ELSEWHERE

Folding and binding and making

(Making up 15 little kits, with a little help from Olive.)

Yesterday, on a day bright and sunny (and too hot for me, especially on the long way home), I conducted a second workshop in the leafy canopy of the Lyceum Club in Ridgeway Place. Inside the cool and very inviting surrounds as I unpacked my bone folders, scorers, rulers, zines, and pencils, the place was abuzz with news that the Governor-General, Her Excellency the Honourable Quentin Bryce AC CVOI, was stopping by for a look around the club. Sadly, I didn't get to met her, but I did teach three different bookbinding techniques to a room full of kind and keen souls. You may recall, from the below images, the last workshop I taught at the club. This time around, I taught three binding techniques that didn't require glue: wrap around, foldout, and double pamphlet. This time around, the group (as expressed earlier) were equally charming and enthusiastic. Another great workshop I'd happily teach again.










(A few quick photos instagram captures before the workshop was all I had time for, but you can see the beautiful space, and it was nice to see one of Isobel Clement's paintings on the wall.)

A baker's dozen for spring

Thirteen images from recent (late October and into November) spring days, from resprung and reapholstered chairs to floorboard repairs by way of gallery visits and our pets, Omar, Olive, and Percy. Here, in visual order only, is a baker's dozen of what has been:


(In the early afternoon, we acquaint ourselves with tightly coiled chair springs and luxury.)


(To the beautifully relaxed Cup Day.)


(Mice away. Pens down. Olive tries to convince us the working day is done. (If only.))


(Saturday's tools make rough the hands and happy the heart.)


(Old man Perce makes cutting upholstery fabric somewhat tricky.)


(Saturday's bolt hole.)


(Perce decides that the distance home is too great and happily hitches a ride.)


(Monday's satisfaction is shredding old tax receipts for the RSPCA's rabbit bedding.)


(There on the wall, our print And They Silently Steal Away from the 2005 RMIT print residency.)


(The express picture of contented industry, reposing (after a night of galloping, scampering, yodelling)


(Errand dash.)


(Three cheers to Rona, Deborah, and Paul, and their Wonder Room exhibition.)


(To: Book Team, State Library of New South Wales | Contents: 24 sedated birds)

No matter how busy the coming days, weeks, months, if you can't find me here you'll find me on instagram.

For those curious:
Deborah Klein, Rona Green, and Paul Compton's Wonder Room with Filomena Coppola and Heather Shimmen at Maroondah Art Gallery is on until the 30th of November.
And all the prints created as part of RMIT’s Print Imaging Practice Residency from 2004 through until 2013 are on display at RMIT Project Space/Spare Room until the 5th of December.
Plus, keep an eye on the State Library of New South Wales Acquisitions blog in regards to my recent artists' books.

A Postcard as Measuring Device

For some considerable time now I've been meaning to post about Gracia's most recent Dear You postcard collage zine, and so it gives me great pleasure to introduce (to those of you who may have missed it earlier on) this new and charming publication. A Postcard as Measuring Device (2013) sees the series continue on from Conveyed by the Postal System (2012), and this time we get to head to Durban and the Rose gardens of Butchart's Gardens.

This new zine of imagined travels features some of the saddest tales I've read, with pulled tails being glued back on ("'Just a joke, just a joke,' they coo. ‘Don’t take it so seriously, it was only a bit of fun,' they tell me as they glue my tail back on to my rump.") and a lion tamed ("To be quietly brought into follicular line with a focused snip, snip, snip. With a little fussing, I may, just may, be granted entry to the bar and ballroom. The eternal verity: look the part and they’ll never know."). And it also features some of my favourite postcard collages, and a few familiar landmarks (such as the State Library of Victoria where rodents, as we sleep, rewrite history in the night hours).

This zine also sports a fetching striped spine and has been bound slightly differently to earlier zines. You can expect to see a lot more of this binding technique with a wraparound cover. And a few more zines by the two of us before the year is out, including another one with our good friend Hila.

An edition of 70, you can pick up your very own copy of this zine through our online store for $8.00 (AUD).




















(It's curious to remember that the morning we took these photos of this new zine in hand was on the very same day G and her Mum later made all the biscuits for my artists' book launch at the Baillieu Library.)

Coming down, and coming up

Coming down:
Gracia and my artists' book, As inclination directs, can be seen for a few more days longer at the Fremantle Arts Centre until the 17th of November as part of the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Award 2013, and, as you can see above, at Geelong Gallery until the 24th of November as part of the 2013 Geelong Acquisitive Print Awards.

And in RMIT's Project Space / Spare Room until the 5th of December alongside Decisions: The Print Imaging Practice Residency Exhibition 2013, you can see all of the prints created from 2004 through to those created this year, including Gracia and my work, And They Silently Steal Away, from 2005.

Those overseas can see several of our zines included as part of The 4th Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize Exhibition in the UK which is on until the 30th of November. The exhibition features 450+ books from 35 different countries.

Coming up:
Gracia's Poirot zine, A Catalogue of Bodies, can be seen as part of Shelf Life 2013, Delmar Gallery's Christmas Exhibition (from the 20th of November through to the 8th of December). (You may recall Shelf Life 2012.)

Let loose in the dome

Recently, Gracia and I had the exceedingly good fortune to be able to document my giant book of birds, A Year of Southern Hemisphere Birds, in the beautiful domed La Trobe Reading Room of the State Library of Victoria, and it was a joy to see my birds soar. Here, for you, after instagram teaser, a closer look at my Kakapos, Red Knots and Crested Jays on the loose in a temporary paper forest. The chance to photograph this work before its journey to the State Library of N.S.W. served as a rewarding full stop to this big project and it left me feeling both nostalgic for what was and excited for what was to come. And so I give you, A Year of Southern Hemisphere Birds, a  closer look:





































In these photos, you can see how G's explorer's narrative was woven into the book on each month's title page. It is curious for me to think of this work now in transit to its new home. It's been quite the long goodbye.

Thank-you Des for spiriting us into the library.

Read: All my pretty chickens, glide, soar, flutter, perch
Coming soon: A handful of hand-coloured individual bird portraits