Sandy Webster, Author at Sandy Webster

Using the Stitch to Hold an Idea

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Sandy Webster

While trying out my new XCut Press this week I put in a concertina folded strip of walnut ink on gelatin plate. I used two of the etched plates that I recently did with Australian subjects, the emu and some gum nuts. I also found an old wooden stamp of another emu. So for fun I just printed along the strip on one side only.

Anytime a concertina or accordion book form is used the viewer can’t help but read it left to right as a narrative of some sort. I added a few emu tracks along the way and when I was through playing with the imagery, it needed something else. Some sort of density….a thickness….a denseness.

So I went to the small pile of contact dyed scraps of fabric that I found at Beautiful Silks while teaching there last month. They were fun to do with absolutely no idea how they would turn out. I just fitted them in between scarves I was making for friends and family at home.

The duller parts were perfect for tying into my theme of the bush. So now I have started a new series of books titled, “Bush Boro Books”. The paper was amenable to being poked with a needle and the thread is a four strand silk that I also acquired at Beautiful Silks. Here is the cover.

And another view of the book completely opened.

It seems that lately I have been using the “stitch” more often. The recently finished book titled, “Decenia Scrapbook” had it on every cloth page and often stitching through papers and other memorabilia.

I am not a very good stitcher. Sometimes it is all I can do to just thread the needle. But I like the marks it makes. I like the back side where you are not paying that much attention and the messiness of poorly placed stitches really shows how little care the sewer is actually taking.

When in graduate school there were so few of us working with textiles that they asked me to critique a new student’s work that seemed to be a statement about the heritage of women and quilting. The patterns were so familiar in the language of quilting and were of little interest or impact. But when I asked her to turn the work over and look closely at the marks that were more her own, perhaps she could look at the idea of women, herself in particular, and the use of cloth and thread as an identity in the world of art in a whole new way.

A few years ago I used the stitch in different ways with small scraps of cloth on copies of my white line prints. And then for a recent master class in Australia I went further and used the actual print itself to stitch through.

The students over there were so much better at stitching. Their work was wonderful. Here is a sample in Patsy Bush’s work.

So I am taking it one step further and adding the bits of cloth to the prints to turn them into a narrative of sorts. I have several white line prints I made while staying out of my students hair while teaching and think there are definitely more Bush Boro Books to make. I will post more as I do them and certainly will write about my next adventures with the new printing press….that wonderful little XCut XPress machine.

New Etching Press

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Sandy Webster

I have been reading about this little die cut machine made in the UK for some time now. It only got my attention because print makers in England were showing how easily it can be used for a printing press. The bed is only 8.5 inches by 12 inches but perfect for my small dry point etchings.

While in Australia I was lucky to use one to do some leaf embossing because Wendy was kind enough to bring hers into class for me to try out. All LinCraft stores over there carried these in stock but most have sold out to printers and now need to be ordered.

When I returned home last week I ordered one on Amazon for less than $200 and today had some time to try it out.

I used my small 3.35″ X 4.5″ dry point etching plate that I purchased at Melbourne Etching where I like to get a small supply to bring home. I cut one in half to get this size and did my drawing and etching while at Baldessin Press. Here are the ten acceptable prints from there.

These of course were printed using a large etching press.

And here is getting the XPress craft machine set up with a clear mylar sheet to use over my guide of where to place the plate and papers. I cut two thin felts to use to cushion the pass.

So the plate is down, the sheet of paper laid over and then the protective paper before the felts roll into place.

Pressure too light.

Pressure too much I think on the next three, but you know how you can convince yourself that they are “okay”.

Ink up the plate and try again at a new pressure of just a bit past the number four on the dial.

Now this is looking better. So I do another group using the same pressure, same paper that has been slightly dampened and kept between cotton linters, and am thinking that this is quite the little press!

The only fault I can find with these prints is with the drawing itself. My darks are too dark but those cute little gum nuts save those leaves.

And this is what I learned. They are right about not soaking the paper as long as you would for a larger press. The dial on the top makes it so easy to set the correct pressure for consistent results. And I will be getting a piece of counter top or chopping block cut to an 8.5″ X 20″ new bed to accommodate longer prints or a small grouping in a row. This is an excellent little press to take to classes and easily stored in the studio.

Even though I have a larger etching press to take larger plates and wood blocks, this little one does a good job with thinner plates such as the etching, plexiglass and sheet linoleum. Embossing is very easy to do with added cushioning on the bottom and top. It comes with two other plates beside the bed plate, one that is used in the die cutting and a metal one for something else that I wouldn’t use.

