J = 60

My friend Julia is turning 60 shortly - a big party being organised by her children with friends dating back forever!  Julia is one of those incredibly special people who makes friends with everyone, finds time to enjoy and help them all and never seems to lose touch with those who have become her friends. She is beautiful.

am planning to add this envelope and embossing to the top of the solander box

a selection of scrumptious papers

two tags - one with a J and one with the magic 60 - which just dangle on the book

I have had a few weeks of making rather than creating - though there is plenty of that waiting in the wings.  It has been good to have this time to tick a number of 'to do's' off the list.  My contribution to the 'talent' section of this day, is to create this book which I hope everyone who is there at the party will manage to write in for J. It is housed in a solander box which will have room to store cards and mementos as well as the book.  I have used a gorgeous piece of marbled paper, amidst others, to make this book.  It was made by Steph McLennan and was purchased by me at her Open Studio this time last year.  She is one of the many who will be opening her studio doors to the public during the Open Studios programme here on the Range through to the first weekend in October. Her studio is really worth the visit, hidden as it is down a looong drive and nestled in a wonderful garden. Her work is delightful and the Studio warmly welcoming.

marking (making) time .......

I have been unwell - a rotten winter for it really and it seems to have gone on for ages.  This last week the worst and hopefully soon will turn the corner.  I mention this because I am not doing my usual posting, nor have I been feeling like anything creative.  I think this happens to us all when we are unwell and creativity slips out the door.

I have actually kept busy and distracted though and caught up on the 'making' of a couple of  promised bits and pieces that I hadn't made time for previously.  Steve's daughter Karly married Doug, a Scotsman, a few months ago and I have been wanting to make a special wedding book of their day ... something intimate and personal.  This was finally completed - after about eight long days of work beginning with looking through 1300 professional photographs of the wedding and deciding which ones to use.  I also had said, months and months ago that I would make Karly a perspex box for her shells .... something that could sit on the coffee table as an art piece ..... something with room enough to collect more.  The box is lidded rather than sealed as this way more shells can be added.

Both these projects are finished and can be crossed off the 'to do' list.  Some times being ill can be a good thing!

I used a heavyweight Magnani cotton paper - 350 gsm for the pages which have either been embossed or cut into to frame the photos.  I left the pages open until after the book was sewn and then each doubled folio was stuck down.  This meant I used both sides of the paper and it meant a huge amount of measuring and cutting to make sure all the photos were properly framed.  The book is coptic bound with perspex covers and then I also made a perspex slip case which gives a lovely contemporary feel to the book.  Gosh I hope they like it.  They will be up over the weekend staying with us so I will pass it on then.

Hopefully next week will see me more creative in the studio but it has been marvellous to get some of the 'making' completed.

rusty bits .....

Can't wait to find time to play.  Found these gorgeous rusty bits in Steve's shed and am looking forward to seeing what marks I can make, what stories I can tell.

Had a week's break in Vanuatu which was divine and a very welcome break.  Those of us who are lucky enough to travel know that it is no holiday.  You often arrive home and need a break!  This week was just that.  Completely and utterly.  Busy catching up with life before I can spend the time I want to look and see what blogging friends have been working on and posting.  Always a treat.

wordless wednesday .....

rust and ferrous snowflakes ....

This morning I braved the cold winds and chill to plant some hydrangeas in front of the studio.  Somewhat distracted,  I looked into the two plastic containers that had held caustic soda and ferrous solution for my rusting some time ago.  The trays had dried out and formed these glorious artworks in the base of each tray.  The first few photos were taken in situ - beautiful marks resembling snowflakes, and snow drifts.  The magic happened then as I turned, tray in hand, towards the sun and the light came up underneath the plastic trays and caused this breathtaking illumination.  Wish I could take the credit - but nature has a way of trumping even our most ambitious ideas.

And here comes the sun beneath ......... other than the natural light,  the photographs have not been manipulated in any other way.

