Hand Set at UNSW Canberra

I just realised that I haven't put this up here:


This is my exhibition, up until the 10th of September at the UNSW Canberra Library (aka ADFA) and I'm also giving an artist's talk this Saturday (25th) at 2pm if you're around and interested in hearing (as opposed to reading) the stories behind the work.

Branching out

I've got a few things to promote at the moment, and I've been asked by many many people if I have a group mailing list.

Up to now, I haven't.

But now I have!



I have a hard-copy newsletter which sort-of comes out twice a year, but it isn't a very quick thing to do when I want to promote a class or something.

So I'm starting a Chimpmail e-newsletter, which will be used whenever I have an event or class to promote.

If you'd like to receive such emails, THIS IS THE PLACE TO GO. Even if we know each other well and I should be emailing you anyway, pop yourself on it because I can't just upload my address book, I need your full permission (which is how it should be, eh).

I solemnly promise to use my contact powers for good and not for evil.

Don't worry, I'll still be adding things here, but some people just aren't good at checking back to a blog, especially when it's updated as erratically as it has been. *sorry*, I'm still a bit snowed under...

children making books

A bit last-minute, but there's still time to book your creative youngster into a totally awesome class every Saturday afternoon in May, learning how to write, storyboard and draw your own illustrated book.

Featuring the amazing talents of burgeoning illustrator Annika Romeyn (you will know that name in a few years) and roping in my kid-wrangling bookbinding skillz, the class will use the SLV's travelling exhibition LOOK! The Art of Australian Picture Books Today (showing at CMAG right now) as a resource and make their own incredible works.

Your child will learn SO MUCH from Annika. Get thee hence to the CMAG website and at the very least put yourself on their mailing list, because they offer so much to the ACT community. Please pass on this info to anyone who might be interested.

Living in a Material World

Today is installation day for Material World, the show for which I've been preparing work. The exhibition is by a group of artists making site-specific installation works that explore environmentalism through the use of recycled and found materials. My work is using a mass of books donated to me by the Lifeline Book Fair, the books that they just can't sell to anyone despite their best efforts. As you would imagine, a lot of these are Readers Digests (many have never been opened and read) but many are by very famous and popular authors.



Here's a shot of the process of putting the books up into the central girder of the gallery. I was worried that the various things I've been playing with would get a bit lost so high up, but now that the work exists in entirety, I'm very happy. It has a few layers: there's the instant 'oh, books in a girder, that's cool' effect, and then there are lots of little things happening to amuse and interest people stopping to have a harder look.

The title of the work is 'Shelf Life'. The premise is a work about books that are unloved and left unnoticed and untouched for long periods of time. It's very whimsical and at one point a little bit creepy, which is something I love in other people's art, so I'm glad when I can make it happen too.

It's also such a rich idea that I've decided to use the books afterwards for a series of photos. I've taken some practice versions with my dodgy digicam, but I'll do them properly later.


Shelf Life (Practice)


Shelf Life (Crisis)

O wot fun.

The exhibition opens tomorrow (Wednesday 28 March) at 12pm, but the formal opening event is on Saturday at 6pm, in conjunction with Earth Hour. There will be artist's talks, food, music, fun. At 7.30pm they will switch off all the lights, and there will be candles and fires and more music and food. It should be wonderful, and you're ALL welcome.

Time and concentration in Melbourne

Phew, it took me three full days to start feeling 'normal' again after my Melbourne trip. So tired! And a weird fuzziness like I'd had a migraine, without the migraine. Maybe I do have something lurking in my system, or maybe I'm getting old and just pushed myself too hard after the gastro. Either way, ageing sucks, doesn't it?

Anyway, I spent those three days submerged in Lev Grossman's The Magicians and The Magician King (not finished that one yet). AWESOME! Hipsters with magic using heavy and playful references to Narnia, Potter, Earthsea, LOTR, and other fantasy novels. Fabulous way to flop around.

So: Melbourne. I'm off the tram (obviously), had a lovely time. I always wish I could split myself into parts when I'm travelling on public transport in Melbourne, so that I could jump off at different spots and do all the things I see, and then meet up that evening and compare notes. It didn't help that it was Moomba weekend, lots going on between Carlton and St Kilda on that particular trip.

