ELSEWHERE

Love and lemurs

Thank-you for all the love shared in regards to this recent post. It means a great deal to me. Such kindness and support inspires me to keep making work which comes from a place of honesty. And, of course, I can't wait to get back to both feeling 100% and to finishing a book of beloved mammals with G featuring my lemonwood engravings.

(Four lemonwood engravings on Japon Proofing 225gm paper of a Brown mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus), Polar bear (Ursus maritimus), Sea lion (Zalophus californianus), and a Stick-nest rat (Leporillus conditor) are available for sale through our online store.)

Fairs, panels, and Snow leopards

One NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair, a SLV panel discussion on book design, completion of an order of tiny cyclists and footballers, Sydney Dance Company's heartfelt call to arms, and a Snow Leopard later — where did the bulk of May go?


(A cardboard city beneath Leonard French's stained glass ceiling. (#NGVABF, Great Hall, @ngvmelbourne))


(In flight (at #NGVABF). (Image courtesy of @ngvmelbourne's Facebook feed.))


(Early May's Melbourne Art Book Fair passed in the blink of an eye, with little chance to take photos, save for the moments just as the doors opened.)


(Several new zine titles and small prints, created especially for the fair, will soon be added to our site and online store.)


(Final stall tweaks before things kicked off.)


(Hither & Thither, one of eleven new zines made especially for the NGV Art Book Fair.)


(In the borrowed costume for a Young Man from The Rite of Spring, after Nicholas Roerich, 1913, with a Great horned owl (Bubo virginianus), one of G's collage on a carte de visite.)


(Contemporary book design: panel discussion, chaired by Oslo Davis, at the State Library of Victoria and presented as part of Melbourne International Design Week, with Radovan Jenko, Flavia Cocchi, Stuart Geddes, and us two. (Image from @designmattersvictoria's Twitter feed.))


(Tiny supervisor hard at work. (Painting small pewter cyclists for Antique Toy World, Camberwell.))


(With a 000 brush in hand, the afternoon requires focus! (#theworkingtable))


(Here comes the Snow leopard.)


(Whisker Controller. Olive oversees the fur and whisker details on the Snow leopard's progress. (#tinyoverseer))


(Snow leopard (progress) on Matisses's Polynesia, the Sea (1946).)

From the two of us, a huge thank-you to every single one of you who came by our stall and said hi, and big love and thanks to Megan Patty and all the staff at the NGV. We'd love the chance to do it all again.

Two links to peruse:
Gracia takes you to Sydney Dance Company's performances of William Forsythe's Quintett and Rafael Bonachela's Frame of Mind, especially for Fjord Review. You are in for a treat!

'To feel' is where it all begins. It is the thread that binds Choreographer and Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela’s premiere work Frame of Mind to William Forsythe’s Quintett, a so-honest-it-hurts love letter to his dying wife.

Presented side by side, both works, uniquely tender in their fragility, give a physical framework to heartache. Born from the tight knot of personal experience, both works spiral outward and give expression to longing and vulnerability. To be entrusted with something deeply personal yet universal, raw yet understated, is a rare gift.

Opening with Forsythe’s Quintett, which premiered in Frankfurt, Germany, in 1993, it is shown through action and heard through repeated stanza, that a state of longing and a kernel of hope can appear temporarily fixed. And so for 26 beautiful minutes, I found myself suspended within a constant sensory loop as an elderly man sang a simple refrain: Jesus’ Blood Never Failed Me Yet.

...continue reading

And the State Library of Victoria's La Trobe Journal: Creating and collecting artists’ books in Australia (No 95 March 2015), for which we created the cover collage, is now available as a pdf download online.

This special issue of the La Trobe Journal focuses on the development of artists’ books as an art practice in Australia. The digital revolution has led many to question the future of the book, yet more artists are involved with making books than ever before. Artists, printmakers, letterpress printers and binders are creating and designing books that draw upon and extend the traditional format.

Hop to it!

Lest you missed it, from now until Friday the 10th of April, we are holding an impromptu HOP TO IT 15% off SALE on everything in our online store. Pop in the code HOPTOIT when prompted.

Why? Because, new work is coming to #theworkingtable.

 

One 2014 #zine box as #hyperlapse. #inthestudio #theworkingtable

A video posted by Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison (@gracialouise) on Apr 7, 2015 at 6:49pm PDT

(Let's go! Thirty-two pieces of foam ready to be squared-off and made into five zine boxes.)


(The working process. Printing done and collage to go.)


(Easter Monday. We may or may not have slept in.)


