HIGH UP IN THE TREES

A mark impressed on a surface.

{Objects gathered with care from recent reads (II) and (V), two artists' books by Louise and me (2008) currently on display at the SLV.}

Next time you are on your way to the Redmond Barry Reading Room, that home to 100,000 general non-fiction books and deco lamps, cast your eyes to the right, and there, in a cabinet deluxe, you will see five tiny artists’ books by Louise and me. Our artists’ books, Objects gathered with care from recent reads I, II, III, VI and V are keeping company with Peter Lyssiotis, rubbing shoulders with Theo Strasser, and whispering to Carolyn Fraser. Overlooked day and night by “Thomas Robertson's Marco Polo and a colossal head of Lord Melbourne”, Fine impressions is an exhibition of artists’ books on display until the middle point of the month of February 2012.

Hop to, my friends.

Fine impressions: printmaking and artists' books in Melbourne 1999–2010
Friday 26th August 2011 – Thursday 16th February 2012
Cowen Gallery, State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne






{The afternoon was hot, the library was cool. Shh, my friends, we're in the Cowen Gallery.}

Have 45 minutes X2 to spare in the near future?
Page by page: artists' books viewing
“Experience the tactile pleasure of turning the pages of stunning and original artists' books, which were made to be read and handled.”
Tuesday 31st January 2012, 11:00am – 11:45am
 
Fine impressions: curators' talk
Wednesday 25th January 2012, 5:00pm – 5:45pm

Fair delighted.

{Step this way, my friends, for the fair wonderful.}


{Scout has a friend in Louise.}


{We have commandeered the wall, fire extinguisher and all, with our gold foxes and zines unfurled.}


{With eight new prints (and several previous), I am pretty sure, here, I am thinking of coffee.}


{The (humble) Eurasian Golden plover agrees.}


{Coffee is always nice. Coffee 'on the house' all the nicer. (Thank-you St Heliers Store + Gallery.)}


{As it looked from outside in.}


{With one of Kathy's mouse-on-pencil finger puppets. One of several fine purchases made.}


{The Gleaner of Chipped Crockery from Paul Compton's The Folk Underground.}

The weather she cleared, the sun he shined, and the fair went without a hitch at the wonderful St Heliers Store + Gallery, at the Abbotsford Convent.
 
A sea of charming stallholders cobbled together by the ever brilliant Rona Green, the warmth of familiar faces (enjoy those prints, Joy), and the glow of the new, thank-you for a swell afternoon. Thank-you also to the woman who groaned to her friend the most amusing comment of the day for my ears to overhear: “Ugh. Not more paper stuff to sit at that bottom of my drawer”.
 
Bringing you more paper stuff in the coming weeks, to hang on wall or prop on shelf… or to fill your bottom drawer.

My friends they all sport feathers and beaks.

{Humble birds by Louise}




{Birds that like to display by Louise}




{Webbed by Louise}

A trip of dotterel, a deceit of lapwings, a host of sparrows.
My friends they all sport feathers and beaks.

Appearing ever so briefly here this ground soaked morn to let you know that today is the day we head to the fair. We’ve our boxes packed at the ready with prints, zines and greeting cards, Louise and I. We’re ready to head shortly to The Wonderful Creative Things Fair, and with us, this time, we have eight brand new prints tucked under arm. Yes, as one thing closes another opens.

For those of you who live far or cannot make it along, zines, such as this handsome three of Louise’s above, can always be found in our online store. In time, the new prints one through eight as well, but alas for them no photo yet exists.

See you at the fair (which, for those still drying out from yesterday and last evening’s downpour, is INDOORS at the St Heliers Street Store + Gallery.


{See you there, dear ones geographically near.}

Rubies!

{The colour at the end of the spectrum next to orange and opposite violet.}

Perhaps one of the nicest things about the warmer weather is that it makes the dishes glow like rubies, that most rare form of corundum. There, in my kitchen sink, red like fire, a cup and a bowl and a spoon (away with the spoon ran the dish!) take on the brilliance of a gem. Swimming through the water red, my morning’s dishes have been transformed into rubies, red spinels and garnets.

+ To those of you at a loss for Sunday merriment, I invite you to the fair. Louise and I have a suite of NEW prints and other paper delights to show you.

St Heliers Street Store + Gallery in association with Rona Green presents:
THE WONDERFUL CREATIVE THINGS FAIR
Sunday November 27th, 2011
11am – 4pm
The Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford (VIC)

Through the glass.

{In Suspense, group exhibition at Hand Held Gallery.}

Sparkling Diamond Nail Salon. Melbourne Fat and Cellulite Reduction Clinic. Miyabi Japanese Massage. Glamaz Fashions. Jet King Travel. In the Paramount Arcade one can find many things, but I am heading to Hand Held Gallery, late one morning in November, with the purpose of taking photos through the glass of our work in the group exhibition, In Suspense.
 
The show closes this Saturday the 26th of November.

Hand Held Gallery
Suite 18
Paramount Arcade
108 Bourke Street
Melbourne

The gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12 until 5pm.

Lest you can’t make it along in person, my playfellows, you can turn the pages of The first aerial travellers here.



{Shooting stars seen from a balloon, 1870 (colour plate 20) and The mirage seen from a balloon, 1870 (colour plate 21) from the artists' book The first aerial travellers.}

Bears and tourists and bored lovers alike...

Dear you,
 
Stayed so long in polar’s ice enclosure that I turned myself to statue rigid circa 1820. My letter from you in my hand, transfixed and deaf to all those around me, bears and tourists and bored lovers alike.
 