Many years ago I watched a programme on SBS television on Fractal Geometry and the Mandelbrot Set in particular. I was totally absorbed by the patterns created when a particular mathematical equation was entered into the computer (this was impossible to do prior to computer capabilities), each variable answer was given a different colour and the computer took this information, extrapolated the results and translated them as ever repeating coloured patterns - the more closely you zoomed in on one area, the same pattern was shown to repeat and this went on infinitely.  Of course I am not really explaining this in any adequate manner - you need a mathematician to do that and a superior brain to follow it all.  As an artist though, I was totally transfixed by the gorgeous patterns growing and repeating on the screen - resembling paisley patterns and beautiful mandalas which we have used in artwork over the centuries.  

If you look at the marks often left on the sand as the tide recedes you will see arms with protrusions, and on each of those protrusions more similar patterns occur.  It is completely fascinating.  If you have any interest in trying to understand what I am talking about just google fractal geometry and the Mandelbrot Set and there is a wealth of information and a you tube video to watch.  It is really well worth it.

Why am I writing about this?  Well - I see the same patterns arising here in the dried out chemical solutions. It reminded me so much of this programme on fractals.  Did any one else out there watch it?

I hope so - and if not, head to google!

tracemarks .....

A couple of posts ago in Fragments of a Life I commented on the traces we leave behind, or the marks we make on the landscape.  I have a body of work, mostly etchings, that form a study on 'The Art of Language' which deals with the theme of how we as humans found ways to make our mark in the way of language.  Initially carved into rock or painted on rock, long before the advent of writing as we know it today, we liked to let others know that 'I have been here' and placed my mark.  

I wish I could write as eloquently as Stephen Fry who recently produced a programme for BBC on Planet Word, or Patti Roberts-Pizzuto who in one of her posts wrote so beautifully about her dailies and how the purpose was not to be rigid  as "the point is to commemorate the day, in a way .... to notice it, to make a note of it .... to leave a trace."  I am always envious of those artist's who create visually but also have the gift of words.  

Without those words, I often leave it to my work to say what it is I am trying to say.  I have included in this post, photographs of a couple of etchings from 'The Art of Language' which I hope show how I feel about us leaving behind traces of ourselves on the landscape.  For some of us that is quite literal, but for many it is just the sense that we have lived and left, and that if you look closely enough you will find evidence that we have been.

'Woman in the Landscape' - etching by Susan Bowers (detail)

'Woman in the Landscape'

'Man in the Landscape' - etching by Susan Bowers (detail)

'Man in the Landscape'

The etchings are actually coupled with embossings - more marks!  As a drawer from childhood, the change from drawing into mark making has been quite profound and I think was brought about when I began practicing the art of etching.  My earlier etchings were overladen with fine line and cross hatching, very representational of what I was drawing as most of the old etching masters used to produce by way of illustration used for print.  However, as I began to let go the structure of drawing and tried to suggest what lay below the surface, I realised that beautiful marks could be made that seemed to sing far more vibrantly that well executed lines.  Etching on copper in particular gives rise to beautiful marks and that combined with the plate tone which could be manipulated on the plate gave rise to a very different approach for me.

finished with moeraki ......

Back in June I posted on the Moeraki Boulders in New Zealand which have really captured my imagination.  Hopefully one day I will do some of the etchings I have in mind for these unusual boulders but who knows ...... at the moment my mind is racing with so very many ideas that many just get left in the 'some day' pile.

Here are some of the details of the finished book.  Actually I may make a cover for it yet but haven't quite resolved that ...... may just end up with a perspex slip case.  In some of the photos you can see the use of graphite.  I have actually used graphite line work throughout the pages but the lines don't always show up on the pages as they need the light to catch them. The book is sewn together with a simple black coptic binding though you can't see that against the background. Back in the previous post on Moeraki Boulders, you can see a few of the actual photographs I took.

The threads have been left very loose to indicate the ever changing play of the tide in and around the rocks and the piercings are there to suggest the beach texture.

This is a detail of the front cover - in many ways I wish I had embossed all rocks into the paper rather than stick some of them in as with the image above.  I still think they work quite well though as they are made from the same papers - using the cutouts and a little extra detailing with graphite. I love some of the blues that have appeared in this paper.

Though it would appear so, this final image is not altered.  The rich colours of the rusted and ink greyed paper edges are rather gorgeous in their own right.