black to white .....

Sometimes when in the studio, you just have to laugh out loud. Creative work can sometimes have a completely different result from the one you had in mind.  Over the last couple of days I have been preparing an artist's book - not complete it,  but have it there over the weekend in Maleny to show passersby the processes involved in putting together an artist's book.

I had in mind to do a black book as I had these yummy 'bits' of happenstance into which I thought I would work.  Keep it all black and white, black covers, black ink overlaying the images - dictating what they should be, or at least suggesting to the viewer a storyline.

The more I prepared this book, the more obvious it was to me that in fact it is a white book and that I would be using white ink, graphite and transparent paper into which I could scratch.  Quite a gentle book in fact.  It will be interesting to see if it stays that way!  Once again it is about my sense of place, or belonging.  I seem to have that in the forefront of many of my ideas of late and I think it is because I am now so happily settled in this new home and have been carving out of it a sense of belonging ........  

This will be familiar to those who saw my post on our land and our STEEP stairs and tracks!

Have not really decided on a direction for these images .... hope to be inspired tomorrow.

he loved the ocean best .....

My father died at the beginning of this month - losing his dignity to motor neurone disease and so in many ways, his passing was the kindest thing.  His death coincided with the second of the collaborative works Fiona and I have been working on and not surprisingly, this heartbreak translated into a book dedicated to my father.

There is so much layering in the book, which stands upright in four separate though joined sections representing the four in our family. Separate though connected.  The books is a mix of hard and soft which is how I think of my father, but even the hard aluminium and the mica seemed to turn warm and tender in the making of this book.  There are messages to him, embossings of his initials and mine and the birds he so loved. But he loved the ocean best - and this I have represented on the front of each section with threadlines forming the ebb and flow of the tide.

I won't say any more about this book as I think the images speak louder than any of my words ...

wordless wednesday .....