Adventure and Art was a fantastic afternoon, organised by the Baillieu Library's Susan Millard and her team. The exhibition lingers until May, so do go and have a look if you're hanging around the Uni of Melbourne. You won't see any of my work in the exhibition; in fact the only woman in the show is (rightfully, if there had to only be one) Carolyn Fraser of Idlewild Press. A shame, but there you go. As compensation, I suspect, I was given a whole half an hour to talk about myself, how I got into printing, and how the fine press book fits into all of my other activities, such as teaching book arts, etc.

I managed to fill the time easily, talking about my Summer School class and the various reasons why people, in my experience, want to play with letterpress these days. I also talked about my journey into printing, which gave me the chance to sing the praises of Alec Bolton (Brindabella Press) and Petr Herel (Graphic Investigations Workshop, Canberra School of Art) and talk about the way one was a fine printer who focused on Australian art & writing and the other was an artist who taught fine printing in his curriculum. Alec, unfortunately, is dead, but Petr is very much alive and was in the audience and was very happy to be remembered.

As far as the last bit goes, I unpacked the 'etc' a bit and bluntly stated that for most people (including me for the last few years) the fine press book doesn't fit into their activities, because fine printing in book form takes time and concentration, which is a luxury in a working life, and this is why I've been printing broadsides and making less intense books. While I was saying these things, though, I walked them through the pages of the one fine press book I've made that I really, really love (because it was totally mine to design and produce, without outside pressures): Transmigration.

It seemed to go down well. Peter Vangioni from the Kowhai Press in Christchurch was the only other speaker with 30 minutes up his sleeve, and he said wonderful things and tragic things about being a printer, and being a printer and gallery curator in an earthquake zone.

There was also a panel made up of Carolyn Fraser, Andrew Schuller and Alan Loney. I'd been to visit Carolyn and her studio that morning, and we'd had a fantastic catch-up, talking about life, the universe and letterpress. When she stood up and gave her ten minute's worth of opinion, it was sharp and pointy and dense with things that I hope the audience took away to mull over and digest, including the notion that Melbourne needs a public access printing space, based on the model of the NY Centre for the book. Not like the Melbourne Museum of Printing, where the facilities are barely held together with string and chewing gum, but a solid, well-organised, supported space where people can do courses to gain competency and then can use the space on a time-share basis to produce their own work. Come to think of it, we have a role model in Australia already : Megalo, here in Canberra. So let's get that thought in action: Melbourne Centre for Printing & the Book (or something like). Pity the Wheeler Centre missed the ball in that respect.

Andrew, an ex-Oxford University Press man, discussed the blurred margins of fine press printing: that it's hard to distinguish is something is finely printed as a fine press book or as an artist's book, but it's easy to tell when something isn't. And perhaps that's the only distinction that should be made? Why do we need lines drawn in sand? The artists in the room nodded.

Alan is the curator of the show, a master printer in his own right, and one who is unashamed of drawing those lines, even though many of his own poems have been finely printed as artists' books by other people. He spoke eloquently about his passion for the craft and his hopes for its future.




Afterwards there was time to look at the books, complete with nibbles and drinks before the next batch of words, speeches by Andrew and Alan again (but not repetitive, which was lovely). I got the chance to talk to many, many people about many, many things, and I'm sure a lot of it will return to me in time.

After that those who spoke or organised had dinner together at University House in an amazing room:



Surrounded by faces like these in the wall panels:



Aren't they beautiful? Apparently some man skinned his room in Paris & brought it all over to Australia, where it now resides in this room. Amazing. I should be able give you more details, we were all talking about it, but by that part of the day I wasn't really able to hold any more information. I do know that Peter V and I were sitting with our backs to a Breughel painting, which blew him away. He kept turning around and exclaiming. I was watching the faces, there were a lot of them.

Other things I did during my stay: I spent just under 3 hours with the work of William Kentridge, which was stupendous. I was there on the first morning of the exhibition, so I was maybe the 50th person in? I know that I was never in any room with more than 4 people, and most-times I was by myself in a space, and I know that will never happen again in the run of the exhibition.

I also, on the way to the airport on Saturday, spent time in the State Library's new show, Love & Devotion: From Persia and Beyond, an exhibition of Persian illuminated books and Persian-influenced books sourced from the Bodleian Library and the SLV. It is stunning, absolutely sumptuous.

