am back after a few weeks absence.  In the meantime many of you have commented on the wedding book I was making (and which was very well received) and the 'In Between Dreams' series I have been working on.  Thank you so much for watching this space even with me in hiding.

My mum died the night after the wedding, two weeks ago, and it left me bereft, exhausted, frantic etc - all those things we experience when we lose a beloved parent.  My father died last year, so with my mum's passing it means packing up and cleaning out of the home, preparation for sale and so forth.  A time consuming, and energy consuming task.

It is that stage of our lives ..... and life goes on apace. 

Like Fiona, I have been very busy trying to get all our small prints ready for the Maleny Printmaker's Exhibition.  Luckily I had done all the printing of these images (I think I printed about 150 in all) before my mum died and now I am busy with the signing, collating, cataloguing etc.  Artist's Statement and CV to come and then I am almost ready for Thursday when we set up the Exhibition.  Steve and I have all the friends we travelled though the desert with, here for the weekend as well so it will be a busy few days and quite a welcome change from all that has preoccupying me of late. 

The first three of these little pieces required quite a bit of work and are representative of my work of late.  They begin their lives as engravings and then I add black ink, watercolour and graphite layers.  I have worked some in warm, some in cool and some in black and white.

The next two prints follow in the same vein with engraving and ink, but the inspiration came directly from Ann Symes who gave me the idea of producing very small vessels.  I work often with vessel images in my etching, and also many of my larger drawings, and it had not really occurred to me that I could achieve a lovely result with these small images.  I think they actually work very well and will continue with them in a larger format as well.

You may remember these small etchings from the 'play day' a few of us had a Fiona and Barry's home - learning to print on aluminium with copper sulphate.  I added all the embossed marks later.

Friends cannot believe I have sold out my 'soul' with this little heart piece.  I have already given away a number of these and they seem incredibly popular!  Who would have thought. 

These little flower etchings also have a broader market appeal I imagine.  They are printed in many bright and varied colour ways, though for this blogging exercise, I did not want to shock you all with my use of colour .....

The few days we are open promise to be lots of fun .... we have prepared 'shopping lists' for those coming along in the hope that they realise what a wonderful chance this is to stock up their present drawers!

artist's book exhibition and bookplates unbound .....

Yesterday I spent a wonderful afternoon down in Brisbane - a double exhibition.  Book Plates Unbound and a marvellous Artist's Book Exhibition.  You will see the invitation that was sent out by Wim and Adele at the end of this post and if you have the chance to visit this exhibition in the next week, take it.  There is some really amazing work there - very beautiful, very varied, often surprising and definitely worth a visit.

I have the privilege of knowing a number of the artists represented in the exhibition but there were some I did not not know and wow, I will certainly be watching for their work down the track.  More of that later.

Firstly, Book Plates Unbound.  This was a project conceived by Gael Phillips and Wim de Vos in which 31 Queensland artists took part.  We were each asked to produce a book plate, print 40 of them and submit them with an Artist's Statement.  These book plates were then tipped on mount paper and boxed with separate statements and translucent paper interleaves.  The resulting boxed set is stunning - beautiful to handle and presented very professionally in Solander boxes which have been stamp printed.  I will actually post on my copy of this edition during the week.

Below you can see the book plates hanging so we could all have a good look.  A lovely variety of images and each image very indicative of the type of work each artist makes.  I am honoured to have contributed to the project and will always cherish my edition.  

This is a display of the plates which were used to print the book plates and they are very beautiful in their own right.

The entertainment was marvellous - pity their was no room to dance!

Here is a glimpse of just some of the work in the exhibition - I didn't photograph many details of pieces because  I don't think it is my right to do so, but just to whet your appetite and hopefully send you scurrying along to see the work in detail - here are a few peeks.

books by Adele Outerridge

book by Grahame Bligh

tunnel books by Wim de Vos

books to be opened and enjoyed

Fiona Medhurst - Silhouettes 

two books by Glenda Orr

a couple of my books and others

two photos with details of Philomena Drakes'  Old Stuff and New Stuff

Wim's Chrysler Building book

another of Philomena's books

There were so very many books here that completely captured my imagination.  I am only going to mention a few and one of those must be about my absolute favourite book - Silhouettes by Fiona Medhurst. I often talk about keeping it simple - not over working images.  Not that I manage this all the time and I am sure some of my work looks quite laboured.  This book by Fiona is the very essence of simplicity.  Linocut images in black and white printed on a page of semi transparent printing paper, the same forms used again in a different arrangement on the page below and so on.  Some of the pages have one form picked out in red and in varying degrees, images from the pages below show through forming a gorgeous poetic dance of fluid form.  To me it is the essence of simplicity and beauty combined.

