winter excuses

It has been nearly a month since I posted and I guess I haven't been producing much in the way of artworks. I have edited two magazines which has kept me at the computer a lot and since winter has hit there isn't much desire to head out to my open air workspace.
Here are a few pieces I made a while ago in preparation for a workshop I am running in July on using kozo and armatures. I have made a series of boats and other vessels, there is something special about the boat, it can represent so many things. I haven't named any of these pieces yet but I will get around to it eventually.

Bamboo and kozo dipped

Cane, thread and kozo dipped

Bamboo and Kozo sheet

Wisteria and Kozo dipped

Cane and Kozo, dipped and wattle sticks and Kozo also dipped

Chicken wire and Kozo dipped

Chicken wire and pulp painted recycled cotton paper.

I am also working on an altered book as part of a Yabbers round robin. The two people before me did boots so I thought I'd continue in the footwear vein. Here are some drawings on gessoed pages.

And an added page and some wax rubbing of soles of shoes.

At our last meeting of Papermakers we made concertinas by drawing a page then passing it on, we got the one we started with at the end of the day. I thought I'd connect the diverse images by dipping in my indigo vat, it did much up some of the images a bit by making them bleed but I like the covers!

twitter and fitzroy library

On Wednesday night after teaching a workshop all day I went to Fitzroy Library to hang works as a representative of the Contemporary Art Society of Victoria. There are several wall spaces and ten locked cabinets in a hallway. I was able to put up some works that I had dis mounted (the frames are now around other works) but I also made some new works, though I had to do that quickly so I made some collages using a range of papers and digital prints of previous works.

Tesselation is part of a larger piece I made for Natural Connections back in 2002, The twelve pieces just fitted nicely in the cabinet, but boy did I have sore fingers from putting that many pins in a fairly hard material.



Patho Collages 1, 2 & 3, Korea Bowl Collage and Coorong Barrages Collage. Some of the papers were made in the workshop with Amanda Degener, others came out of my store. The backing sheets are half sheets of the Hahnemuhle paper I use for the journals I make, they worked out to be an ideal size for the display cases.

Magnolia, Lillies and Iris pulp paintings from a few years ago.

Arapiles, cast pulp painting.
Margaret Mason visited Twitter a birdy exhibition in Nowa Nowa and she sent me these pictures of the nesting pieces on show there.

Here are some of the other works in the show.

I have been very quiet on the blog front lately, just too busy with other things. I got the IAPMA bulletin back from the printer today, I'm very pleased with it noe I have to get the covers on and samples in. I am also waiting on a DVD of the congress which will be duplicated and posted to all IAPMA members along with their bulletins.

Sesame Street and ABC RN review

I have just received a newsletter from Helen Hiebert and in it there was a link to a Sesame Street segment on papermaking, it's lots of fun to watch.

Also I was reminded of the Radio National Arts program last week which featured an interview by Greg Leong about the paper exhibitions on while the IAPMA Congress was on.

I have been spending a lot of time at the computer lately editing the IAPMA Bulletin so haven't done much physical creating. However today I set up an indigo vat so plan to do a bit of playing in the next week or two. I've also got some works going in the Fitzroy Library in the Contemporary Art Society display, it will mostly be old work but I did make a few simple collages using digital images of old works on handmade paper and other papers. I'll put up some pics next time I'm on.

Paper boats and Amanda Degener workshop

The three boats I posted off to be part of Joanne B Kaar's project in Scotland. There's a mix of plant fibre papers, marbelling and dyed paper both with natural dyes and with synthetic.


My sample book from Amanda's workshop

Sample on the left is stencilled with indigo or walnut mixed with wallpaper paste, the one on the right is pigmented paper dyed with walnut on belgain flax paper.

mix of indigo and walnut, walnut crackle and multiple dips in indigo

Walnut and indigo

Indigo, rust and walnut


Cyanotype with alkali, rust and walnut
Michelle has started a blog for the congress the address is www.iapmaburnie.blogspot.com.

More Nesting, Aussie book workshop and Yabbers postcards

Most of Nesting is now at Lumina Gallery in Malvern and in Nowa Nowa as part of Twitter. Here are some pics of it at Lumina.

And here are a few pics from the Aussie Fibre book workshop, held in conjunction with Shared Journeys exhibition at Victoria University in Melbourne.


Yabbers are continuing with postcard exchanges this year, here are two I've received, the top one features solar printing and the bottom knitting and crochet for texture. On our gallery walk in March we saw a really interesting show at Dianne Tanzer Gallery of knitted artworks by Dana Harris so decided that our next postcard should include knitting or crochet.

I made my piece from some paper I bought at the Congress from Mary Hark.

In the plane on my back from Burnie I started making paper string,

Thanks to Lee I held the ends of the paper together with safety pins, saved a lot of tangle.

I then knitted it with a couple of my stripped blackwood wattle sticks.

Then the problem came, how to post it? Here is what I came up with, I hope it arrives safely.