belated update

I have been doing some work this year, though you wouldn't think so from here, I am just not documenting very well. The first piece is one that I made for a show in Bulgaria as part of the Amateras Foundation's Sofia paper Art Fest, there are five panels each approximately 80 x 40 cm.

Signs of Life - Natural 2013
Various plant fibre pulps, pulp painting

A very good friend of both of my daughters got married recently and asked me to make the invitations. She and her fiance also invited us to the wedding so I made them a guest book in the colours of their wedding. The yellow pulp was left over from the invites and the blue from my Christmas cards. I decided on a concertina format so that several people could sign at once.

Wedding Book for Claire and Simon
Recycled paper with dye and digital print of a cyanotype
Unique state

My book Obsolete was shortlisted for the Libris Awards at  Artspace Mackay, the exhibition runs from 10 May until 30 June, I don't expect to win but it is good to be there, I very nearly didn't enter because I felt it was too expensive but I relented on the last day!

Obsolete 2012
mixed plant fibre and digital print,  tunnel book
Edition of two

My daughter Katy was keen to enter St Lukes Palette show again and talked me into it too. I was uninspired for along time then elected to make shaped pages and turn it into a book with the palette sawn in half for the cover. I kept seeing a face in the palette so called my book Oddbod. Katy has done a fabulous one based on Alice in Wonderland.

Oddbod 2013
Wooden palette, paper made from cotton nappies, abaca and recycled board, cotton thread and ceramic beads
Unique state

Oddbod 2013
Wooden palette, paper made from cotton nappies, abaca and recycled board, cotton thread and ceramic beads
Unique state

Katy Stiffe
Rabbit Hole 2013
Acrylic paint and fabric collage

Butterfly Book 2013
Book board, marbled paper, turning mechanism, black cover paper, New Zealand flax and other plant fibre papers.
Unique state

I have entered these two books in the East Gippsland Art Gallery 'Books Beyond Words - Revolution' Show. The Butterfly book is an extension on the butterflies I have been making for the last six months or so and it revolves when the handle is turned. I scoured our local op shops until I found a music box with a ballerina, I pulled it apart, removed the music and made a new box to hold the mechanism. The other piece 'Revolution' is largely the result of an etching workshop I did with Liz Powell a few weeks ago. In the workshop we used zinc plates and copper sulphate but at the end Liz mentioned that you could also use clear acetate and that is what i used here for the line drawings. I carved the letters for the word from soft cut. Each page is larger by one letter than the one before and I felt the need to have the book circular in format.

Revolution 2013
Paper made from cotton nappies and abaca, acetate etching and block printing in posting tube.
Toji binding Edition of two

Libris

Two posts in one day is a bit much but I'm excited because Artspace Mackay has decided to acquire my book 'Greetings from India'.

Blurb, Libris and Yabbers

I was on Channel 31 the other week in the program Blurb http://www.blurbtvshow.com/#home. I haven't seen it yet but I'm hoping my brother has taped it for me. A friend of a friend saw it and contacted my friend, so I know it's been on.


I finally found out the other day that my book has been shortlisted for the Libris Awards, I hadn't heard anything and figured I'd missed out but when I saw a listing the other day my name was there. I suspect there might be something wrong with my info@gailstiffe.info email. A while ago I also heard that a couple of my books were accepted into the Lark Books production 500 Handmade Books.

In the last month I have made a few things and I got the rest of the vessels back from the Basket exhibition at Artisan Books. Here are the ones that were in that show. Only the large one has any weaving as such so they can barely be called baskets but Daniel was quite happy to have them in the show. They are made from a range of plant fibre papers all of them natural colours except for the red which has been dyed with Cartesol dyes.

I also made some more simple sketch books for St Lukes Art Supplies. This time I used recycled board that I dyed black and leather thonging to hold it all together.


For our next Yabbers session we are planning to do some solar printing. I thought I'd better do some practise samples to make sure my dyes would work. I made a couple of long strips and some rectangles on 150 gsm Cartridge paper, the same paper I used in the sketch books. The process is to wet the paper well then drop the dyes on, spray with a bit of metallic acrylic paint, then drop flat things on to the surface and cover with glad wrap and put in the sun to dry.

Some of the things I used were some young tree fern and geranium leaves and some of my flat plastic shapes that I have for embossing. I'm always checking out $2 shops and the like for glow in the dark shapes, you can get quite a range but they only appear for a short time then something else takes their place. The fern and the plastic shapes worked best but I did get some nice effects from the glad wrap with the geranium leaves. I photocopied one of the sheets onto some handmade paper and used it for the covers of the two demo models I made for my book class on Friday. We did a straight concertina then a concertina with pockets. I used the strip I'd made for the straight concertina and plain Cartridge for the pockets.

I'm considering I might make a set of the pocket books for the Christmas book exchange V is organising for Papermakers. At an earlier Yabbers gathering we made things from paperclay using B's moulds and I made six of each thing thinking I'd use them for the Christmas books. Now I just need to come up with a way to link Christmas with cupids, wings, masks, columns and fish????????? My thinking cap is ON.