Classes and Recycling

I have been asked about running a coptic binding class so have scheduled one for Saturday 19th April, if you are interested in attending please email me info@gailstiffe.info, it will start at 10.30 and finish about 4pm. I have pictures of some completed books on my webpage on the workshop page.
Yesterday I was sent some pictures from the two workshops I did down at Portland, Papermaking from plants in December last year and Book binding earlier this month, they were taken by Peggy Schwarz.

The Papermaking.


The Bookbinding


I am considering entering an exhibition called 'Discarded' and thought I'd make a book from materials garnered from the Reverse Art Truck. I just called in on my way home from Mum's yesterday to get some paper since all the materials I've used in the books I've been making lately have come from there. Well, half an hour and $8 later I came out with this haul. More leather, some book board, ribbon, brass corners, curtain fabric, paint samples, paper bags, gaffer tape and a roll of paper.



The place I go to is called Reverse Art Truck and is at 17 Greenwood Avenue, Ringwood. I notice from their website that there is also a branch in Cranbourne.

I had heard that there was one in Geelong and one of the participants in the Portland class tracked it down. Here's what she had to say.
'Whilst in Geelong, I managed to track down the recycling place. It has moved from Newtown to the city, and is called - Diverstat Creative Recycling, at 2 Baylie Place, Geelong. Ph. 52215421. You may be interested to have a look if in Geelong, but I wouldn't advise anyone making a special trip as they didn't have a lot of 'stuff' there when I visited. They did say though that things come in all the time. I should mention that the place is a little difficult to find. Baylie place is a back alley with businesses having their back entrance off it, but there is a little organic
café there, and the recycling business is part of that, so you go into the café to ask about it.'

There is also Reverse Garbage in Sydney where my niece happens to work. They also have a gallery selling articles designed from materials they sell. Here is an article about the gallery from the Sydney Morning Herald.

yabbers postcards and CD books

We had a good day at Yabbers today making hemp paper and sewing on postcards. I finally got to beat up the hemp that put my beater out of action last year. I split it into three loads and the first lot I chopped up before putting in the beater. I broke the scissors while trying to cut the second batch so put it in as was and it beat up Ok. We made the paper for our group project for the exhibition then started playing with dropping pulp onto various objects to make really textured paper, it's a technique we learned from Noella Mills, a Queensland artist.


I like using threads and gutter guard as in most of those above. Once they are dry we will paint them with a dark coloured acrylic paint then rub over with 2-3 colours of metallic paint.


The examples above were made by glueing pieces of paper onto card then painting over, they need at least one more colour to bring out the texture.


The CD books we made.

And the postcards, mine is on the bottom left side, I might still add to it before I post it on.

One Year on

I have just realised I've been blogging for just over a year. Time for a birthday cake! Speaking of cakes I've got a few things on my plate at the moment and more to come. Right now I've got the IAPMA bulletin to get out and it looks like being a beauty, I've had a lot of submissions and offers of samples, now I just have to do the hard yards.


I am helping to coordinate this year's Papermakers of Victoria exhibition which will be called It's only a Paper Moon and I guess I'll be making some new work for it. I've also said I'd coordinate a postcard exhibition to coincide with the IAPMA Congress in Burnie (March 2009), watch this space I'll be putting out a call for entries before the end of this month. I might also be working with another artist on an exhibition on Cyanotypes and handmade paper, we had a meeting with the director of Photospace gallery last Friday and she liked our work. Last but not least I'm on a small committee looking at running an exhibition and workshops in March 2009 again to coincide with the IAPMA congress in Burnie.

Our small group from Papermakers, yabbers, are meeting at my place on Wednesday and have decided to have a challenge and make a postcard each month using a different technique (we're getting ready for the 2009 exhibition!) This month we're going to sew on paper and I decided to make mine on the theme of International women's day since it was this weekend. I found some old photos I'd taken of IWD marches from the 1970's and one of myself from about that time wearing the Tshirt I'd batiked with the women's liberation symbol, I also found one of my mother with a group of female friends and thought I should include one of my daughter so we can have the three generations on the postcard and the three colours of IWD, white, purple and green. I dyed some paper I'd brought home from Korea and have used Korean paper I'd felted as a base for the cards. Once they are finished I'll put up a picture. But here are the photos I've used as the basis. The photo of me was taken when I was in India and is as skinny as I've ever been.