Workshop Preparation

I am teaching a workshop for Papermakers of Victoria this coming weekend on making Japanese style paper from kozo and making sculptural pieces using an armature so I've been busy last week and this preparing fibre, making armatures, sewing muslin on and trying out my sugeta that has sat in it's box for a few years. Here are a few images of works in progress. There is still some space in the workshop so if you are interested check out the Papermakers website. My stars last week had something about boiling and about cornucopia. I boiled up the kozo bark then have made a couple of cornucopia like pieces so hopefully the luck will come pouring in!

Some armatures with and without muslin ready for dipping in kozo.

Cornucopia made from Muehlenbeckia complex with roughly beaten kozo.

Some samples made a few years ago

My sugeta

 I have a busy few days ahead, straight after my workshop I will be in the city at Fed Square with Angela on Monday running a small workshop making bookmarks that will incorporate gelatine prints. If you are in the city come and say hi, we will be there from 12-2pm.

Sydney

Last weekend I went to Sydney to teach my armature workshop to Southern Papermakers and was lucky to stay with Jill again. We went to the opening of 'Art Bound' an artist book exhibition put on by 'Australian Bookbinders Inc', at Gallery Red, Glebe, NSW. There were some great works there AND I got to catch up with Chris, Di and Wendy. Chris was in the class I did at Primrose in March (and again on Saturday); Di shared a table at a workshop given by Sandy Webster at the Geelong Forum a few years ago and Wendy I met for the first time, though we've exchanged pleasantries many times and I was lucky enough to win a piece of hers in the 'One Heart' event earlier this year.

 Preparing the forms from cane.

Making the paper from kozo.

Dipping wire and other forms in the kozo.

workshops

I have had a busy couple of weeks so haven't been posting much. I went to Sydney the weekend before last to teach a repeat of my armature and kozo workshop, I must have been busy, I hardly got my camera out at all, just managed these three pics, I did get a short video of the hand beating but have left that on the camera for the moment. We made shapes from cane then stretched gauze over preliminary to dipping in the vat, here is Sue clowning with her "hat".

And some of the beaters, it was very loud in that room for about half an hour!

I got to Sydney quite early on Friday and was met by Jill Elias who kindly showed me around several galleries in Waterloo, Paddington and Surry Hills (I think!). We saw a good range of works especially at the Danks Street Galleries, a complex with about five galleries.

After the workshop I caught up with my brother and family and stayed the night with him up north of Gosford, Techy and I caught the train back to Sydney the next afternoon and arrived just in time for me to go to the airport, I loved the train trip down to Sydney through forest and in some parts right on the waters edge.

My other brother picked me up at Melbourne Airport and we headed up to Echuca with my mother and sister for my father's cousin's funeral, it was good to catch up with that branch of the family just a pity it took a funeral to make it happen, we used to visit my second cousin quite regularily but haven't been for several years, must make the time!

The rest of the week passed in a blur then I was off to Bairnsdale for another workshop with the PAGE group (Paper Arts Gippsland East) This time I did get my camera out a few times so got quite a few photos. The workshop was organised by Margaret Mason a very experienced paper and book artist and she wanted me to do the armature workshop but she commented that the participants were'nt all papermakers so I should perhaps adapt the class accordingly. I decided that they might appreciate making a lantern like those in Helen Hiebert's book, Paper Illuminated, that took up the first day with quite a bit of time being taken up with cutting out the foamcore forms.

Some of the class with their forms ready to go, the cane has been cut, glued (or taped) and pinned to the foam forms.

Now the paper goes on, most decided to decorate their shapes.





The end of day one. I stayed with Margaret at Tambo Upper, had a nice look around the area when I got a bit lost on the way there and ended up about 10k past their place, the hills around are just beautiful, green and lush and the Tambo River is very pretty and has some stunning limestone cliffs. After the first day's class Margaret and I went down to Metung for a look and I just had to take these photos of an old tree stump on the edge of the lake.




I spent several hours on both Friday and Saturday nights looking through a small proportion of Margaret's extensive artist book collection, she has some wonderful pieces.

On day two we finished off the lightshades and made small candle shades by wrapping cane around a form and glueing tissue on, we made boat shapes and some random weave shapes which we draped paper over, either the Unrushi or tissue paper. The group got together at the end of the workshop for a group photo with their wares.


I decided to trial making a different shape using the same method as for the lampshades so I roughly drew a curved shape on the foamcore and cut eight copies, and two discs, one small and one large, I followed the rest of the instructions for the lightshade and here is what I ended up with along with my demonstration boat.