(Slice. Slice. Slice. A foam structure appears.)

Before you dash, the last of Dance Massive 2015:
Inanimate materials: quite the opposite
March, sparked by fireflies

Fruits of the working table

March has delivered much expected excitement, commencing with our animals on the cover of both the La Trobe Journal artists' book edition and Imprint magazine, and culminating in an explosion of dance thanks to Dance Massive 2015 and Giselle (seen thrice).

Why not take yourself along to Dance Massive 2015 with these recent evocative posts by G especially for Fjord Review:
Double-Cross
The Body Politic
Shout Out Loud

Finally, these six instagram captures (from the working table), from Solander box making to printing (from both lino and lemonwood), show a little of how March in the studio has looked.

Farewells and other performances

In delicious anticipation of The Australian Ballet's Madeleine Eastoe's second last Melbourne performance, Gracia and I, by way of heartfelt thanks, collaged our bouquet. We borrowed a promotional photo by Georges Antoni with Madeleine Eastoe and Chengwu Guo for The Dream, and went all out with a riot of pink blooms.

Thank-you Madeleine!

(Madeleine Eastoe: A Special Announcement)

In other dance news, the second of Gracia's considered (and amusing too) Dance Massive 2015 pieces has recently been published on Fjord Review.

Head over to read Shout Our Loud and be swept along to Antony Hamilton and Alisdair Macindoe's Meeting, and Rebecca Jensen and Sarah Aiken's Overworld. There are silver automatons! And fancy dress costumes too!

If Chunky Move’s Depth of Field, the beginning of my Dance Massive 2015 marathon, was to show me a seasonal pattern unshaped by human hand, Meeting revealed a pattern defined by sixty-four small-scale robots whilst Overworld writhed in a chaotic pattern of YouTube fragments tethered to the four elements, earth, air, fire, and water. The tenuous link between these Dance Massive performances is solely that of my own programming: one night, two performances seen back-to-back, separated by an hour, at the North Melbourne Town Hall.

As with all festivals, cinema, dance, or otherwise, the festival patron looks for common threads in the works they’ve elected to see. Processing, reeling, and ruminating, before bouncing to the next performance: what is the best palette-cleanse? Perhaps the answer lies in making myself something of an automaton using the technologies of homeostasis. Perhaps with a stack of programmable cams at my core, stable equilibrium could be maintained. I’ll let you be the judge.

(continue reading)

Salvaged Relatives, brilliant and glossy

(Salvaged Relatives on the wall at Milly Sleeping, Carlton.)

Gracia's collaged lovelies now come as a brilliant and glossy poster featuring all sixty-three of the Salvaged Relatives from editions I, II, and III (2014–2015) in their modified Ballet Russes costumes.

You can purchase the whole dance troupe for $50 though our online store.

And speaking of dance, you can also read G's thoughtful and beautiful response to Chunky Move's new work Depth of Field, here, on Fjord Review. It is the first of many Dance Massive 2015 pieces, which I have been lucky enough to see as well. From Meeting to Catalogue and a preview of Tiny Slopes, a work in progress, it is proving a massive blast.

...

Establishing who is a performer and who is actually walking home or on a grocery dash (or crashing the party with their Jack Russell) was a chief part of the playfulness of this piece. Asked to look closely at the obvious and the less obvious, it became a game of ‘spot the performer’ that actually made everyone within frame a part of the work. The mother and toddler that rested under the tree near the corner — were they a part of the piece, like the woman in the red scarf seen purchasing a parking ticket? The joggers too — that was orchestrated, right? My imaginary cast sheet for Depth of Field includes the motorists on the freeway, more than likely oblivious to the work they were a part of. Their credit: moving tail light providers. It also includes commuters on the tram. Their credit: neck ‘crickers’. And a windblown plastic bag seen rising and settling in own reenactment of a scene from Sam Mendes’s film American Beauty (1999).

...

For the love of paper... and animals

(Editioning 60 copies of our new zine, Thither & Hither, in readiness for a zine fair.)


(Percy and the Wet Petals (on Saint Valentine's Day).)


(One compact box of zines for one zine fair.)


(And we're off! Sticky Institute's #FOTP2015 until 5pm at the Melbourne Town Hall.)


(The last sticky hurrah! Make haste, Weekenders!)


(Thank-you to all the dear hearts who swung by our zine stall at yesterday's Festival of the Photocopier.)


(Lenni spots a white butterfly just out of his reach. Can you?)

