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!

Bulletin and Show

I haven't done much this past week apart from work on the IAPMA Bulletin. I've nearly got it done, just waiting on a couple of things and still struggling a bit with InDesign.

I ended up just taking the hemp out of the beater half beaten and I've put in some pulp with an additive that Mark sent me to sharpen the blades. I'm hoping that will stop it sticking. Then I might have another go at the hemp.

I did quite well at the show this year - two firsts and a second. I had planned to go to the Show on Friday but decided instead to do the galleries with a friend. We started at Charles Nodrum, where cousin Bill Yaxley's show is about to finish. Then on to Pollock, Dickinson and Christine Abrahams. Then we went to Albert Street and did the galleries on one side of the street then went to Kazari - this amazing warehouse with Japanese furniture, fabrics, old books, etc. Then back down the other side of Albert Street and home. All in all I think we visited 10 galleries - a record, even for us. We saw some great art and some ordinary art. But it was a good experience to prepare for the Women's Art Register gallery walk I'm organising for the 27th of October.

Blurb and Beater troubles

Today I did an interview for a new TV program for Channel 31 called Blurb. It is planned to air early in November at 7.30 pm on Monday nights. I had taken way too many books but we got to look at a few in detail. I'll have to find someone with a video player to tape it for me. I also took my books to the show which opens on the 20th September. I must try and go this year since I've missed the last couple of years and they've made some big changes to the showgrounds in recent years.


We've got yabbers here on Wednesday and the plan is to beat up some hemp. I've started with one batch but have been having awful troubles. It started when I beat up some samples of curtain fabric which were described as being 93% cotton and 7% linen. Well they eventually formed some type of pulp but I had to constantly stand at the beater to help the fibre around. Now I've started on some hemp and although it is rotating properly it is constantly getting jammed unless I have the roll so high it doesn't do anything to the fibre. The pictures show the chopped up fabric and the state of the pulp now. I have been attacking it with scissors from time to time but don't have time to stand all day chopping. I need to put on my editor's hat and get on with editing the IAPMA bulletin. (http://www.iapma.info/) I think it will be a good one this time as I've got some interesting pictures and stories.

Hollander beater

I promised I'd let someone see some photos of my beater so here they are. This beater is one of Mark Lander's early critters, it is a 2lb model, he now makes them both smaller and larger. They are meant to be portable but you need to be a muscle man to lift it since the motor is very heavy. Mark can be contacted by email, he lives in Oxford New Zealand.

First blog and Jacob's ladder workshop

Why am I doing this? Will anyone read it? Do I have enough time to keep it going?
At the moment I am preparing to teach a Jacob's ladder workshop which is happening tomorrow. I have pre cut all the card and have made a couple of sample books. I still need to start covering some of the cards so I don't have to spend too long while at the workshop.
I'm also beating an old flannette sheet in my Hollander beater, I want to get it well beaten so that I can make paper with watermarks. I'll use it with some of last weeks jeans pulp to make some small bowls as part of my contribution to the yabbers collective project. I have lots of projects on the go at the moment probably too many. I've made some pretty good progress on the IAPMA bulletin that I'm editing, am thinking about a book show for the Craft Vic windows and thinking about works for the Bundoora Gallery Exhibition.