Shared Journeys exhibition

I really should be working away from the computer now but it has been so long since I posted I'm feeling guilty. I caught up with my Shared Journeys and My Paper, My Land blogs yesterday but the deadline for entries is fast approaching so I need to bind the book and finish off one more piece. I'm working on a nesty piece which I'll either use for Shared Journeys or Nesting. I've made watermarks using blutac on fly screen with some text about nests and nesting and am making a series of nesting bowls. I have the kapok pod pulp and some corn husk pulp, I did a test run yesterday and the kapok seemed to work better than the corn husk which was nowhere near as strong.
Here are some I made a week or two ago without the text, I'll probably use those for the nesting exhibition.

Casting Workshop

The casting workshop I was meant to be holding this weekend has been postponed and moved to my home. It will now be a one day workshop on Monday 27th October 10am - 4pm, please contact me if you are interested in participating. We will be making some jewellery pieces using plaster, clay and paper.

Here is the blurb

Using Plaster to Make Cast Papers

Learn how to design clay pieces for casting in plaster and how to carve plaster to make low relief artworks. Then learn several ways to bring out the best in your pieces with paint and dye. Day one will be spent making a clay maquette and casting it in plaster. Then a slab of plaster will be carved to produce a low relief design which could be used for a book cover or a brooch. Paper will be cast into both pieces and left to dry overnight.

On day two the casts will be dried off completely and either painted or sprayed with paper dyes to pick up the design. More paper casts will be taken and there will be the opportunity to make changes to the casts if needed.

Materials fee $5 per student.

Shared Journeys workshop

‘SHARE THE JOURNEY’ – AUSSIE PLANT FIBRE BOOK WORKSHOP

Papermakers of Victoria Inc is mentoring a very special workshop in conjunction with the ‘Shared Journeys’ exhibition.

The workshop will enable you to make a one-off book using Australian plant fibres incorporating at least twelve different plant fibre papers. The book will include information about the plants and how the paper was made, printed onto handmade Australian eucalyptus paper. The white text paper has been hand made using an Australian plantation grown eucalyptus blend pulp. These papers were created using the
historic equipment employed by Kayes and Sonja van Bodegraven (Mould
and Deckle Paper mill) during a major commission of 15,000 hand made
sheets for the Crafts Council of Australia’s publication “Crafts of
Australia” - first World Crafts Exhibition - 1974 Toronto, Canada. It
was thought appropriate that the still attached watermarks of a
kangaroo designed by award winning graphic designer, Douglas Annand,
be retained to commemorate the ongoing commitment to and growth of the
art and craft of hand paper making in Australia since that time.

Each book will feature a spine of Australian timber and a unique binding that has been specially devised for this book by the tutor Gail Stiffe. Cover paper will include images of Melbourne. All materials will be provided.

Where: Victoria University

Time and Date: March 21 2009 10am – 4pm

Application forms available from: www.papermakers.org.au

Deadline for applications: March 1 2009

Cost: $100 plus a materials fee of $25

A ballot will be held for places, which are limited. Don’t miss this opportunity to make a uniquely Australian book – a stunning reference work. See some preliminary images at www.gailstiffe.info.

Coming soon

I apologise to anyone looking here for the sample page for the shared journeys book as announced in the Deckle Edge, I will get it up here next week.

Nesting and Hand Held

At the moment I am working towards a joint show with Zoe which will also be shown in March next year, well we have put a proposal into 69 Smith Street Gallery for a three week show from early March. The theme is nesting and it will be cyanotypes on handmade paper and a few other things. We have been getting together once a month for quite some time now and met up on Monday to coat some papers. It was a rotten day so we didn't expose any then but made some fibre paper and turned them into nests by wrapping them over rice bags.


We used a mix of fibres but some we made from pods off the kapok vine, here is a picture when it was in flower and the pods and below a couple of open pods. I made one batch with whole pods but that ended up full of seeds so for the second batch I removed the seeds and just cooked up the pods. It makes a fairly high shrinkage pulp which is a very neutral colour. The other fibres we used were asparagus stems (the tough bit you throw away when you cook asparagus) cooked with carb soda, fishbone fern stems , barley straw and banana all cooked in caustic soda. There are also a couple of gum leaves cooked in carb soda.



The weather picked up since Monday and yesterday I coated some Korean Hanji and tried that out. I wasn't at all sure it would hold together in the washing but I used a couple of large black garbage bins with lids and washed in there since I've found that cyanotypes are better washed in the dark because they keep exposing in the light and you end up with no contrast. Here is one I did yesterday on a large piece of hanji drying on the trampoline. The image of the bird is A3 size and the feathers are actual feathers, the picture looks a bit distorted because I took it from the side then tried to correct for perspective in photoshop.

I have recently taken some of my books into a new gallery in Melbourne called Hand Held, it is focussing on objects and artist books and zines. It is a nice space up towards the top of Bourke street.