Lockdown wardrobe - and a little book

 

During lockdown one of my amuseuments was to "shop my closet" in search of favourite outfits. This is six months' worth. Quite a few items have moved on...

It started with the skirts (some of the many are shown above right) - I tried them all on, and wore some of them one last time before putting them in the donations box, taking them back where they came from!

As winter approaches and we're keeping the thermostat low, I have different priorities, different needs - warm clothes! (And always - comfortable shoes.)

Sometimes the reason you can't find anything to wear is that you have too many clothes. Too much choice.

On the closet/wardrobe theme, a little book I made in 2002 has surfaced. The original had brightly coloured tissue paper glued down, and then printed on with simple shapes made with waterproof glue, wood glue I think. This is a photocopy -

Drawing summer school - day 5

The most important thought, for me, that came out of the "check in" session at the start of the day (or was it a pep talk?) was the idea of consequence - once the drawing is finished, is there another that needs to be made? I think this could be a way to link the empty page and its possibilities with the intensity and unthought thinking that has gone into previous work, while that spirit is still fresh. 

I also think that thinking is not the way make a drawing ... there just needs to be a starting point for the interaction of artist&brush to happen, for the ink to find its path around the page.

People settled down to follow their own plans

... and although I sort of knew what I'd be getting on with, I decided to review the work of the past four days.

These were may favourite pieces. I'd been looking at all the breath&ink drawings and saw one that I really liked - dark and gleaming and compact, just a little frilly edge. On reflection, it had qualities of modesty and intensity, humbleness and eagerness. I looked for an indication of who had made it - it was me! I was truly startled, and tucked my pleasure away to be examined later.

The line drawing with carbon paper, the inky painting, and the blind drawings also pleased me in various ways.

 All around, people were engrossed in what they were doing, and I was procrastinating.

To start, I want to finish - or finish with - the Uphill Struggle, to see whether the random tendrils could be tamed. No, it was a mess and always would be, something without valid intent or aesthetic outcome. I think I might cut it up and sew it back together, or tie the pieces into a bundle (as Susan Hiller does with some of her canvases) and seal it in some way, char the edges perhaps and then dip them in wax, or add so much paint that they become the sides of a brick. Or cut into very thin strips and weave them into a (waste)basket. Or cut into A4 and write very short letters to MPs on the back. But that's for later.

Finally, time to start on The New Thing. I'd got up early and started catching up on writing blog posts about the course, and when it came to writing about breathing&ink&blobs there appeared A Fully Formed Idea. It was a good moment.

I sorted out the components:
- to make compact but large blobs (no tendrils) drawn by the breath
- each on a separate page (the page to be the size of my hand)
- holes in the middle, for the book to breathe (where did I put that large punch)
- a concertina book (quick and easy format)

Before leaving home there was just enough time to choose a paper (not bright white; somewhat sturdy) and cut it to size - 10 strips with four pages each.

I mixed some washing-up liquid into ink, poured a little ink onto the paper, and started.

The first one

The entire sequence 

The last one

After feeling like the lame duck all week, I was surprised by my own work, by the way it could develop (under some pressure) in about two hours, from splodge to nuance as I dealt with the nuances of the technique. It ended up better than I could have imagined, and while I was doing it, all sorts of associations were rushing into my brain. I wrote them down. 

For "the exhibition" (two drawings each) I set out the final two strips. 

To end with, details from some of the work in the final display -

 

Quite a range of marks, of ideas behind it, of ties to their usual work.

Thanks to the Drawing Room for organising the course; to the tutors - Sarah Woodfine (Tuesday), Jane Sassienie (Wednesday), and Marcus Coates (Thursday); and to Tania Kovats (Monday and Friday) for leading us all through the undergrowth and out into the sunshine.

In lieu of Studio Saturday - blizzard books

Another book from the very short book making course at Morley - this time it's a blizzard book, a structure invented by Hedi Kyle one day when snow kept her from going out to her job.

This - made by Hedi herself - was our model, with lovely envelope interiors tucked into the "pockets", and cover made of painted tyvek (I think) -

 A biggish one and a too-small one, which looked a bit like a fierce bird with a ghostly body -

By the end of the evening I'd made a few more, and cases for them -  and happened to have my "blizzard box" with me to add to book-storm -

Making a book

Last week I missed the first class in the three-evening course at Morley, but did my homework and cut some simple stamps from erasers, having decided that those already on hand were too fussy -

The task for this class was to print a page for each other person to incorporate in their book. I tried out a layers-of-colour idea, and decided it would take too long; it involved about 20 stampings on each of six pages...

 ... so I cut a larger eraser into wavy shapes in order to work faster -

 Butting up the papers allowed tops and bottoms to be printed at the same time -

Each page varied subtly  in its colours, thanks to a bit of overprinting with colours available in the stamp pads. As for the white space - perhaps there could have been more of that?

Then it was time for swapping, and for putting our pages into a sequence -

 ... and making covers. And gluing the pages into a concertina ... and gluing the concertina between the covers.

Everyone made a variety of pages with the stamps they'd carved, which led to a linked set of individual books -

 Finished!  on time! -

Yesterday's search for "the right paper" for making folded books was somewhat successful, and one book was produced, following the detailed and excellent instructions - the medium-sized one that didn't want to stay closed for its photo -

Today, enthusiasm continued and now there are three -

Finding things to insert into the pockets took a while. Usually you'd make this sort of book because you already had some things that you wanted to keep together, rather than the other way round. I like the way the book shows matching blank cards as inserts, but some old postcards were lying around so I used those in the first instance.

The largest book (about 5" tall) is made from an A3 sized sheet of "letter weight" paper, and the smallest started life as a colour-catcher (its cover is yet to come).

Reading books + writing words = making art

The artwork of Diane Samuels is based on how reading has shaped her life. For instance, this piece contains the first line of over 1700 books in her personal library -

Do go to her website and have a look at the photo there - a click on the image enlarges it and you can move it around on your screen. 

"First Lines is comprised of 1,740 small rectangles of handmade paper. On each Samuels has painted, drawn, collaged, and then hand-transcribed the first line of one of 1,740 books in her library. The 1,740 rectangles form a map of the world and a map of the books that have shaped her understanding of the world." (via)

The very last "first line" - Call me Ishmael -  segues into another large work, 47 feet long in fact, the size of a small sperm whale. On it she's written the text of Moby Dick, each page of the book as a horizontal row.

Here (via instagram; carlow_gallery) she is working on it -

And also via instagram, here she is with the finished piece and in the background, Scheherazade, a hand transcription in microscript, on 10,000 fragments of painted papers -

There is much more on her website. To finish here, this work (via instagram; carlow_gallery) doesn't seem to be on her website -

A two-part interview from 2014 is here.

"Golden Words..." for a golden anniversary (1997)

How differently I would do this now! Better bookmaking techniques; less brashness in the gold of the cover; a less "medieval" looking script ... but back then my calligraphy consisted of just the one script (since forgotten, and the hand more shaky now, alas). I hadn't yet learned the value of understatement, nor had practice produced finesse in making books.

The work that went into the object was appreciated, and Mom put it carefully away.