Another work which captured my imagination was Mena's (Philomena Drake) work Old Stuff  New Stuff  is another such simple book - simple in concept I would say but very intricate in the binding which she said  Adele helped her work out  - a  very old fashioned form of coptic binding which was necessary to get through the pieces of cedar wood.  I guess I was drawn to this piece initially because of the rusty bolts and wood, but the more time I spent with it, the more I noticed.

An artist whose work I did not know and now will watch out for is that of Glenda Orr.  Initially I was drawn to her folded book Log Forest - a very strong piece folded down from a single print. However, next to that was her boxed, unbound book the title of which I am ashamed to say I don't remember.  I remember her prints and embossings within however and these just need to be seen.  Exquisite, detailed use of aquatint and such perfect embossing that I am completely envious. I would dearly loved to have photographed some of these to share with you but as I said earlier, I didn't  feel I have the right.

Though I have on written about a few, there were many, many wonderful pieces both in the artist's book exhibition and in the Book Plates Unbound.

A few of the books were chosen to be bought for the State Library Collection of Artist's Book by Helen Cole, and I feel honoured that one of my books was amongst those chosen.  A good day for me all in all.

________________________________________________________________________________

Hello Everyone,

You are invited to our exhibition opening at 2.00pm, Saturday 24^th November 2012 (see attachment for details).

Bookplates Unbound, a project initiated by Gael Phillips and Wim de Vos will be opened by Anne Jolly from Novel Lines bookshop, Paddington

Artists’ Books, work from the Studio West End ‘family’ will be opened by Helen Cole, Senior Librarian, Coordinator, Australian Library of Art, State Library of Queensland

Both exhibitions will be open daily for viewing daily 10.00am to 4.00pm until Sunday 2^nd December

Also attached is the brochure for our 2013 Summer Workshop in Printmaking, Book arts, Drawing and Painting which starts on Monday 7^th January.

You may enrol for one, two or three weeks starting whichever week suits.

It will be an exciting three weeks of learning and creativity...............and fun too............

Enrolments are open now. We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

Adele and Wim

If you wish to unsubscribe please let me know.

Adele Outteridge Wim de Vos

Studio West End

35 Mollison St, West End, Qld, 4101, Australia.

Phone/fax 07 3844 8469 (+61 7 3844 8469)

Almost ready .....

It has been a really busy time in the studio and my standing stories are taking shape.  Had a meeting with Sheila from Maleny Additions on Friday, who is promoting me as a book artist during the Maleny Celebration of Books and converting her shopfront into a showcase of my work.  What a privilege. I will be there over the celebration weekend talking about my books and showing various techniques of book making and binding.  I am planning to start a little teaching again next year and so this will be a great opportunity to see what interest is about.

I am quietly excited about these standing stories - all of these are part of my 'short stories' - nothing over about 80cms.  They are all printed with etchings and embossings.  As yet they are not stuck down as I am contemplating a few with stitching.  I prefer the 'keep it simple' principle but I do want to have a play.  After all, these are just the first ideas - plenty more to come.  These are only two of my stories 'Winter' and 'The Seasons' but by the time I exhibit I hope to have my abstract story done, my kite flying and standing stones done.  Depends how time pans out.  The next couple of days I need to dedicate to the printing of my fourty bookplates.  They are due by Friday.

As you can see, I have ventured from my very earthy palette into brighter tones - autumnal and harmonious but still way brighter than I usually work.  Must say I am loving the rich reds and ochres, even the purples.

More work to be done so once again, a post on the run.

A beginning...

Sitting here with my friend Fiona from Paperponderings, learning how to set up a blog.

This book is on its way to the New York Art Show in April with Galleria Bacchus.