Now all I have to do is improve my drawing and etching skills, try some monoprints and maybe even a few collographs. This machine can do it all. Highly recommended and thanks to all of you who have posted your experiences on facebook and your blogs. To learn more just do a search on the XPress Craft Machine.

Five Students – Three Days – Then More or Less on My Own

Posted on April 11, 2017 by Sandy Webster

Reliving just one of the workshops recently completed in Australia. I am in the Botanical Studio at Beautiful Silks in Allensford VIC. There are are five students, myself and my hosts, Marion and her husband. The class is the first of two workshops about Memory Vessels.

We seem to always start with making watercolors from their collected soils/rocks/dirt from someplace special to them.

And once we talk about their hopes for the class, all I have to do is get them there. Easy. Here they are.

Trish and her pigments from France that she wanted to use in some book forms with mementos from her time there. And another book about her time spent in Norway. Here is what she wrote when the class was over.

“Your workshop was fabulous! More than I could have anticipated. Not only in new processes and techniques, but in stimulating the thoughts that go behind and beyond the work. It has reinvigorated my approach to my own work which has been put to one side while other things needed my attention and energy.”

It was very generous of her to say that and I look forward to seeing more of her work through emails that go beyond these few things she did in class.

And Ros who had a large pile of letters saved from an old friend named Tom, I think. They were the kind of letters that email just does not do justice to. They were philosophical and thoughtful. They deserved a special place. She gave them one. Made from scraps of silks turned into a fragile backpack.

Kaye wanted to work on her seemingly endless collection of bones from roadkill and pastures to create boats that would accompany her on a journey back to a childhood when she was more “girly” as she put it. An entire fleet that increased in size trailed after a bone representing her in a pod lined with a pink doily and heading from west to east.

Joy, a book binder, was recreating the trunks of old burned out trees and the stories of her past and perhaps theirs on the inner barks. So much intriguing materials to choose from. Her space just mushroomed out with the selections, thoughts and trees. Here are some of her choices and results.

That last image is of her sketchbook made from three covers of old salvaged books. Two are used for front and back covers of a portrait format book and the third is bound to the bottom of the back cover to create another book out the bottom back which is a landscape format. I thought it very a clever re use of materials.

And then there is Jillian who seemed to pull magic bits and pieces from her hand felted pouch and sewing case to make a small concertina book about her daughter’s childhood fairy friend and a pouch of her own inspirations from walks. I love her use of the shifu thread she made in class as part of the weaving in the stick that helps keep the bundle closed. And another shifu thread in a weaving for the small book cover.

And here is what Jillian wrote to me after the class was over.

Thank you for all your guidance. It was a very special workshop to be part of.
You have so many amazing skills but your ability to help students translate their ideas into something they can see and touch is truly special.

Very kind of her as well. But I learn so much from them. Not the least of which is to just get on with it. Use what you have to say what you need to say. Just pick up something and manipulate it into your desires.

After they were gone I did get on with it. A trip to the Southern Ocean to gaze toward Antarctica with a glass of champagne. I dined on some of the tastiest meals of the trip. And finished my stay there with botanical and indigo dyeing loads of things to send home. Thank you Marion for asking me to be a part of one of the most beautiful places on earth, for the hospitality, for the students and for thinking I should do it all over again.

The Things You Remember

Posted on April 7, 2017 by Sandy Webster

Well that twelfth time teaching in Australia is over. I am back home remembering how wonderful it all was. Taking photos helps bring back everything around the initial reason for holding onto a moment. I can hear the students’ voices, laughter and rustling of tools and materials while they dip into places they never thought to explore. Above is a kangaroo family and the constant efforts to capture the essence of color and shapes of the magical Eucalyptus leaves. What time I had on my own was in pursuit of leaves, kangaroos and soaking up the experience of being there again.

Australian students are in a class of their own. I simply set up an idea to work around and they take off. They sometimes even have completed works based on that theme before I even arrive and are just getting started. This time I watched and recorded their hands, their collections of materials and their tools. Take a look here at hands.

Boat building.

Assembling small collections of books with memories.

Putting pieces together.

Spinning fine threads of paper.

Turning their paper threads holding secret words into sails for a boat.

Making compartments for more secrets.

Working on white line prints.

Presenting their finished work.

The beautiful pincushions!

And the things they bring to rummage through.

Inspiring isn’t it? To just be among them and their bits and pieces makes me glad I say, “Yes, I will come back and start all over again.”

Just one step over the threshold and I am busy trying not to miss a thing. On the door of one of my classes they posted this series of signs because I told a student she was not to think for a moment that she was having a “crisis of consequences” about her work. We all just need to take times like that as a reason to “pause for thought.”