springing again

in march the sky is sometimes like this

though snow still covered the land 

(there's much less now,

only patches in shadyplaces)

 it's still pretty darn cold

 but spring is in the air

the deer are moving alot.

 one is hiding against this elevated deer hunting thing

at my neighbor's hedgerow.

 soon i'll be on my way to idaho 

for a talk and two days of kami-ito and shifu making

(see the last post)

i return and head to portland to peddle my wares at the book arts bazaar.

.

i'll have papers and books and prints.

and below,

these prints are really that strong. 

wild color gifts from the pot's alchemy,

even a few eucalyptus leaves harvested 

at codex.

 this little book that i carried home from melbourne that last time

is letterpress printed

(on lousy paper, unfortunately)

but it's cool 

and i'm wondering what would happen 

if i combined some of it with some other imagery...

this is how it begins...

another book.

 our bookish group met and we made little blizzards

all over my table

using up some drawings.

 a ruffed grouse was checking out the backyard 

 finding something left behind as the snow melts

 looking like the local name: partridge

 until there's something to attend to

 then the crown appears

and away with you!

no ruff display on this photo op.

there may be some news

soon.

but not just

yet.

new book

reading wolseley's words

heron present

 the book is taking shape 

yesterday and today

a summer's work

this great blue heron,

a gift from my love, 

rests on one of the three long fold outs.

august day.

natural disasters and thank you

the beeswax book was in this shape,

more or less,

yesterday morning.

 the mail came

and with it paperwork pertaining to retirement

so i had forms to fill out and

financial people to speak to on the phone.

the iphone works best,

when it does work, that is,

on my screen porch.

where trace willan's xanthorrhoea resin in solution lives.

in a jar with a not very tight lid.

it must have eased over

by preoccupied me

all 12 ounces of it.

and i didn't notice until i saw evidence

 after i used up all the spillage

to decorate the book

there was a huge clean-up,

using the only solvent i had that worked

nail polish remover. 

 they went out into the sun to air.

 and as the book cover dried

it morphed into something else altogether

 inside pages got a bit of mark making

thanks to 

the bolyard xanthorrhoea spirits spill

 aromatic is too nice a word.

 this morning

 i will try to sew the signatures to tapes

and lace in the tapes.

 it has a wonderful surface now

and it's 

 no longer sticky!

(sorry about the darkness, 

i was too excited to go noodle around in iphoto)

i don't recommend bookmaking 

by chance

but i do recommend

making hay while the sun shines.

thank you trace!

spring things!

i've added a button on the shop page
(hannah did all the work)

for you to order the little book about shifu and printing,

if you wish.

hannah has it here and at the new site (which i haven't yet sorted out).

i've sent out one already

and the paypal thing is working.

(thank you, betsy!)

i seem to have emerged from a funk

a change,

a tilting,

and now, well now

i have my sea legs

for a bit.

i returned to the place i call home last night:

 and this was above the little porch.

 it was beautiful.

the night was full of frogs songs 

and the sound of a few birds, 

woodcock, my favorite.

in the night, 
for the second one running

i was awakened around 3:00

by a loud bird sound

i think.

one or two calls

and that was all.

am i dreaming owl hunts?

 and we went out this morning 
to this marsh.

found a new emergence.

 i was thinking turtle thoughts

wondering how it is to be
turtle with the thick reptilian armor

while this soft human skin was feasted

by mosquitoes.

no worries,

escape happened fast.

 no turtles.

yet. 

two events are coming up for me:

UPSTATE NEW YORK WAYZGOOSE
on june 4th,
come by the vendor tables and say HEY!

~~~

then retirement

a special wedding, then

August  20-21

I will be teaching at the Morgan Conservatory
Native Species: Ecoprinting
making prints from the Morgan's ecosystem

~~~

August 26th 

NEGBW MINI-CONFERENCE:

INSPIRED BY NATURE

Spend a weekend in Northern Maine with a community of local artists working in the field of bookbinding, book arts, paper making and calligraphy. 

at the
Cobscook Community Learning Center 
10 Commissary Point Road

Trescott, ME 04652

The CCLC is located  in Trescott Township, Maine, between the towns of Whiting and Lubec in the Cobscook Bay region of Downeast Maine. 
this is a venue 
that is beautiful, wonderful.

(i can send you a pdf of this event 
or you can contact the north east branch of the guild of bookworkers...
if i was more adept i could attach the pdf...)
sigh.
~~~

one of the things, 
including the new website,
and a collaboration with a special friend
are what i'm doing this summer.
~~~
and
~~~
November, A Map is almost sold out.
i will be taking a few to rochester with me.
i have recently been told that several universities
now have my artists books in their special collections
and you can see that information 
if you hunt under the publications at the top bar. 
PHEW!
~~~

off to the races, er, cleveland!

 i'll be teaching this weekend

at the morgan conservatory 

and then again next week with aimee lee

and whilst there

 this show shall open

with work from several papermakers

using eastern papers/techniques

in their work

i'm honored to be in this group

and i've heard there will be a catalog.

and

this is the latest book, 

just sewn together

still nameless

another of the hortus siccus series.

a soft, 

landscape of a book

with drawing and stitching and shifu

and flax and cotton and silk

and egg!

it's a bit like

a sketchbook of the north country,

simple,

really. 

rainy day

i love weather

the changes 

and these few pictures are NOT

are decidedly not what today is.

 anyway, fist cutting 

should be all done and gathered in

and new growth well underway

 but i loved these large square bales

(yes, i know they're not square)

taken in the early morning sunshine

here:

all good farmers got in their hay

even this youngster

but

this is how things look today

 only more gray and less

as the rain decrees.

 practicing with a horn bag pattern,

and amused by how my understanding is

different from jean's 

but they all work out

maybe it's like the plethora of ways

to make a potholder or a needle book?

anyway,

i'm putting the textblock together for this cover

 i stitched it to ecoprinted flax cave paper

this book will go 

directly 

to the morgan for a show

focused on eastern papermaking.

serious leak

oh, no, now the japanese nuclear plant

is leaking, leaking

enormously

(on npr, this)

as i started to blog here

i was going to complain and make excuses for myself:

i downloaded a new operating system

and my head might

explode from new 

and found a new word processing program

thanks to carol

finer than the dastardly and horrific microsoft 

product

but that news pales next to leaking

radiation.

more.

again.

more.

here in colorado

i put this little book together 

on saturday night,

 to remind me that i do make things.

 the pages are my papers, 

all roughed up and sewn up, too

the cover comes from melissa

 and then,

suddenly, i'm in another place

where the landscape goes all sideways

 but at terraphilia

 there's just a jumble of good 

 stuff

 an early morning visitor

 stuff

 stuff

 on the mountain

 in the garden

this, THIS, i love.