Webpage and Alcove

We had the opening of 'More Spin on Textiles' on Thursday night at the Alcove Art Shop. I was very pleased that three of my scarves sold that night. Might have to make more! I've got plenty on my plate at the moment so I guess I won't be making any more probably until next year. I sent off my application form for 'Into the Fold' yesterday, the exhibition will be held at Artisan Books from the 2nd to 30th August. I also sent off my contribution for 4 words 4 paper on Friday and have been working towards workshop and exhibitions in July, October and March next year.
I have finally updated my webpage for 2008 and have included a page with exhibition opportunities.
Today I have cut up the raw hemp and some hemp fabric so I'll be able to cook up the raw and beat the fabric next week.
One other bit of news is that 500 Artist Books is out, I haven't seen it yet but a friend has and two of my books are in it. I'm hoping I'll get a copy sent to me.

Hemp and Felt

I have just joined a new Artist book forum, the address is http://artistbooks.ning.com/ . I'll get off the computer some time today! It has been a week of meetings and there are more to come and a few jobs to go with them.

I am not long back from a week in Cairns. It was great to warm up a bit, we even swam in the hotel pool (I hadn't had a swim for over a year before then). It wasn't long enough but we take what we can get and enjoy that. Just before we left there had been some talk on the yahoo papermaking group about hemp and Dianne spoke of organising a conference related to hemp and I discovered that she was from Kuranda in the hills above Cairns. She was visiting Adelaide and Brisbane for some of the time we were there but we managed to catch up before I came home. I'm planning to make more paper from the hemp fabric I have at home and she gave me some raw hemp to try as well. I will need to chop it up and cook it with alkali before putting it through my beater.

I decided to use some of it to make some string before I turn it all into pulp.

I learned to make string from some members of Basketmakers of Victoria many years ago. Here are some notes I made about using New Zealand Flax to make string, the principle is the same no matter what you use for the string.

Making string from NZ flax
Take a thin strip of the flax and with thumbnails or a shell scrape off the outer skin. (optional)
Find the centre of the strip & twist away from yourself with your right hand. Cross hands by taking the right over the left then swap hands and repeat. To add in extra pieces find the centre of the new strip and hold it between the two old pieces and twist together.

The Alcove shop is holding it's Winter exhibition for the next few weeks and the opening is tonight. I have put in some books that I made a while ago, coptic journals with heavy leather covers (from Reverse Art of course!).

I have interleaved some of the sections with some handmade paper, the yellow book had red and yellow wax resist paper and the blue has denim paper.

And I've made a few more felt scarves, I got busy on Sunday and used up all the wool I had and some of the silk. I did two blue scarves with bright yellow flowers,

two landscape scarves

and one abstract.

While I was away Antje's vege papyrus postcard arrived, I missed Yabbers so didn't see the rest of the cards.

Time and Tide

Here are some pictures of one of the books made from cyanotype on hemp paper. I'm making another one with flat pages. This one is a star book with more than the usual number of pages. I like the way it looks extended into a circle.

Remember to Breathe

I pinched that title from Samm's blog but I like it and it seems very appropriate at the moment. For one thing I'm reading Tim Winton's latest book called Breath and enjoying it, Mike got it for his birthday but I snaffled it to read first, he did start on another book, so I didn't pinch it from him really. I just discovered Samm's blog last night and insted of reading all the other emails I read her blog. The other reason it's appropriate is the usual reason so much on my plate I'm doing none of it.

I spent the last two days at Geelong Grammar School teaching as part of a three day arts event for the year tens. I had two groups for two sessions each and we made paper then made a leather journal. The first class took an hour longer than alloted for the journal then stayed on to decorate. I started the second one off earlier on the books and they JUST finished them in time. After two days away I have sooo much to catch up on just with emails and on the computer. Now I need to prepare for tomorrow's Papermakers meeting where I'm the main event giving a framing demo. The hopes were that we might encourange some bigger framed works for the Papermoon exhibition which I'm helping to run in July.

I've been telling people they don't have to be literal with their contributions but there I am going to make a book on the phases of the moon. I'm calling it Time and Tide and I am still working on the binding. I made some sheets of hemp paper at the Papermakers work day the other week and have used it for cyanotypes. I started by cutting shapes from card and using them to mask the cyanotype.

Then I added some cotton which I've had for years intending to make paper from it.

I still wasn't happy with the result so then I cut the shapes from some thick clear plastic. I used my double sided tape to stick two pieces together and smudged a bit of paint in between. I'm much happier with the last lot so now to turn them into a book!