Book Art Object and Out of the Box

Have been working on the following books for two exhibitions.

Book Art Object - have taken the sketches and been working on a mock up.  I have cut out the small lino prints and collaged them onto the inside of the book.  This will give me plenty of scope for printing on a variety of papers to achieve the fragmented effect I want.  I am pretty happy with how things are going, but still a long way to go. Haven't done any of the stitching, or the images for the cover and back or the colophon yet, but the overall look and feel of the book is coming along.  Last night I completed some smaller lino carvings and will do another couple of mock ups today.  What do you think?  Feedback is very welcome.

This book folds out like a map.  This is part of the centre fold. A repeat motif of a window (lino print) has been stamped across the inside. Could put the colophon here instead or on the back - what do you think?

Inside - opened. There will be stitching along both edges.

Totally opened.  Sorry about the messy background.  Two quotes from the poem - Learning Absences - have included. Gouche, pen and ink and acrylic make up the inside image.

Out of the Box  - my work in progress for an exhibition at the Bega Regional Gallery- something much more sculptural.  I don't know how happy they will be about constructing this entry. 

Needs a bit of tweaking but could be ok.  It is a book! - again I will collage prints around the petals and add embroidery.

Cleaned My Studio and It Looks Great

This could be the name of a song  on an album of artists laments.  Other tracks of course being -

• When You Wish Upon a Kiln
• New Book, New Book
• Somewhere Over the Roller
• Glaze Slops Keep Falling on My Head

............and of course the all time favourite..........

• I've Been Through the Gallery on a Horse with No Name. 

But seriously, I am so chuffed with my tidy space.

I should of taken some 'before' shots so you could really appreciate just how de-cluttered this is.

I can't wait to get in there tomorrow.

Book Review - The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery

Finally finished and it was worth it - a wonderful ending (but I won't tell you about that).  An interesting book.  I can't stop thinking about Renee and Paloma and the ending. That is always a good thing. You don't want to spend hours reading 300 + pages to forget it as soon as you finish the last page.

You can definitely tell Muriel Barbery is an academic with plenty of philosophising to pack into her story.  At times this becomes a little a heavy but overall lifts The Elegance of the Hedgehog from being just a story into a story that has something important to say. (Is it old fashioned to like this sort of story?)

What makes it  a good read is that while it does concern itself with life and death and love and beauty and art etc (all the BIG things) its main focus is on class and intelligence. Barbery writes an allegory of equality and acceptance during a time of global inequity. I found it refreshing to read something that wanted you to make the connections and explicitly commented on the condition of the world.  Not very post modern, I know, maybe there is still room for the grand narrative afterall. 

 BUT it is allegorical.  A lot of readers, I suspect, will not like the soap box she uses as her writing desk.  But I did.  Mainly because the characters were well drawn and she created a wonderful microcosm within the French apartment block where they lived.

I would rate The Elegance of the Hedgehog - 4/5. definitely worth a read.

Book Art Object

I am part of a group called Book Art Object.  Eight women who make artist's books. We are planning our first group entry for early December.  That is only 4 weeks away!!!!
One of the main issues about the design  is that I need to do a run of 12 - 15 books.  I know for the letter press printers this is a tiny number but for me that is pretty big and is playing a major part in the design process.
We have a couple of common elements to link the entries ie size - A5 landscape, and the poem by Rosemary Dobson- Learning Absences.  I have tried to separate myself from the English teacher and respond to the poem instinctively instead of analytically but I was glancing back through my sketch book and found the following pages.

I know they're very hard to read but they show how hard it is to break old habits. Analyse, poke, prode and probe until the poem falls apart at the seams.  (I hope I don't do this as a teacher but, if I'm honest, I suspect it is the fall back position I take in a desperate scramble for HSC success.)

I have, since then, been  doing heaps of  drawing and am starting to produce some ideas I feel comfortable with......tearing myself away from the analytical, literal reaction.

Anyway I will continue on.  More drawings...less thinking.  Does this go with my last post????? Learning complication. HYPOCRITE??? I am laughing now. There's nothing like a bit of tasty hypocracy to keep you on your toes.

 If you want to have a look at the group go to http://bookartobject.blogspot.com/

Learning complication

Yesterday my school had a study day for the HSC students. About 50 turned up.  Sounds good in practice but as i suspected it became a bit of a social/stress/panic/procrastination exercise for some of them. Not all.  I had a little band of 6 from my English class who wanted to revise Hamlet.

I wasn't expecting it, I thought it would be more like extracting teeth. I was pretty chuffed that they still wanted to write an essay that somehow reflected all they had put in.

