Pear Prints

I just noted that it is almost a year since I posted so thought it was time for another. It isn't that I haven't done anything in a year but there have been a few changes around here, the biggest is that my partner has retired. Last year I taught a few workshops and spent quite a bit of time making preparations and samples for these. So far this year I have three workshops scheduled the first was last weekend and it was making paper from denim and making books based on the accordion or concertina structure. In preparation I made quite a lot of denim pulp and a blank accordion that I thought I should add some prints to. I pulled out some old lino and MDF cuts and printed them onto some 300 gsm hahnemuhle that I had left over from another project.

I had a whole set of pear prints but at the same time we had lots of pears on our tree and the lorikeets were really getting stuck into them so we picked them all even though they were very green. I figured I'd try cutting one in half and printing from it and I had a lovely time and was pretty pleased with the results.

Then I made some collages and made some cards with pear prints.

My first accordion I filled with collages and pear prints.

The next two are blank inside and have pear prints and collage on the covers.

Exhibitions and workshops

I just realised it is over two months since I posted, I have been off the grid because we have had builders here converting two rooms into a bed and sitting room and totally changing the bathroom for disabled access so that my 92 year old mother can move in with us. She is currently in independent living in a retirement village and although she is reluctant to move she realises that she is struggling with preparing meals and other things. I have sort of been the project manager running around chasing after all the bits and pieces. It is now 99% finished and looking good.

The move also means that I have had to sort out all my STUFF that was jammed into one of the rooms. It has hurt but I've thrown out lots of artworks from my 30 odd years of producing and others have been jammed into plastic crates for storing in a couple of sheds in the backyard. I nearly have my workroom back, there are just a few things to find homes for and maybe a bit more to discard.

Meantime I have been preparing for some workshops in Colac that may go ahead, I am beating up some denim, after three days it is nearly done! I have also beaten some calico and another load of mixed quality papers including abaca and cotton rag. I am also teaching plant fibre but in my clean up I found a box of fibre cakes that I had stored several years ago.

Last week I got in and made a few books that are covered in book cloth and decorated with pieces of some old pulp paintings that I was reluctant to discard. I will be taking these to the Alcove Art Shop for the Winter Delights Exhibition. 

I have done a few cards, still with butterflies, these may be the last! Some of these papers were in timber light shades I made years ago and recently pulled apart so they are recycled in a different way.

I have also been invited to be part of this exhibition at the Highway Gallery in Mt Waverley.

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.

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'.

Back to work

I tried the beater without it's cover and it was as quiet as a mouse. I can probably use it that way without too many problems since the beater itself is in a custom made cupboard and there is no danger of anyone getting their hands in the belt. I beat up some strelitzia that we had cooked up at the workshop down in Portland late last year. I combined it with the denim I'd beaten the previous week to make a couple of pieces that I've called 'An Exploration of Pattern in Denim and Strelitzia' and 'Another Exploration of Pattern in Denim and Strelitzia'. These two pieces are now in the Alcove shop at Box Hill Community Arts Centre. Some sheets I made where I laid strings diagonally across a denim sheet then couched a strelitzia sheet on top and vice versa then after pressing I pulled out the threads. I made another lot with a little bit of pulp painting and others I made by pulling a thread through the pulp then laying it across the square of paper and pulling the thread out. I prefered the effect I got with the strelitzia on the denim with this last technique. I used two small mould and deckle sets one about 5 x 5cm and the other around 8 x 8 cm. Apologies for the quality of the first picture I used my old camera and it must have been a bit too dark when I took the picture, at least the detail worked out pretty well.

'An Exploration of Pattern in Denim and Strelitzia'

'Another Exploration of Pattern in Denim and Strelitzia' and Detail

I have decided to put two books in the Contemporary Art Society Show on Herring Island. The show is called Contemporary by Nature so I've decided to put in my 'Pineapple Book', which is made from dyed pineapple paper and my 'Magnetic Island Butterfly Book' made from kenaf and strelitzia paper and driftwood and inspired by the hundreds of beautiful black and turquoise butterflies on Magnetic Island.