This post was initially intended as a thank-you to all of you who swung by our stall at yesterday's Festival of the Photocopier, but as I was piecing it together my twitter feed was awash with gruesome details. Though I've yet to find the stomach to watch the recently screened Four Corners exposé, Making a Killing, on the greyhound industry and live baiting, it makes me very glad that I volunteer fortnightly at the RSPCA. Even when I get snowed under with work, my time spent cleaning, walking, and caring for those beautiful dogs helps me to feel like I am making a difference. It is something I will always find time for.

Thanks Sticky for another great fair. Thanks to those of you who came along. It was great to meet you. And "thank-you for the much needed balance." Here's to the next one! And here's to all creatures great and small.

RSPCA's End Cruel Training Practices campaign

"Putting together animals, gambling and prize purses is a toxic mix. It's capable of turning men into monsters."
Making a Killing, reported by Caro Meldrum-Hanna and presented by Kerry O'Brien, went to air on Monday 16th February at 8.30pm on ABC. It is replayed on Tuesday at 10am and again at midnight on Wednesday. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 at 8.00pm on Saturday, ABC iview or abc.net.au/4corners.

Thither & Hither

On the back of an exceedingly fun artists' book launch at Milly Sleeping in Carlton on Wednesday eve (Thanks L & J), we are busy editioning sixty copies of our newest concertina zine, Thither & Hither for Sticky Institute's Festival of the Photocopier zine fair tomorrow. We have been talking about how ending beloved projects is sad, so having this to ride on the back of it has been good timing.

Thanks for coming along to our Salvaged Relatives book launch to see Gracia's collaged beauties in my Solander boxes, and see you tomorrow at the Melbourne Town Hall from lunchtime.

Early January's working table

Waving farewell Old Year, and here's to a bright and brilliant 2015 for one and all.


Olive is none too sure of this back to work malarky.


Three solander boxes, ticking along according to January's schedule, meet with Olive's approval.


Sunday evenings are for familiarising the self with the proportions of the Macrotis lagotis (otherwise known as the Greater bilby).


Nearly there. A home for some Salvaged Relatives.

Roll on, roll on. The quiet and good bits of 2015 looking much like the quiet and good bits of 2014. I feel full of promise.

I look forward to continuing to share more views from the working table and otherwise here at Elsewhere in this broken-in New Year. May it treat you well too.

And before you forget all that 2014 brought with it, from Wayne McGregor’s Chroma to Lucinda Dunn’s last performance in Kenneth MacMillan's Manon, here is G's recent and fantastic post (for Fjord Review) of her 2014 dance highlights.

The twelfth month of the year

(House-trained and well-groomed. Three framed cat collages on the gallery wall until Sunday. Make haste! (90, Port Jackson Press Print Gallery, Collingwood)


(Contentment licked.)


(Through a veil, a merging of fiction and truth, neon and kids' toys. (The opening celebrations of De Anima, Brook Andrew, RMIT Design Hub))


(Big tick. Another team of little painted footy players done. (For Antique Toy World, Camberwell))


(Great leaps and fast flips, I join the acrobatic lineup. (Before dipping into Opera Australia's Falstaff, State Theatre)


(Old hand Perce, at @ronagreenart's studio, admiring the inked beasts of Beastarium.)


(Lenni on the sill, ears cocked.)

Choc-full December is racing by and Christmas is almost here, but not before I share with you two links to Gracia's utterly brilliant recent written pieces on Fjord Review.

In Recovery, Disarming and Delicate, Recovery, Nat Cursio and Shannon Bott, The Substation
and
Ros Warby Returns, Ros Warby: Double Bill, Dancehouse

Last week, I had the good fortune to see both dance works, and I wish I could have read these two responses beforehand.

In other news, we are thrilled to be a small part of Katrina Rodabaugh's brand new book, The Paper Playhouse, and to have a suite of prints available exclusively to Milly Sleeping, Carlton, all December long.

The end of spring

(A polar bear emerges slowly. (A new collaborative artists' book takes shape and I cannot wait to show you more of these ten woodblock mammals.))


(Hurrah! At long last! In my beautiful new Fairisle knit by Elaine Haby, I am ready for next winter. (Thank-you @pasadenamansions.)


(A blow, cushioned. A note to treasure from Sir David Attenborough. ("Dear Gracia & Louise, Thank-you for your message in your charming card. I am so sorry there was a confusion concerning your tickets. Best Wishes, David Attenborough"))


(Spring dash to @operaaustralia's John Bell production of Puccini's Tosca, with tickets in hand (for the right night this time).)


(A sneak peek at a work in progress by @pasadenamansions of Gracia and dear Omar.)


