I was able to grab a couple of session in the workshop to finish my new 5 leaf artists' book Leaves - words are a poem by me.
The opening photo shows the leaf forms after they have been: cut, stamped, formed, planished, ground and polished.
A few photos of part of the making process.
And a couple of the finished book on the workshop bench.
I will take the time to photograph Leaves properly before putting in an application for it to be exhibited in a show later this year.
I have decided to create a third artists' book to submit it for inclusion in a NZ exhibition. The opening photo shows the 5 leaf forms with a poem stamped onto the flat leaf forms.
I have decided to combine a reworked version of my leaf poem that was used in the trio of copper books and the leaf form I used for my mighty river trees artists' book. As you can see from scribbles in my wee journal the idea came to me during one of our Biblio sessions.
I significantly reworked the original leaf cycle poem - it is now a stand alone version titled Leaves. Reworked with some comments and feedback from Fiona - grand to have a word person to bounce ideas around with. See the photo of the text below.
Process-progress photos follow including marking up from a template, cutting with hand shears and marking up the cleaned blanks for stamping.
Hand stamping does not always go as planned - the s, p and e in whispers were just too close - so I decided to restamp the whole verse - before and after versions of 'whispers' appear in image below. Probably doesn't appear to be greatly different but it mattered to me.
Following are a couple more images of the stamped leaf blanks.
I hope to grab a few hours in the coming week to make the flat leaf forms into their concave shape and then planish the back to create the faceted look.
I'm making four sets of Daily Leaf Words and 12 small metal books for my online shop. After cutting the leaf pieces and the 'pages' for the small metal books I grabbed a bit of time to stamp the words on: seven words on the Daily Leaf Words and four on the books.
The opening image shows the stash of stamped metal for the word leaves.
Below are the 'pages' for the books with stamped centre page.
A few more process photos follow. I love the images of the metal stamps and the stamped word "wonder".
When time permits the leaf metal will be folded and cut into their leaf shape etc etc - several more steps to go yet. The book pages will be riveted into their book forms after polishing and grinding. I will blog on the Daily Leaf Words and the small Metal Books when they are ready for the shop.
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The commissioned work that is made up of three large handcut Corten steel leaves and a large hand hammered patinated copper bowl on a 20cm square plinth has been installed as you can see from the photo above.
The installation was guided and enable by the dynamic installation trio you can see in the photo below.
A few of the installation photos follow.
We also tested how and where the negative space leaves might be installed in a back garden.
It it always pleasing to install works and celebrate them in place with the commissionee - bubbles were involved. Most photos were taken by Fiona.
Our 25% off studio sale at Deckled Edge Press studio-gallery is on tomorrow (Saturday 19 Nov 10am-4pm); so today was all about setting up.
The sale will include some of my sculptural work (see photo above and below), new works (including small metal boats and the sculptural form Poised), and some old favourites like my pendants and earrings, leaf forms, Daily Leaf Word sets, vessels and cement pieces.
Photos of some of the sculptural pieces that will be for sale, including a new cube and an Artisan Lamp, can be seen below.
A couple of the new pieces.
Some of the old favourites.
And Daily Leaf Word sets and silver-plated bowls.
Hoping friends and supporters can pick up a pre Christmas bargain.
We are also doing a fund raiser for Maleny Neighbourhood Centre (MNC) - all framed items and paper sample packs on our special fundraiser table will be 50% off - all proceeds from the sale of these table items will be donated to MNC. Another chance to pick up a bargain; and at the same time support this great local service.
I used to refer to the leaf form knives in this blog as 'leaf pate knives'; but Fiona said folk might use them for all sorts of spreading tasks - butter, soft cheese, dips etc as well as pate - so they are now know as 'leaf spreading knives'. The spreading section of the knives is not sharp - not for cutting cheese or sausage!!!
I have made 20 knives - with a bit of variety - some with leaf veins, some totally plain, some with ornate backs and some with ornate fronts - really mixing it up as you will see from the photo above and the ones below. The opening photo shows that a number of vintage silver-plate trays were cut up for these knives.
A few process photos to show that there is a process and the shiny pieces do start out looking pretty grungy.