So now it's (slowly) back to the grind, getting Material World together and making some books. Time and concentration, that's what it's all about.

Matters of economy

Because Mr Padge keeps losing his collars and Mr Pooter doesn't, or rather, Pooter does shed them, but in places where they can be found again, Padge is now wearing an old collar of Pooter's, which means that they are now both black cats in blue collars. And even though one is very fat and the other very thin, sometimes, especially when they sit in the Roast Chicken position, it is very hard to tell them apart.

Except when they lie on their backs, as in this shot where Mr Padge tried his most helpfully to be a paperweight this morning as I worked in bed.



Actually, the fact that Padge doesn't lose the crappy old blue collars makes me highly suspicious that someone in the neighbourhood is souveniring his own collars, which have traditionally been red. The last one was Barbie pink (I mistyped oink there, and was sorely tempted to leave it) as a joke on Best Beloved, but didn't work because his red-green colourblindness makes him impervious to shades of pink. Damn. Collars are expensive, and getting little tags engraved even more so. So for reasons of economy, Padge can be Pooter for a while in the wider world. If there's food involved, I suspect he'll answer to anything.

I'm writing this while I print out a little promotional flyer for my wares. With the time and energy and ink cannisters it's taking up, I might as well have handset and printed it, dammit. Up to now, I've been sending out an infrequent but free print newsletter to a growing mailing list. I got back from NZ to find that stamps had leapt to 60c!! Egads, people, snail mail is expensive!

So I've decided to regroup, and now want to offer to people the chance to subscribe to a regular (twice-yearly) newsletter/zine thingy for $5 a year. It will not be all letterpress, because that would blow it out of the water, but it will have a touch of it here and there. Anyone want to join up? I'm calling it SNAIL, since the last batch were called SNAIL MAIL. If you do, fling me an email to ampersandduck (at but I bet the spammers scan for (at) these days) gmail.com and I'll let you know how we proceed with payment.

I've almost, but not quite, shaken off my horrid cold. It started as a sore throat, moved up to my sinus, and then settled happily in my chest. I'm hacking up all sorts of blah, which catch in my throat on the way up & give me a great husky blues voice that sounds very dramatic on the phone. This is one reason why I'm on Facebook such a lot, for those who care, and also why I'm working from home a bit rather than standing in my still quite cool concrete studio.

Mind you, I did find the energy to complete the printing for my latest Book Art Object piece, and it should be dry enough today to finish... huzzar! Then I can send it out, and then, only then, can I share some photos, because the whole point is for the recipients to work it out for themselves. It's a one-trick pony, but I've had fun training it.

Another thing I've been working hard on is helping to rebrand ANCA, my studio complex, with a new logo and website etc. I haven't been responsible for the actual graphic side of it, but as I'm on the ANCA Board, I'm getting my hands dirty in other ways, like making decisions, letterheads & party planning. If you're interested, save the date of the 9th of December for the launch of the new ANCA look. Very exciting!

That's also the date, as well, of the Christmas Party of the Canberra Craft Bookbinding Guild, so I'll be party-hopping. If you are interested in that, it's a Show & Tell, Bring & Buy evening, so everyone needs to bring something to sell or show. Or just come & chat & buy, all good.

Still inkjetting. Might as well get out of my pyjamas and have some lunch :)

Nice things

This afternoon I was contacted by Megalo (the gallery where I'm showing my work) who wanted to know if I could drop everything and go on the radio. Apparently the local ABC had a bit of a cancellation and thought they'd fill it with some Local Art. Hooray!

So here I am in me working gear*, holding a couple of 'nice things made out of old books and recycled paper', just before I went into the studio to talk to the lovely Louise Maher. We had a great conversation, and they've promised to send it to me as an MP3 so that I can cringe along in the privacy of my own studio.