The last time Yabbers met was the Wednesday before I went to Sydney and we made the paper for our rainbow books. Beverly had beaten all the library board provided by members of yabbers and had dyed them in a range of colours. We started off with a yellow, blue and pink vat and they gradually changed to blue, pink and yellow as we added the different colours. I made three sets since a couple of our members were unable to attend and I was the quickest (maybe!). Here is a stack of three sets of sheets, ech of these sheets will be torn into three to form the pages of miniature books. We'll be doing some test bindings next month.


For those of you interested in book arts the University of the West of England has devised a canon of the artist book in the 21st Century which can be read and downloaded here.

Sale and etsy

I was very excited to learn that I sold a piece at the Contemporary Art Society Exhibition on Herring Island, I don't know which one yet but both framed works that went in were quite old. I'm on duty on the afternoon of Saturday the 6th so will find out then. Any Melbourne readers should check out the exhibition, it is on for the next two weekends and you get the Parks Victoria punt over the Yarra from Como Landing, South Yarra. The Island itself is worth visiting, it's a great place for a picnic and there are sculptures all around the island.

My prize from the OWOH extravaganza arrived this morning, it is great thank you Wendy, it is a viscosity printing of Anne of Cleves and you can see how it, as well as the rest of the series, was done here.

I spent several hours over the weekend setting up an etsy shop but I haven't worked out how to get it to show up in my side panel yet, I'll work on that when I get another day, it took me hours just to set up and list five items.

I've spent a fair bit of this morning getting a CD ready to send to Korea for the Paper Road Exhibition, I find I spend so much time on documenting and filling out forms it doesn't leave much time for creating. These are the works I'm proposing for the Paper Road exhibition, you are allowed three entries.


Pardelot Four cyanotypes on kozo with Zoe Culbertson and Celine's Nest cotton paper and mixed plant fibre with blackwood wattle branch and twig.

Dreamcatcher One cane and kozo

I am also helping to plan the first Valda Quick Paper arts Biennial which will be held at the Access Gallery at Bundoora Homestead from 3- 21 November, we had our second meeting yesterday, I'll be writing more here as that progresses.

I should also say that today I posted off the two body books from my post last week to the Mermaid in the Attic so I'll look forward to seeing what magic Christina works on the books. The shell book was bought by Carol, I hope she enjoys it.

last minute card and libris

Tonight we are going to a homecoming celebration for a couple who just got married, our friends daughter married a Sri Lankan and I believe this is a Sri Lankan custom. I bought a gift before Christmas but this morning decided I should make a card to go with it, so I dusted off the vat and grabbed the pulp that was left over from my Christmas cards from the fridge and made some sheets for the basis of the card. Luckily I had some cast pieces from another project so I painted them with irridescent medium this morning and am just waiting for the paper to dry before putting the card together. I have a choice of three symbols, the Maori fish hook or is it a spiral? The fish hook symbolizes prosperity and the spiral new beginnings. Both appropriate for a wedding greeting.

The Hindi prana which means life force.

And the endless knot which according to a book I have called The Secret Language of Symbols means continuity, longevity and eternity also appropriate for a wedding card although I'm not 100% happy with the original carving of this one so I think I'll go with the Maori one.

The paper I made before today's batch was for samples for the Deckle Edge (Papermakers of Victoria magazine) and I made red watermarked banana fibre paper since the next edition is going to be dedicated to banana and I had some in my freezer. Here are the removable watermark templates, blutac on fibreglass flyscreen and the stacks of samples.

The wider strips of blutack showed me where to tear the paper to get five strips per sheet, I tore the strips in half so that 15 sheets gave me the required 150 samples.

I was very disappointed that my book was not accepted into the Libris Awards and my proposal to talk about artists who use handmade paper in their work has been ignored even though I both emailed and posted a copy in good time for the deadline for proposals I haven't even had a response. I was hoping to improve the status of papermaking but I guess that is not going to happen it seems that printmakers do rule! in the Aussie artist book scene anyway.

Here are some pics of my book which is not quite finished but the impetus is gone now, I am waiting for a Japanese translation of the haiku I wrote to go in the book.

Here is the cover of the slipcase made from hemp paper with hemp string embedded inside, the catch is a bone piece with hemp string.

The slipcase is lined with a digital print of ferns on hemp paper and the book is kozo with fern bound with hemp string in a toji or stab binding.

Endpapers have ferns embedded.

Text and images are printed on hemp paper and woven into the kozo pages.