They have been struggling with the bard all year.  They DO understand him when we're reading it (funnily enough - because the general consensus is that reading him is the hard part) but when it comes to writing about him that's another thing. I'm sure anyone who has done the HSC can remember that feeling clearly enough.

We found a study room in the library. My stomach felt a bit twitchy and I knew it had as much to do with this being the last time i would ever teach them,  as the sushi  lunch that had sat on my desk since 9.00 am.

Where to start.  We don't want to panic them now. These flighty yearlings.

I asked them what the big issues were and like well trained monkeys they rattled them off - revenge, life/death, love, appearance vs reality, action vs inaction etc. etc.  But when it came to writing about it in any depth they stumbled as usual. The model mapping, scaffolds, smart boards and numerous other visual tools, promoted as the next leap forward in the education revolution, only valued added to a certain extent.

Nic said in frustration,  "They are all so complicated." The rest nodded and sighed in agreement.
I could sense growing anxiety.
I didn't want them jumping ship.
"Let's look at the complication...How does Shakespeare make these ideas complicated?...Just how complicated is it?....Let's take revenge ...the sons....Hamlet, Laertes, Fortinbras...why....how....therefore."

A discussion followed that, while it might not make them write better essays itshowed that complexity can be a way out of the darkness. Certainly a way out of the black, inkiness that colours the darkness.

Revenge turned into murder, turned into lust, turned into guilt, turned into action, turned into inaction, turned into reality, turned into appearance. And very soon turned into jokes and laughter and a certain comfort in our own ability to dress in Hamlet's clothes.  Black though they may be.

Are we meant to grab hold of complexity, complication, confusion and chaos? Build on it - not deconstruct it.  Let it take off.
If out of the darkness comes more darkness  than learn how to make lemonade (and candles).

And maybe....if all else fails.... upgrade your search engine.???

Slept in - no vodka needed

No I'm not trying to rewrite War and Peace. Just trying to break a years worth of being head teacher administration and waking at 5.30 to receive calls from sick and worn out teachers.  I was threatening to start drinking (at 5.30 in the morning) but, alas, it was not needed. 

Yesterday and today I managed 7.00 am with no problems at all.  Might have something to do with the FREEZING weather we are experiencing down this way at the moment.  Not that i want to become a slug - I have always enjoyed getting up early - I just don't want to be a slave to habit. Anyway I slept in, got up to fatty, lavish breakfast of bacon and eggs,  did very little exercise and made a new and delicous batch of chocolate chip biscuits (cookies???)

yum

The recipe is:

1/3 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

125 gms butter

1 egg

vanilla essence

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1/2 cup white choc chips

1. Preheat oven to 180 C and line trays with baking paper.

2. Melt butter and combine with sugars.

3. Add egg and essence and mix well.

4. Stir in flour and chips.

5. Place teaspoons of mixture on trays and bake for 12 mins.

Hope you enjoy them as much as L did.  Good study food. 

Year 12 farewell

Finally the year 12 school year has wound up and they have had their luncheon, their assemby, their muck up day and their graduation.  I think Virginia Woolf might have called it a 'moment of being' (or maybe moments of being might be more accurate) -but on Tuesday at the luncheon i was quite overwhelmed by the thought of not just L finishing (mind you I did not say 'leaving') but all of the year 12 kids.   they have been a crazy/cool group all the way through.

Anyway needless to say I bounced back fairly quickly and the prospect of starting a whole terms leave banished any sookiness to the outer playground. However  it is now day 2 of the holidays and the idea of freedom has not relayed itself to my body. I am still up at 5.30.  Waiting for staff to ring, looking for marking, doing a quick load of washing, trying to make the house look like a small whirly whirly came in through the window and danced around the loungeroom - rather than a tornedo.

And I am still gazing longly toward the studio with some sort of mental dingo proof fence forbiding entry.

Here's a solution- if it happens tomorrow - take a bottle of vodka - and sit on the deck and watch the sun come up. If at anytime I think of any of the above jobs I am to take a couple of swigs from the bottle  That will surely tell my mind and body things are now different!! and by 9.00am i am most certainly going to be back in bed!

Or better still I could get up and get that exercise i have been promising myself for the last 6 months? Nay  best we not rush things too much.

........Hang on.........finally my mind is slowly flicking channels  ...... i just got up walked into the garden and pulled out a weed that i have looking at through the window for the last 3 months.......maybe i won't need the vodka afterall.   Better try it ........just to be sure. 
After all it's better to be safe than sorry.