Moving right along

What a couple of weeks! The 100% Books exhibition is going fabulously well, looks superb and by all accounts is inspiring a new wave of artist book making in the region. Win win! It finishes this Sunday, so if you haven't been yet (and are capable of going), don't miss out. I'm working on a web presence for it on my 'working' site so that it can have an afterlife and will have downloadable bits for those who want to know more about it. I will be in the gallery on Saturday afternoon from 12 to 4, hosting the last of our three white-gloves sessions. Here's a peek at the gallery (there's more behind the camera scope too).

Another thing to share is the lovely Lady Duck, talking to the ABC about her spiritual home, the Bega Regional Museum. I keep watching it and smiling at the last 'imagine the scene' bit, which is very 'her' and gives you an idea of how I came to be me.

I have been working very hard on the initial thinking of my PhD study, and my main conclusion is that I don't have enough office space. We have a room in the house that used to be the last owner's sewing room. It has a desk that wraps around two sides of the room, long enough for all three of us to sit at with our laptops and work. We built floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on the other two sides of the room, all full now, of course. My corner is now piled with books and bits of paper that flow down onto the floor, creating a low wall across the floor to delineate my space. It's only going to get worse, and I am determined not to flow into my studio, which is full enough with bits of paper and books. Blimey, what to do? I'll have to gently force BB and B out and make them use their computers on their laps :)

Must get back to it...  *waves*

Coming up, next week in fact: the opening of 100%: Books by Canberra Artists.
Opening Thursday 11 April, at 6pm with guest speaker Peter Haynes (art curator, writer).
Running from 11 to 28 April at the Watson Arts Centre, Watson ACT (Aspinall St) and the gallery is open Thurs - Sundays 10am - 4pm.

I'm the curator for the show, and I've asked 20 artists to give me 'early' and 'recent' work. (I'm using the quotes because sometimes 'recent' means a couple of years ago and sometimes the gap between 'early' and 'recent' isn't very long for an emerging artist).

The artists are: Antonia Aitken, GW Bot, byrd, Kirsten Farrell, Dianne Fogwell, UK Frederick, Shellaine Goldbold, Ingeborg Hansen, Nicci Haynes, Jan Hogan, Hanna Hoyne, Murray Kirkland, Maryann Mussared, Tanya Myshkin, Patsy Payne, Bernie Slater, Franki Sparke, Nick Stranks, Genevieve Swifte, Iona Walsh.

Most of the artists aren't what you'd call a 'book artist'. In fact, until quite recently there wasn't such a thing as a book artist. There were artists who made a book occasionally or frequently as part of their [insert field here] practice. In this show I have included printmakers, painters, sculptors... and many who don't like to be defined. There are objects in the show that aren't even book-like, like Ingeborg Hansen's screenprint of a book. But it's there (or will be, next week) because that's what she's doing at the moment, having made many very good books in the past, some of which will be in the room with the print. She's still thinking about the Book, and no doubt she will continue to make them, but at the moment she's in love with screenprints, and having a large-scale four-colour dot-screened image of a book in the show will look amazing, especially near Nick Stranks' bronze-cast books.

There will be altered books, installed books, huge books, small books, fine press books and zine-style books.  It's a microcosm of the artist's book macrocosm.

Can you feel how much fun this show will be? I'm 100% excited. The title is a weird progression from trying to tie the show in with the Canberra centenary celebrations; we started with C% as a play on the centenary but it all got shifted around at some point and ended up a bit off-centre, but I can happily rationalise that each of these artists puts 100% into their work, and this space will be 100% devoted to book thoughts by artists in the Canberra locality. So there.

We're also having a fun afternoon on the 20th of April with artist's talks and a zine fair (12 to 4pm) so pencil that in please... and we're also in the midst of organising some workshops for kids and adults, will let you know more soon.

I hope you can make the show if you're in the region. I'm hoping to put together (in the next few days) a downloadable room guide with annotations so that if you can't make it, you can at least read about it and see the work.

Also, if you'd like to see some of MY book work, I'm in a show at the Canberra Museum and Gallery that opens this Friday: Intensity of Purpose: 21 years of ANCA. They have one of my Book Art Object books, with an accompanying iPad to allow you to look through the book. Fun!

Requests for CATZ

Man, this is harder than I expected. How many times a day do I think 'I must blog that' and then just Facebook it? I guess it's the actual sitting down to compose something, tracking down the photos I want to use, resizing them, and all that.