It was absolute gold putting the word 'recycled' into my title. I'm actually recycling papers I've created with my own printing work, but Louise was really more interested in my use of old books, and we talked at length about the Lifeline Bookfair and the way I plunder its treasures only after I've given people every chance to buy the books. I rattled on about how books aren't our primary source of information anymore, and therefore have even more become objects of desire, so extending the life of old books by transforming their initial design makes lots of sense. I also talked about books as primal symbols, and that when you use books in art, you're bringing the viewer halfway towards your art, because they understand what a book should be, and you can work with or against that. (In that line of thinking you can also substitute the word 'painting' and it works well too.) She also got interested in my letterpress work, and we talked a bit about the instant gratification of manual typewriters.

I don't know how those 'radio hosts' (don't think they're called DJs anymore) can concentrate with all the paraphenalia around them. When I was doing some community radio (way back when John Howard was in opposition), we just had a couple of CD decks, a turntable, ads on tape(!) spools and a few buttons and twinking lights. Now there's computers and banks of flashy things and multiple tvs running with the sound turned down. I'd be unable to think straight with all the distraction. I was very impressed.

Everything is ready. I've put the numbers on the works, had some more invites printed (I ran out of the meagre amount I printed in a vague attempt to keep things emailable, forgetting that people love hard copy souvenirs), and have bought a load of yummies for the opening. I didn't go the catering route -- just decided to bung on some cheeses and chips and fruit. I did take some time tonight to make some little savoury baked ricotta thingies, just because I had nothing else to do. Luxury!

Now I need my beauty sleep so that I can actually hear what people are saying to me at the opening. Ooh, bum, just remembered that I forgot to book the restaurant for afterwards. Oh well, I'll have to do it at the last minute and cross my fingers! Can't be totally organised, can one?





*Actually, the research chick told me they were going to take a photo for their blog, and I was dressed in my scraggiest flannie shirt, printing with red ink at the time (which makes me look like I've been gashed all up my arms, or like I've slashed someone else), so I dashed home on the way to the radio station and cleaned up and changed into what would ordinarily be my working clothes, anything BUT the flannie! I have standards, you know ;)

the life and times of books me

My doppelganger sister-in-law (whom I am proud to look like, since she is extremely lovely) is travelling solo around the world for a while. She's a veteran traveller, but the urge to travel alone came on strongly a couple of years ago when she turned 40, and I guess she's now got the bug. And her fabulous family is happy for her to go forth and be happy while they maintain their normal daily routine of school and work. Isn't she lucky?

Anyhoo, she's started a travel blog, based on a pair of pants that she gets people to wear and photographs in different situations. She's always got fun projects like that on the boil, sometimes many at once.

I'm travelling myself, tomorrow... all the way to Bega. Not solo, but with Colonel Duck, who has kindly come up to Canberra to give me a lift down to the far south coast. In return I will give him a personal tour of the bookbinding exhibition. (Gee, thanks, Ca, I can hear him say sarcastically when I tell him that.) And then I'm going to the Bega Library to sit around a table and do a bit of a show & tell with some of my books.

I had originally started writing a much more elaborate and general talk about books in art and art in books, starting way back with papyrus and Iraqi illuminated manuscripts and working my way through to now, exploring how books started with structural concerns, moved to a generic structure (the codex) and how most artistic challenges to the book form concerned experimentation with page design up to the late 20th century, when suddenly there was a major shift back to structural experimentation. I was really getting into it, had found all these great images on some of the databases we have access to at the ANU, when I talked to the Bega library staff on the phone, and asked them what they actually wanted me to say.

'Pretend you're a book,' they said. 'Describe yourself.'

Oh.

Ok, maybe I'll save that other talk for something else, like the Sturt Winter School.

So I've packed a box of things I don't mind being handled, and I'll stick to what I actually know about. Myself.

Sigh.

In other news, the workshop is totally booked out. Fun!

im in ur newzpaprs

Total coincidence, but I happen to be in both the Bega Times and the Canberra Times on the same day, for totally different reasons.

Canberra Times, in a review of my bookbinding exhibition (which now has my exhibition essay up on the gallery website):



and Bega, to promote the upcoming workshop I am hopefully teaching if they get the numbers:



Trying to look casual and approachable, don't want to scare off the punters

If you want to read the words, just click on the images to get somewhere that will make them bigger. I'm chuffed that Megan is billing my workshop as 'entertainingly invaluable'. I think I'll pop that on all my promotional material.

Colonel Duck has been ringing me excitedly through the morning each time he found an article. I'm going to appoint him my official Press Secretary.