Yours in slow thaw,
X

Three-legged race.

{Modifications in Pictorial Education (I) and (II)}

A trio of things to share with you, friends, in the late afternoon.

ONE.
Louise and I chat about collage, collaborations, honeybee scissors and Diana monkeys over cider one warm Wednesday afternoon with Camila Galaz on her show Let’s Art on Radio Valerie. You can listen to the show here (Let's Art with Camila Galaz (of State Library Pigeon fame), Episode #9, 9th November, 2011).

TWO.
From the spoken word to the written, Louise and I are interviewed on TAKE.AWAY about animals, artwork, source material, and things coming up.

(Earlier interviews and like bedfellows can also be found here, should you choose.)

THREE.
In February of next year, Louise and I will be exhibiting our work in galleries four and five at the Latrobe Regional Gallery. For the remainder of this year and early into the next, we’ll be finishing off new work for By This Unwinking Night. The show will run until April Fool’s Day, 2012, and we are both nervous and excited at the prospect.

Dear you,

We've borrowed a line from J. Milton and assembled beneath it a gathering of works on paper new, recent, and near-to forgotten. We are using it as the roof to our shelter. Prints, artists' books, collage, drawings, and small publications laid out for you By This Unwinking Night.

Yours in paper covered,
Gracia & Louise

The screen door snaps.

{The arrival. Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, 2011}






{Walking through the park today, one of us holds a copy of Visible Ink and a camera, the other, a dog lead and two coffees takeaway.}

Tickled pink as the fan that whirls upon its cover to be a part of Visible Ink 23, The screen door snaps, I am. The arrival is a piece Louise and I created especially for this yearly anthology of new writing and art, and alongside work by Chloe Rose it sits. Good chum Francesca Sasnaitis features too, with her piece Springvale (presented by an Imp like form from the past).

+ You can purchase a copy of The screen door snaps through Visible Ink Club RMIT.

The sport or pastime of flying in a balloon.

{Details from The first aerial travellers, including a few unwilling travellers and unfortunate fatalities.}

Look sharp. Look the other way. Look back. Look after. Look at this:
 

Over My Shoulder (VI)
Turn the pages of The first aerial travellers
Filmed in the art section of RMIT’s city campus library
Spring 2011
 
You can leaf through said artists’ book, my Melbourne friends, at Hand Held Gallery. The first aerial travellers is on display until the last Saturday in November in the group exhibition, In Suspense, curated by Megan Herring.

Flying from (or is towards) the pages of the book, Louise’s White-browed treecreeper, Delias Hübner, and a Barn owl.

Loosen up, unwind, unbend, and take it easy.

As things seem to become obscenely busy as gallop toward year’s end pace picks up (this mad dance, my friends, it is fast wearing out my soles), it’s good to see that some of us know how to RELAX. Loafing at my side today, Percy, Olive and Omar. They are taking it easy.

{Percy}






{Olive}






{Omar}

My dear, don't worry my deer.

{My dear, don't worry my deer, a zine of mine I made in September.}

Dear you,

Seems I have neglected to list you on our site or online store with those made either at same time or later. How remiss! You've been left unmentioned, my September zine, unmentioned until this day late in the month of October early in the month of November. You've come along to The Wonderful Paper Things Fair and sat front and centre. And to MUMA too, where you behaved in exemplary fashion.

What can I say? The afternoon knows what the morning suspected, having bitten off more than I could chew, time got the better of me and I overdosed on proverbs.

Yours fixing fence-palings and righting oversights,
Yours preparing to dust the sun and trim the deadwood,
Your humble servant, on crooked knee,
G x

+ At last! My dear, don't worry my deer can now be purchased through our online store here.

+ The Wonderful Fair sidles into town once more. Hope to see you there.
St Heliers Street Store + Gallery in association with Rona Green presents:
THE WONDERFUL CREATIVE THINGS FAIR
Sunday November 27th, 2011
11am – 4pm
The Abbotsford Convent, 1 St Heliers Street, Abbotsford (VIC)

+ Circle contributions: See our Morran submission (Morran's dreams of the stage take amazing form) and many others. (Thanks Camilla xo)

The Perils of Ballooning.

{The first aerial travellers replete with light-footed Musk ox.}

The first aerial travellers is an artists book I have made especially for Louise and my piece for the group exhibition In Suspense (further details here). It features across the pages of a King Penguin book on ballooning (first published 1948), collages aplenty. I have changed the scene existing to suit my own ends and had much fun in doing so. Now you can see a Musk ox on the cover, a Roan antelope at the Gordon Bennett Race of 1926, a Haarte-beast on escape from Paris in 1870, a house rat privy to shooting stars, and an "unwilling juvenile aeronaut (1843)" chaperoned by a Golden arrow poison frog. It features balloon hunting with a cheetah too.

Let Posterity know, and knowing be astonished, that on the 15th day of September 1784 Vincent Lunardi of Lucca in Tuscany, the First Aerial Traveller in Britain, mounting from the Artillery Ground in London and traversing the Regions of the Air for two Hours and fifteen Minutes, in this spot revisited the Earth. On this rude monument for ages be recorded that wondrous Enterprise successfully achieved by the Powers of Chemistry and the Fortitude of Man, that Improvement in Science with the Great Author of all Knowledge, patronyzing by His Providence the Invention of Mankind hath graciously permitted to their Benefit and His own Eternal Glory.
(Inscription on the Lunardi Monument at Standon, Herts.)

+ On the Book Art Object blog, a tiny interview: Artists, Books, and Interviews #1: Gracia & Louise.