("From an early age, I experimented with various aspects of design. I made my first cone-shaped breasts out of newsprint for my teddy bear Nana. I took a round doily from my Grandmother's house and cut out a circle in the middle of it to make a skirt for my bear. I did a bias cut that way without knowing what it was." Jean Paul Gaultier, 2011 (Collection of Jean Paul Gaultier, Paris, currently on display at the NGV.))


(Find us a nicer early evening than looking at artists' books in good company at the State Library of Victoria. Bet you can't. (Paul Valéry, Album de Monsieur Teste, 1945, Éditions de la Galerie Charpentier. "I have always wanted", Paul Valéry wrote to André Gide: "to invent the story of a young man who thinks" (18 May 1896). The "young man who thinks" stands for Monsieur Teste. This enigmatic figure first appears in La Soirée avec Monsieur Teste. Valéry had meant to dedicate this story to Edgar Degas, but Degas rejected this." [Source: National Library of the Netherlands])


(The very best of libertines.)

Right now, I'm very excited about:

A map to tomorrow night's RMIT School of Art Graduate Exhibitions 2014 opening festivities, designed by us two.  I hope to see you in the crowd.

and

Blindside's 10th Anniversary Celebrations and Launch, with a publication also designed by the two of us, and edited by Verity Hayward and Raymonda Rajkowski. To the left and back some is going to be launched next Thursday the 4th of December, 6-8pm at Blindside.

and a gift for Lisa Solomon received.

Springtime begin afresh

(Soon to fly to a new home, one of @pasadenamansions' earlier paintings.)


(From the morning Percy amble.)


(Behind me, contented dog is contented.)


(Talking about artists' books, zines, and photocopy machines in Godwin Bradbeer's studio.)


(Kippers? Yes, you may enter.)


(What is this small grocery dash you speak of?)


(One of a charm. An edition of ten inky Plum-headed finches encircled by a ring of grass seeds (drawn in pencil, and barely visible here), available soon in our online store.)


(The gatekeeper of the North Fitzroy bike path, Pauli, lies in wait. Be on your best behaviour.)


(The afternoon view.)


(In which Cinderella realises she won't be getting along to those exhibition openings as promised.)

Yup, this is spring, in a nutshell.

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf;
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In full grown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

(Philip Larkin, from The Collected Poems, Faber, 1993)

The Collected Poems (Faber, 1993)

Early October rewind

It's all going too fast. A record in thirteen squares from recent days.


(Sunday's equation: Inquisitive Lenni + spray of homegrown orchids + piles of folded zines awaiting stitching = potential disaster)


(Hurrah! An A4 press with handwheel and composite bed is one step closer to being. (Fitzroy Etching Presses))


(A wheel. Two sides. And the makings of a bed. Spoons down, we're getting a real press! (Back of the spoon workings))


(The Contented Lenni (post morning mischief making). Sunday breakages: 0 Close calls: 3)


(Panels and sleeves. Measurement's taken. Patterns formed. (A beautiful new fairisle knit by @pasadenamansions for yours truly. I can't wait.)


(The tattered and torn fantastical confusion of Wojciech Has' The Hourglass Sanatorium, screening as part of ACMI's Masterpieces of Polish Cinema season curated by Martin Scorsese.)


(New collages by Gracia featuring modified costumes from the Ballet Russes. (And the brilliant self portraits that came forth: 1, 2, 3, 4))


(Benzaldehyde. Methyl cyclopentenolone. Ethyl vanillin. Noses at the ready. A Hyper-Natural perfumed dip. (NGV: "Anchored within the world of scent, Hyper-Natural explores how designers in the medium of scent select synthetic fragrances to put together extraordinary designs. These designs, when built, become extraordinary works of scent art. Curated by former New York Times perfume critic and author Chandler Burr, Hyper-Natural introduces us to the thoughtful, intricate, fascinating, and virtually unknown medium of design—invisible, powerful— and expands our concept of design itself."))


(1, 2, 3, they all tumble out the front door and set to the business of sniffing.)


(By the Pricking of My Claws is an artists' book of ours from 2005, created as part of the exhibition and RMIT print residency, Ex Libris. An edition of sixteen, one copy is in the collection of the University of Melbourne's Baillieu Library. And from now until the 2nd of November you can see it as part of Interconnections: Books, Text, Art.)


(My mischief here is done. (Wrapping framed collages for delivery to Port Jackson Press Print Gallery with a Siamese kitten interruption.))


(And finally, Percy's Grin of Contentment (or exhaustion, take your pick).)

