Wednesday, September 30, 2020

Vibrant morning colour

 

Spring is in full swing - the morning walk was filled with bird song; blossoms; bees; trees; and a wallaby - got to love all the vibrancy of new beginnings and new seasons.

Lavender blossom - looks like it is floating.










Bee coming in for a landing on lavender.


And we are getting rainbows through the eastern louvres in the new kitchen. Rainbow and shadows through and on our mesh fruit bowl.




Sunday, September 27, 2020

So far to go

 

Reflecting on the death and work of RBG made me realise that we have made so little progress in regards to gender equality; even though some folk have worked so hard and given so much for so long. 

Patriarchy is still the system that dominates and supports inequality. Until men  recognise that and are willing to let it go, dismantle it and replace it with equality; then we will never have equality.

This reflection resulted in this simple poster. The posters are about 330-350mm wide and 560-620mm long.

I love the fact that the italic wood type is very old and so worn and even cracked - maybe it reflects the fact that the struggle to dismantle patriarchy has been going on for a very, very long time.


Fiona said she wanted us to keep the proofs so that she can reuse bits of the posters and/or rework them - they will emerge in another form. Note that the D on the first proof was back to front.

For now there is a limited edition of 5 on three different types of paper. In the end the grey was my favourite.


Friday, September 25, 2020

Limited editions on love

 

Folk reading my blog will have seen that I have been working on single page artists books based on Mary-Jane Dodd's poem "love heals'. I was doing two different series: one on Magnani map paper; and one on faux vellum. Each book had letterpress on the front of the sheet and a computer print of a photo of one of my mended bowls.



I have finally finished drying and folding the books. 

The letterpress ink on the vellum series took many weeks to fully dry - but the transparent nature of the books was I think worth the wait. Three sepia printed books form a limited edition of 3. The vellum books have a transparent wrap made from strong tracing paper.

Two faux vellum books with grey-black printed back form a limited edition of two.

And four less that good quality faux vellum books are artists proofs.

The paper based books were much harder to fold given the paper was stiff and about 140gsm - but the  books are smooth to the touch. In the end there were 17 good books in the series. The paper books have a debased wrap made from the same Magnani map paper.



Wednesday, September 23, 2020

It is about the trees

 

Fiona and I have exchanged the beauty of mountains with the beauty of majestic trees. From our new home we can see a lot of trees; but several are particularly magnificent such as the one above.

A very misty morning when we rose this morning.


But the day was clear and light by the time I walked. Native blossoms seem to be enjoying the warmer weather and showing great shapes and colours.




There were of course many other blossoms that caught the eye.







So many tiny birds filling the surrounds with flits and sounds.




Monday, September 21, 2020

Installation for peace

 Peace dove with Graham's orchids as a background.

Over the years Fiona and I have done installations of 21 peace weather grams and doves in a tree at the top of our block at 601 - the tree became known to us as the peace tree. 

Last year we also did 7 at the cottage in Scotland as we were away for the 21 September (International Peace Day). 

This year we have left 601 and now live in 119; but we don't have a tree out the front. 

So we negotiated with Fiona's dad Graham to use his tree.

It is smaller than the one at 601 so we installed 7 doves and seven weather grams as the sun was going down yesterday afternoon.






What about the other 14 doves for this year - 7 are stored in Scotland; and 7 are on Ken's chair sculpture outside our front door.


Just our quirky way of honouring peace; and hoping we can manifest a bit of it in the world around us.