Pineapple Book


Magnetic Island Butterfly Book

Yeah! The beater works

Well at last my beater is back working, thanks to David. It is still way too noisy so I don't like leaving it on for more than an hour at a time. I've beaten up some denim, haven't got any plans for it at the moment but I guess something will come to mind. I'm going to try beating some plant fibre without the cover on the belt and if that's a lot quieter I'll see if I can get a larger one made or the one I've got adjusted so the wheels don't bang on the cover.



The Contemporary Art Society has an exhibition on Herring Island and I'm thinking I might put something in, tossing up between books and 2 D work. Closing date is early Feb so I've got a few days to think about it. I haven't really gone back to work yet since hubby is home, next week he'll be back at work and I had better be too.





The pictures are of a butterfly that got it's feeler stuck in one of the flowers of the kapok vine in our backyard. I raced to get the camera then freed the butterfly by tearing the flower apart. We don't usually get such beautiful butterflies in our year. We have a bumper crop of flowers on the Kapok vine this year, I guess that's what attracted the butterfly but the sap is so sticky, must have stuck the feeler. Last year I cut all the pods off intending to make paper from them, I put them in a box in my shed and left them. The box was full to the top when I left it and now it's almost empty, I imagine I'll get lots more pods this year and perhaps this time I'll get to turn them into paper.

Christmas Cards and creativity

I have just spent over an hour reading emails in between looking at blogs and there's so much more I could read but I promised myself I'd catch up on the washing, dishes and try to do a bit of a tidy up. I'm looking forward to a very uncreative day, I've packed away my papermaking gear and drained the pulp. I have only one more project to complete before the end of the year and that is to get some denim beaten for some friends, I promised it to them months ago but then my beater stopped working, in fact it is now in pieces, so I guess the first thing I need to do is get it back together, I'm afraid I've put that in the too hard basket. I'll see if I can hire Papermakers of Vics beater this week and then put my mind to getting mine fixed, I might need to hire a handy man.



I feel very relieved I finally posted out all the IAPMA (http://www.iapma.info/) bulletins, I've been working on them since 1 September, got them back from the printers about 3 weeks ago and apart from the first night have put covers on and samples in over 350. The paper for the covers was sent from Scotland months ago and I sent J one of my Bundoora books in exchange for the postage costs, I hope she's happy with it. My next editing job is the IAPMA newsletter, then the Women's Art Register Bulletin. The newsletter should only take a couple of days but the Register Bulletin will take a little longer, I didn't have much for it but I've chased up a couple of articles and have extended the deadline to mid January. On my way to Portland last weekend I called into the Warrnambool Art Gallery and saw a couple of shows, I was very taken by an exhibition by Katherine Bowman which was black and white figures, almost just suggestions of figures but when you looked closely small sections were beaded. I bought a copy of the catalogue and was able to contact Katherine re including her work in the forthcoming bulletin, she pointed me in the direction of Craft Culture http://www.craftculture.org/Review/rbarry4.htm where there is a review of the exhibition and sent me some images for the bulletin. I'm also hoping to include an article on Bronwyn Oliver, her work was on the cover of our second bulletin back in 1988 and not since then. Given her untimely death last year I thought it might be time to feature her work again.



I have been doing a little bit of creative work lately. The time came to make Christmas cards, it's go so that each year more people expect handmade cards from me. This year I've taken a bit of an easy way out, instead of handmade paper as the base card I've used watercolour paper. When I did the card class I discovered a shop in Croydon that sold books of 280 gsm watercolour paper for $10, there were fifteen A3 pages so I was able to get 60 cards from one book. It wasn't very good quality for watercolours but fine for cards with a rough and a smooth side. I got a bit carried away and made over 60 cards (I've bought 3 books all up). Here are pictures of four of them, the others are all similar, just variations on a theme. It all started with the scraps from my Christmas books, I just added a bit of paper which had been sprayed with a bit of gold acrylic and with strong red dye.


Now I really must get off the computer!