Interconnections: Books, Text, Art
Curated by Ashley Sutherland 
Ground floor Baillieu Library 
Until the 2nd of November, 2014

Masterpieces of Polish Cinema
Curated by Martin Scorsese
ACMI
Until the 26th of October, 2014

And now I must return to the studio to paint the edges of these recent collages with gold gouache if they've any chance of making Wednesday's post, but more on that later.

Petrouchka, a Nutcracker, and a mermaid

Some good and recent things to share with you and hopefully delight.




(A suite of seventeen collages made especially for and exhibited as part of In Your Dreams (Counihan Gallery, 2014), and accompanying dream text, assembled in a handmade Solander box guarded by Petrouchka.)

One artists' book, Blurred and Distinct, acquired recently by the State Library of Victoria. Hurrah!




(The Nutcracker and The Summit is Blue, two new pieces for Fjord Review.)

Prepare to meet the Rodent Regent once more as Gracia takes you to The Australian Ballet's 85th performance of The Nutcracker.

And then climb Everest in two volumes, at Dancehouse, with The Summit is Blue.




(3D glasses on!)

Under the water, with a two-colour eye-glass, something similar is a brand new zine available now through our online store. And best of all, each zine comes with a pair of red/cyan 3D glasses!

To those of you on our newsletter, thank-you for your orders of this zine. We'll be heading to the Post Office bright and early tomorrow.

September's whirlwind

Three short (45 seconds in total!) instagram videos that sum up September:

(What is Beauty? Especially for @ausballet, a moving pieces collage of all things beautiful in anticipation of their 2015 season launch. Featuring paintings, patterns, and illustrations by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, François Gérard, William Morris, and Walter Crane; dancers Marilyn Jones, Amber Scott, Leanne Stojmenov, Natasha Kusen, Andrew Killian, Lana Jones, Nana Gollner, Nora Kaye, and The Australian Ballet's Corp de Ballet; assorted birds, botanical specimens, lantern slides and other harvested delights.)


(And just like that, Petrouchka is inlaid into the handbound Solander box. This is the view from the working table, and a look at a forthcoming artists' book of Gracia's In Your Dreams collages, which I am keen to show you in detail soon.)


(A chameleon looses his negative space in order to become a piece of a collage puzzle.)

45 seconds, plus Monsieur Poirot himself, performing at The Comedy Theatre as part of The Last Confession. This is the stuff of dreams! And we have a souvenir to show for it, alongside my signed copy of Christie's The ABC Murders.

Which, of course, only leaves October, and it too is off to a flying start. In light of World Ballet Day, currently underway and taking place in the Bolshoi Theatre (you can watch the 20-hour live stream here), we have made a small moving collage of 99 individual and coloured frames of Vera Keralli from The Dying Swan (1917).

Enjoy!










(Five stills from our World Ballet Day celebration moving collage on instagram. We are looking forward to making more work like this.)

On foot

Gracia and I are beyond thrilled to have one of our collaborative collages in the October issue of The World of Interiors. Commissioned during the film festival in August, we scanned all manner of maps, books, and fragments from both the State Library of Victoria's collection and our own to create this piece to illustrate the Jounal of a Literary Tour Guide.

A little taste:

I organise literary tours. Some are large scale, such as the public 'Pre-Raphaelite Pilgrimage' I ran for the National Trust between The George Inn in Southwark and William Morris's Red House in Bexleyheath, for which musicians, artists and storytellers were dotted along the route in hidden gardens; and some are smaller, like a recent trip with four friends, retracing John Clare's footsteps from his asylum in Epping Forest to his cottage in Northborough. Clare walked the route in an impressive four days, and ate grass; we allowed ourselves a little more leeway. Often the number is about 20, which is what we’ll be in October this year, when we stay in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s house in Keswick and explore the scenery that inspired the Lake Poets. Literature is best approached on foot; it’s fitting that we measure poetry in metre, feet and lines. The natural cadence of walking mirrors the rhythms of reading and writing, and brings the words to life.

As the tour guide, I get the double pleasure of devising the route and then enjoying the walk.

(Henry Eliot is a literary walker.  He co-edits Curiocity, a map-magazine of unusual experiences in London, and is currently editing a documentary about mazes and labyrinths. He is writing a novel about the Medieval Earthly Paradise.)

Gracia has previously created three collages for The World of Interiors: Time on His Hands, 2012; The Genuine Article, 2009; and Greeks Bearing Gifts, 2008. They, too, oddly enough, have been commissioned during the film festival. Must be something in the air.