I've had a few requests for more cats. I presume that means more cat photos, but I seriously almost took a cat home from the recent Bega Show. She was GORGEOUS, black and white and fluffy but not too fluffy. Her name was Emma, but we would have changed that pretty quickly. I mean, we couldn't have Mr Padge, Mr Pooter and Emma, could we? She would have to be a Ms or Miss at the very least, and probably have to have a similarly 'Diary of a Nobody' name, like Daisy Muttler or something. She was 6 months old, desexed, micro-chipped, toilet-trained and completely mellow around all the kids and adults patting her in the animal pavilion. I fell in love. We've always wanted three cats, but we've never been sure about how to go about it. It would be easier if our two cats weren't litter siblings and completely co-dependent.

I didn't end up taking Emma home. Best Beloved was also tempted when he met her, but he has a slightly clearer head than I and he, unbeknownst to me until that conversation, had worked out a strategy and so unveiled it for me: wait until one of our cat-boys dies and then buy two cats to fill the gaping hole that will be left. I found the thought almost too painful to hold for even a few minutes, but he has a good point. The remaining cat will be so bereft and lonely that he will welcome the company, and with any luck he'll be too old to put up much of a fight against two new kittens.

I suppose I should put some photos in now. Speaking of one cat, Pooter very rarely seems to be in front of my camera. Padge, however, is always in the studio under or beside my feet.

 I love his big bum, it's such a lovely catty shape.

It does however make it hard to sit on small seats. All ladies with generous proportions (like myself) know this pain.


Let's change the subject, it's making me sad.


I'm very excited about a couple of new albums out or coming out. The first is the new David Bowie album, the first for YEARS. I'm not much of a hero worshipper, but if I had to pick one person I admire it would be him, just because he has proved himself to be a continually inventive person who comes up with the goods. I love the latest single from the album (The Stars (are out tonight)), mainly because it is damn fine and has a video clip with Tilda Swinton and David being bizarre together, but also because it will soon be released on WHITE VINYL, peoples. I am going to queue for one if I have to, and it will join my red Beatles vinyl and my pale pink Elvis vinyl (yes, Colonel Duck, both of which were/are yours. But this will be MINE).

The other album, which I have already and have been playing on high rotation, is the latest from Deborah Conway and Willy Zeigler, Stories of Ghosts. How many ways do I love Deborah Conway? She has always been there; every time she releases a track it's in tune with my own time of life and emotions. I guess we're roughly the same age, give or take five years or so. As a forty-something woman (entering the latter part of '40-something' :) ), when I heard the track 'Nothing Tastes the Same' on ABC RN, it had the same emotional impact as 'Man Overboard' did when I was 18.

She and Willy have been given a lot of airplay on ABC RN lately, (and so they bloody well should) and they've been pitching the album as an atheistic exploration of Old Testament themes. But it's more than that. The CD cover and printed song-words (the material object!) reveal an underlying preoccupation with questioning the treatment of Jewish people through history. It's done beautifully; the music and the lyrics are just wonderful. The songs are so multi-layered that I'm sure people can find multiple readings that are all equally valid.


I've got a couple of my graduate residencies in swing at the moment. One is Merryn Sommerville, who is working with woodcuts and wood type. I'll show more of her soon. The other, who is almost finished, is Eadie Newman. Eadie studied in the Printmedia & Drawing Workshop and came out more as a drawer than a printer, but I loved the way she combines her drawings with imaginative and elaborate titles. So she came and looked at the type, and like the resident before her, painter Louise Upshall, proved to be a dab hand at type-setting. Here she is:

She wasn't quite sure what to do, so I sent her home with a book of Stevie Smith poems (I love matching artistic minds with the right texts) and she came up with this for the poem 'In My Dreams':

Isn't it wonderful? Of course, that image is just the proof, but we've now printed them and after a session of cleaning them up and signing, they will be unleashed on my website for sale, along with all the other wonderful prints made by my EASS residents (EASS is an emerging artists' support scheme run by my art school). Later in the year, in August, I'm putting up an exhibition of all the work made so far. I'll keep you all informed of that one.

 If you're in Melbourne, pop over to the Caulfield campus of Monash and see the most wonderful print exhibition, called Community and Context, up until March 12. If you can't get to it, you can at least look at the catalogue, and maybe even buy one. I'm in it, and so are a lot of very interesting people.

Enough! My email inbox is pinging madly; I'm in the thick of curating an exhibition of artist's books made by Canberra artists, opening April 11. I'm guessing the next post will be all about that.