Working on a new zine. It will be interactive and able to exist in a variety of forms as with the last one but will come completed. I’ve scanned, formatted and printed the first few drawings into a mock up and all is looking good. Now to complete the seven remaining drawings and photograph some feet.
Filed under: 2009, made in, book binding, craft, drawing | Tags: artist book, embroidery, home, watercolour
Finally finished. This book is a chronology of all the buildings I’ve known as home. A personal history of colonising the land. The covers are laser engraved with an adapted William Morris motif, recalling both internal intimate spaces, and the english sensibility that is projected onto the land. The inset embroidery brings the feminine to the fore, the hand crafted as gift, a gesture of love, a sharing of perspectives. The handcrafted nature of the work is restated by the exposed stitching, including it’s visible flaws and tensions. Beginning with the home I returned from the hospital to as a newborn, and moving through to a building I have not yet set foot in, but is the form of my future home, where my daydreams reside.
Filed under: craft, drawing, surrounds | Tags: craft, embroidery, watercolour
Contemplating windows, the blueprint of interior spaces and the experiences held in them emerge, housemates and lovers, settling and escaping, individual and shared histories.
Whilst painting and stitching away at my current project I contemplate the zine format. A format of reproduction and distribution, reaching it’s audience through a cheap transaction, taken home, examined intimately. Do I have anything to express through a format that does not require hundreds of hours production, that is cheaply and easily reprinted and rebound? And what does the beautiful piece of expensive paper hanging on my studio wall have to do with it?
In studio news, I’m now sharing my space with the lovely Phebe Parisia.
Filed under: book binding, drawing | Tags: artist book, book binding, watercolour
Progress is progress is progress.
Progressing out of sequence, my book is emerging from the thoughts that contain and grow it. The pages are bound before all the drawings are done. Homes have been painted out of chronology, numbers 1 and 6 (pictured) completed. The bottom picture is a preliminary design for the cover, pattern taken from William Morris. The centre will be an inset embroidery of home no.2, not sure the design will frame it or the entire book correctly, a high risk of it being scraped. The cover is to be engraved hoop pine with copper pigment impregnated in the line work.
Filed under: book binding, craft, surrounds | Tags: embroidery, ideas, watercolour
A snapshot of my current output, slow processes govern my work. An embroidered map takes many hours longer than anticipated, intended as the first of a series, a series that will be a life time task.
The emergent beginnings of a book, documenting the buildings I’ve known as home. A complex mix of binding, embroidery, wood engraving, pigment flocking and watercolour. I consider adding more to the plan, perhaps words need be involved.
My mind is endlessly engaged with new projects, yet must be reeled in and contained, assessments to be written instead.
Filed under: 2009, made in, drawing | Tags: life drawing, watercolour, work space
Peoples working spaces fascinate me especially when they merge into the domestic space. The things we surround ourselves with become extensions of our thoughts and memories, symbols to store our epiphanies. Breanna’s posted some photos of her space that elaborate on these watercolours beautifully.
After eight months of residency I still haven’t documented my studio, I will. I appreciate the space and retreat it provides but dislike how it forces my art apart from my day to day routines. To tackle this I keep my watercolours and an extra set of grey leads and paper at home. Lately I’ve preferred working at home, embroidering in bed with my laptop for reference.
The spaces that surround us are an extension of the self. Today I visited Breanna in order to explore her relationship with the place she inhabits. Drawn from life the colouring was done after. I hope it does justice to the delicate pastel tones of her room.
I’m reveling in the memories that drawing this series is bringing up, gardens that felt like an entire wilderness and walled in flower beds overhanging fish ponds, perfect for imagined fairies. Feelings are going to become a little more fraught when I get up to some more recently departed homes.
I’m working on Magnani Pescia paper and I’m not happy with it. It has a beautiful almost fuzzy softness to it but anywhere the paper has become saturated it gives a mottled appearance. Any recommendations for favorite hot pressed watercolour papers would be appreciated.
Looking over these again I am so disappointed with the paper, I think I may have to start over again.
Filed under: 2009, made in, drawing | Tags: drawing, home, patterson lakes, watercolour
The beginning of a planned series of restrained watercolours, this is my first home. Currently between homes, temporarily accommodated in a place that once was home but is no longer I seek refuge in memories of settlement. No looming shadows as the memories are weak and mellow, more to do with my favorite yellow bathers than the structure of place.
