some books

 i finally got to putting together some of my samples

from my february trip

i made three books
and a few samples, too,

while (or in australian, whilst) teaching

 the bottom book

was completed at

my wee residency at beautiful silks

and provided enormous entertainment for me

one long night

 this stationers bound sample book

filled with silk and paper contact prints

and shifu and eucalyptus blooms,

in a fit of experimentation i dunked it into the wife.

well,

the wife is a wise and enormous vat of indigo

and my book came up gasping for air

going from sludge to blue

quickly

but also starting to sag and would have torn itself to bits

from the wife's good juice.

so i supported the thing 

as she completed the color magic

then set up a drying system, which was no mean feat 

considering the dry book weighs only an ounce or two, 

but wet,

well she sagged under her own weight.

iowa flax case paper cover and various handmade and machine made papers,

and shifu

hold a lot of liquid.

so, once the color stabilized i began

the tedious blotting dry 

and using a fan and a drying rack and many towels

 all night long

she dried, stabilizing the spine and then the pages. 

yesterday i sewed in all the loose bits and have a finished book

thanks to beautiful silks and the wife

also as i sorted out the work table
 i unearthed a little book i made 

years ago from scraps

from the trash at pbi

 oh, and a feather and someone's measuring notes.

and took a picture

 i, like jude, have been thinking

~of weave~

overexposed

 in motion

 focusing

 and finally focused

spun paper, kami-ito,

and canada thistle paper

of course it is!

weave holds the universe together.

here in melbourne

 before i left the north country

 we were waiting for

 or just enduring more

winter.

today, my second day in melbourne

i am wearing shorts and sandals

my legs protesting and very pinky pale

and my mind a bit weird

from jetlag.

 leaving ottawa

 and the great white north

 i traveled

 to the big chicago

 over lake michigan

 and again into the air to the city

las angeles

for a ridiculous nine hour layover

 i did find a spot of grass and some trees

(amidst dreadful cacaphony)

 and a plane headed to china

 this is my first siting some 15 plus hours later

of australia

 enveloped in a haze of smoke

 from extensive wildfires.

when we landed i could smell it--

 and in melbourne there was

the little shop of horrors

 or flowers

 meanwhile,

back at the ranch

 the indigo was beaten

 by the strong arms of

naomi

 who cares for this stew 

of blue

and, incidentally, me, too!

 outside beautiful silks

where i'm teaching

 are some things i like very much

old texts, and in the sky

today

rain.

long absence (for me!)

i haven't left town, 

not yet,

but will in a week and a half

for oz.

first stop: beautiful silks

and a very exciting class

on making our own cartographic explorations

contained inside

artists' books!

three days of intense play

serious play*, in fact

i can hardly wait!

 i have reluctantly pulled myself away

from the printing on silk

 seen here

 and here

and morojifu

moons

 and winter sunrises keep calling

 to me-get all your ducks in order!

those ducks include 

a list long enough, 

too long, actually

here's an amish farmhouse i pass

ten times a week

on the way to work.

 and the ladies fly by

 but i had to stop

full stop

to photograph them in blizzard dress

one morning last week

on the way to school.
after melbourne, it's on to the grampians.
(should you wish to join me,
check out the events button.)

*serious play is a term coined by my dear friend
carol j blinn of warwick press.

yellow birch

 the new place

has yellow birch sills 

and now floors

upstairs.

 sills are oiled, 

floor just installed and unfinished

details unfinished still

but you can see it shaping into home.

i am reading 

to take new ideas into teaching:

and

 i've been looking at 

 drum leaf binding samples

 books made with paste

and paint and pencil 

paper pages, in preparation

drum leaf binding with paste papers 

for teaching in melbourne

at beautiful silks

an experimental class to push us all

and making new prints

to see where they take me,

to oz? or where they go

next.

and i have apps to do

nyfa grants. 

teaching workshops.

ugh.

guess where…

i will be in february, over winter break?

Austalia!

i will be teaching three classes.

the first will be at amazing and wonderful

BEAUTIFUL SILKS

in Melbourne.

we will be working on paper as/on/in textile

in BOOK format.

a codex will be made by every participant

'twill be a medieval style

with very contemporary implications.

your very personal marks

maybe not words, though, but you'll be making

the stationer's binding.

a medieval version of a three ring binder,

only with tackets and hideyholes.

my amazing friend

and proprietor of Beautiful Silks

Marion Gorr says there will be

a couple of surprises, too

a dyepot or more,

imagine: indigo, cochineal, ecoprints…

making paper sing.

making paper string.

making paper speak and listen.

 ~~~

and then after Melbourne,

i will be in a more faraway place called

Grampians Texture

where i will teach first a two, 

then a four day workshop!

shifu

enough time to delve lightly, 2 days,

or deeply, 4 days, into shifu making

shifu Shifu SHIFU!

we will spin and weave and color up our

paper/thread/books. the four days

will be enough time to go very deeply 

into a formal book presentation of your shifu.

you will reach a bit,

work hard,

and expect some amazing work.

 i am very excited

and i am hoping like mad

that the weather gods smile on this winter traveler!