A book for Narratives

 

I'm hoping that my artists' book, Compassion Scroll (see opening photo) will be exhibited as part of the Narratives 2025 artist's book exhibition in Maleny. Because we are heading off to Scotland it has been important to pack up the scroll and get one of the organisers to take delivery of it before we go.

This book was originally made for the Compassion exhibition in Nambour however the quote by Kirstin Hannah is just as applicable, or more so, in the current environment.

The quote is printed using traditional letterpress on a strip of pianola paper. The scroll container is made from an antique small brass hand pump. The door into the scroll container was hand cut and is mounted using recycled small brass hinges. The pump handle is used to roll up the scroll. The scroll is held in its extended position using an antique clock weight that I made a hook on the end of.

A few different images follow.

A fully unfurled version of the scroll follows.

The Cove Post - completed and installed

 

I managed to get The Cove Post completed today; and as you can see from the photo above I am pleased with the outcome.

Following are some photos of the installation.

Some photos of the detail on the post.

Some of the installed post.

Many of the photos were taken by Fiona.

Beautiful salvaged timber

We recently took delivery of quite a large stack of timber to be put to use in a variety of situations on the block. All the timber was milled by a young furniture maker friend who has worked with me on a number of sculpture projects that involved timber posts. The logs are usually from trees that have fallen during storms or when folk are getting trees felled because they are endangering their property. Great to use this salvaged timber.

©2019 Barry Smith - Stepping stones across the Rock River

We got about 50-55 squares of timber milled into 45cm and 35cm shares by 7.5cm thick. We plan to use these as 'stepping stones' across two crossing points of the rock river - but our stepping stones will be wood. We have installed (embedded) the stepping stones into the rocks across the top of the Rock River - a bit more finessing by Fiona to be done.

©2019 Barry Smith - Stacks of hard wood 'stepping stones'

We also ordered seven 20cm square logs at 2m long. In fact 10 were delivered because several had faults in the timber. And most logs were 2.5m-2.6m long and extremely heavy because they are hardwood. In an effort to get the stockpile under control Fiona and I waxed sealed the end cuts of the 'stepping' stones and carried them down to the lower terraces in readiness for installation.

©2019 Barry Smith - Ten very long and heavy squared logs

I then proceeded to cut up the 20cm square logs into manageable and mainly fault free lengths - this involved cutting the weak spots out. We decided to turn the offcuts of this process into 20cm cubes for an installation on the new sculpture terraces.

©2019 Barry Smith - Chainsawing in progress - older timber under black plastic

We also decided to turn a couple of the logs with weak spots into bench seats which you can see stacked behind the 20cm cubes in the photo below. All the cut ends of the logs and cubes had to be roughly sanded and wax stalled as I went along. The wax sealing reduces the ends splitting. I just love the stack of cubes including two ratty 25cm cubes from the old logs. We will have over 30 cubes to play with - some are good timber whereas others are pretty ratty.

©2019 Barry Smith - Two heavy benches and lots of cubes - all roughly sanded and sealed

The cutting process is now complete; including trimming and waxing a couple of 25cm logs that have been in my stash for a couple of years - they are the logs at the far right.

©2019 Barry Smith - A beautiful stash of prepared timber

©2019 Barry Smith - The stash even looks neat now

©2019 Barry Smith - Looking down at the stash from the western deck.

So we are all good to go on heaps of projects in 2019.

It is normal !!!!

I was talking to Fiona about my recent foraging for bits and the need to spread them out to look at them and see the connections between pieces so that I can envisage assemblages such as my light catchers and incense burners.

I commented that I hope she didn't mind my collections, such as the above, spread out in the garage in the space under the pumpkin hammock. Her response was "not at all - that is just normal" .. nice of her to say that but "normal"? I know that artists such as Donna, Robyn, Kim and many others have their 'collections' of bits - but I am not sure that makes it "normal". Still I am happy that I live with a fellow artist who does very different work to me but understands.

We went for a country drive today and course kept our eyes out for art galleries and 'collectable' shops and garage sales - we did manage to see a couple of 'collectable outlets' but the best was in fact a farm garage sale.

Most stuff was gone but the woman had 4 great solid heavy cast iron wheels for sale (600-700mm in diameter) - so we bought the four of them for a good price and carried them home in the VW Golf - must say it was nicely weighted in the rear on the trip home. These will become part of bigger works - circles within squares?? I just love the offset circle in the bigger toothed wheel. And great rust of course.

Foraging on Friday

No creations were made today; but there are lots of bits collected that will add to future pieces. As I indicated in my last post Fiona and I went on a material stash replenishing trip today. I know that many fellow artists (e.g. Donna) understand the need to visit 'collectable' establishments to see if we can find 'good stuff' that we can add to our creative pile for use in future pieces.



We were lucky to come across a place that had lots of bits and pieces that the owners were happy for artists to sort through to pick bits for assemblage work - and at bargain prices. The photo above shows the resulting stash - mind you there are a couple of pieces that I had to pay over the odds because they are 'collectable'.

And on this foraging trip we were lucky to buy another large copper laundry boiler at a very reasonable price - great patinated copper for both Fiona and myself.

And yes there is more - I got this rusted but very restorable blacksmith's vice (about 1m long) - it will be great for foldforming once I have serviced it and mounted it on the outside work bench.

And there is yet more even (so exciting!!!) - Fiona found this great hand operated bench drill - it is in pretty good order; and once cleaned etc will be great for drilling the 'pages' of Fiona's metal books - a lot more control with the hand driven drill.

So at the end of our Friday we are happy - with our heap of rusted and patinated bits - our art material stash.