Book arts news

I've been forced into taking things rather quietly lately. The winters in Brisbane are generally pretty mild, but this one has been quite cold. In fact, we've had a very bad flu season, much worse than in the colder cities of Sydney and Melbourne. And I can tell you it's not really a good idea to arrive back after three months away, right into the thick of it! But luckily there's been quite a bit going on in the realm of books without my doing anything much.

Self (States of Change) detail by Amanda Watson-Will

First up, I received word on Monday that my porcelain book Self (States of Change) has been selected for a book arts exhibition in my home town! Well almost. It's actually at Bribie Island Seaside Museum, about 80 kms north of Brisbane. Still, book arts opportunities around Brisbane are rare, and I haven't exhibited any work closer to home than Noosa since 2007. So I am really delighted to be selected for Cover to Cover in October. 

Then, I sold a copy of The Great Library of  Alexandria. Selling work obviously isn't a major reason that I make art. I don't make a huge amount of work, and in the past much of it was ephemeral, so exhibitions and competitions have been my focus. As a consequence, I don't have that much to sell. In truth, selling my work to individuals is something I've never found that comfortable. I worry they won't be happy with their purchase, and for some reason, I feel more confident when an instituion is the buyer. I suspect this is entirely illogical, but feelings often are. Anyway, this week I made a sale, to another book artist whose work I admire greatly. For privacy reasons, I won't say who, but you know who you are, and I say a heartfelt thank-you!

Finally, as if these little successes weren't enough, the letterbox has been supplying me with book art delights, day after day. 

First to arrive, this book, "arbre brume" (misty tree) with its beautiful, atmospheric black and white photos by friend and talented artist Renaud Allirand from France. Some of the photos were also available as prints in his studio/gallery in the Marais when we visited, but the book meant we didn't have to argue over which one to choose!

You may remember that I mentioned meeting Renaud in Paris last year and shared a little book by him here (scroll to the bottom of the post).  

This year I was looking forward to seeing what Renaud had been working on since our last visit. As well as photography, he has been working in ink and had work selected for a prestigious art competition. We were lucky that the exhibition opening was during our visit and Renaud invited us along. Below you can see me standing with him in front of his work. If you'd like to see more of Renaud's work, follow this link.

Renaud Allirand and I, in front of work by Renaud.

I'm participating in Edition 4 of Book*Art*Object (see more here) this year and two books by other artists have arrived already.

Detail from "Dust" by Bertie can der Meij [click on the photo to read the text]

First is Dust, a humorous, serious, clever and beautiful book by Bertie van der Meij. Letterpress printed on handmade paper, bound in a vacuum cleaner bag(!) Bertie deals with the detritus of life and death with great sensitivity and honesty. I love this book more and more every time I pick it up. You can see what Bertie wrote about the book on the BAO blog here and visit her website here.

Gail Stiffe's Pulp Fiction

Next to arrive was Gail Stiffe's Pulp Fiction. This book plays wonderfully with Sarah Bodman's title (Pulp Fiction) literally pulping some pulp fiction to create beautiful thin sheets of paper. A reknowned and talented papermaker, Gail's handmade paper is wonderfully tactile, with pages that are embossed, watermarked and overlaid with coloured pulps and then stitched back into the covers. I love it when craft and concept come together this well in an artwork. You can see more about Gail's work on her website.

Ce que j'ai fait pendant mes vacances by Jac Balmer

Finally, a real surprise! Jac Balmer (another BAO participant) in Lancashire received one of my Wabi Sabi zines earlier in the year and has kindly returned the favour by sending me a copy of her new zine. It's entitled Ce que j'ai fait pendant mes vacances (What I did on my holidays) and is pretty perfect for me, I think! It seems that Jac visited France for her holidays too, and the zine takes the reader on a wonderfully evocative walk through a very French garden. The front cover is a great reproduction of a spiral bound school book and the little book structure is filled with Jac's soft, romantic sketches in (I think) pen, coloured pencil and watercolour. It's quite beautiful, and even though they're not my sketches, it works as a lovely memento of my time in France too. You can see more about Jac's work on her blog.

What a lovely week!

Starting to Stitch Surfaces

 The first stage of the embroidery course I'm doing with Karen Ruane is working with scrim (or cotton gauze) and paper to create surfaces suitable for hand embroidery. This is done using a sewing machine, which took me by surprise, as I was expecting to be doing only handwork.

I dusted off the Elna Lotus SP which was my mother's and hadn't been used for some 20 years (really). I learnt to sew on this dear old machine and I've been so surprised and pleased that the old girl (the machine, not me!) works at all, let alone coping with having the foot removed and doing FME (Free Machine Embroidery).

The grids and circles above are all about creating a more robust surface to hand embroider. While others stitched fabric scraps for added interest, I of course, felt compelled to use old book pages. (These are old books I bought specifically for artwork, but I do confess to hesitating quite a while before I managed to pull out the page).

Below are some pictures of sewing on paper. 

This top one is the back, but I like it better than the front.

Paper has so much potential for use with light.

I haven't mentioned my first trial of eco-printing, which I did just after arriving home. A friend had left us a bunch of roses as a welcome home gift. We enjoyed them for a few days and once they began to fade a little, I put them to creative use. I more or less followed this tutorial.

I'm still thinking about how I want to use the results,  so I experimented with some stitching on this example. This is the view from the back again, and illuminated, below that.

I've really been having so much fun with all of this and now I'm ready to add some hand stitching to these pieces.

Permission to explore

I've been keeping to my goal of minimizing advance commitments and going out more than usual, but of course I still want to somehow fit in some work. It seems that as soon as I have some work I want to do, I become quite driven, and if I am not able to get cracking, I start to feel both pressured and crabby!

I've two main projects to finish by the end of the year - a wedding album and my contribution to Book*Art*Object Edition 4. And of course, I'm feeling that I should be getting on with these, but I'm really keen to work on something entirely different.

Just before I arrived home I signed up for an online course, Extending Embellishment with Karen Ruane. Yes, as I said, something entirely different - embroidery. I discovered Karen's work on Ersi's blog, so thank-you Ersi! (take a look at Ersi's gorgeous embroidery ledger pages here)

For a few years I've been feeling drawn to embroidery. It's something I haven't done since I was a teenager, but I often feel I'd like to have something to do with my hands when I am sitting about.

It feels like it could be a way of creating that would be easy to pick up and put down, and good for times when energy is low because it wouldn't require setting up a space and dealing with loads of different bits of equipment, or anything wet and messy.

I see myself using embroidery as a type of drawing, with all the benefits of beautiful fabrics, gorgeous threads, lovely colours and textures! Mmmm!

To start us off, we were asked to make Moodboards (collections of images or objects that inspire us). I decided not to use  embroidery examples. These are mostly my own photos, plus some Japanese papers. I've also started another in a "gallery" over on flickr, using other peoples images. You can see it here.

I feel it could really work for me! Or maybe I'll give it a go and realize it's not "me", but I when I saw this course, I thought it might be a good way "in", allow me to learn a few things, and maybe to judge whether I'd like to go further. If you've been reading this blog for any length of time at all, you'll know that I love to experiment with different media and techniques. Sometimes I worry that all this exploration is a weakness, but I am starting to understand that it keeps me fresh and I suspect that I will never become a one-medium artist.

All the resources included in the embroidery course will remain available to us after the course finishes, so in a sense there is no need to work along with the class. However, it makes sense to do what you can, I think, as now is the time to ask questions.

So I'm trying to give myself permission to make the course my creative priority and simply assemble things so I'm ready to go with the next project, the wedding album. The deadline for that is late November. And that's ages away. Isn't it??