Dogwoods in Bloom

Coming into the neighborhood these blooms have popped out. And my first dogwood bloom on the tree in the back.

Signs of serious Spring out there.

And more dogwood at the river….

All these pictures of my river walks will feed in to how I try to capture the river in this prepared Chinese Dragon Scale Book. I avoided the extra small folios by gluing the spine folds of each folio together by just a half inch….each of the twenty some were also carefully measured to be one half inch apart. This was a big challenge because the book had to feed from the left, then reach underneath to do the pasting along a metal rule while it was being fed back over my hands to the left again. All without tearing the fragile paper.

I am thinking of doing the illustration of the scenes along the river directly on the 12″ high by 10.5″ wide first folio and continuing the scene along all the 1/2″ exposed folio folds at the foredge. When flipped the other way (to the left) it will be an illustration of the rivers underwater. That will leave me the unseen parts of each page (unless you turn them individually) for drawing artifacts from the river. Such is the plan.

The other day was poetry meeting day. I read another poem, The Position of Periphery. It was well received. They are very encouraging and told me that even though I know nothing about how poetry adheres to certain parameters for different types of poetry, I am doing everything right and to please keep writing. So I will. I did learn about ellipses, though.  The little series of…should not exceed three and not have spaces before or after.  So I will go again next month.

This morning I went out to get myself some hot cross buns and a chocolate bunny to bite the ears off Sunday morning. There was also a small bag of jelly beans that needed to come home too. Then I went to the garden center and bought some romaine lettuces, rosemary and a few plants…mostly shade lovers for the pot out front.

And the other day I decided the frames were just fine the way they were and popped the small stitched animals in them to hang behind the studio door until I decide how to get rid of them.

My friend Marla is wrapping up her trip to Australia and I am enjoying seeing  the pictures. She is now in her last city before flying out from there tomorrow. Sydney.

It is time for a glass of red but a walk around the block first because the rain has stopped.

Til later…

Messing About

I did get a walk to the river in a few days ago.

I went off to take my mind off what might have been over thinking a new project. You know how you get inspired by a friend’s work and think, “Ooh, that book binding looks interesting.”? It was that Chinese Dragon Scale Book. The more I thought of it and then researched it….and then dutifully watched a you tube video carefully taking you through the the steps….Well thinking about it some more (unsupervised) I decided it could be done easier by eliminating a few steps.  I proudly measured and folded an entire roll of Sumi paper. See?

Don’t do this! Each folio requires the careful, very careful placement of spacer folios that hold the larger folio in place and lets the pages flip easily from side to side. But now, since my mind has gone unchecked, I have thought of another way to make this thirty folded folios roll work out for me. More later when it works….or there will be no more said about it.

In the meantime I decided to watch the video again and take notes…what in the world will happen when we stop cursive writing to take notes? It all made sense the second time through. So I decided to make a tiny version to test it out. And even then, I got carried away. You can’t just leave those pages with nothing happening!

I had an old rami kimono that I cut apart to use in different works. The blue went nicely with this long strip of paper from Blue Heron suppliers that had jagged blue lines spaced along it. They are vertical here to get the length I wanted.

Then after pasting them in a landscape look across all the exposed spaces of the folios heading off to the right, I looked over my small collection of Asian books written on kozo-like paper that I bought to do shifu threads with. I found these tiny line drawings of warriors. I thought they should be placed along the landscape and show some action by being cut to fit onto different folios’ edges. This book is less than one and one half inches tall.

And all rolled up on the attached chop stick piece, it fits nicely into a very small walnut bowl that Lee turned.

Now the reverse of each folio could also have imagery but the scroll once rolled in this direction and with the addition of cloth bits has no intention of cooperating in flowing off to the left. So it is what it is. I like it and will give it to Patrick to add to the other artist books I have made for him over the years.

And now I totally understand the possibilities of the Chinese Dragon Scale book and it’s limitations if one gets too carried away.

Also a bit more work in the Sticks and Stones Book.

I also decided to start a couple of small projects for book-like structures to work along with my friends in Australia. I am also influenced by my friend, Marla, being over there and sending pictures home. So far Melbourne and Alice Springs. Now on to Cairns and Sydney before coming home a week from today.

So I took out one box loaded with my Australian watercolors from the soils there and colored a long strip of kozo papers attached together. Here is the start..

It is cut to fit around this spool. Once several yards were colored, I used a shoe polish wax (tan) to seal them in and make a better surface for stitching into. It is set aside until I prepare more pages to fit onto another old antique spool.

I am determined to work with only what I have in the way of materials…no more purchasing! There is a hole through the middle of the spool above and I have stuck a curved bone folder that my old art group friend brought to me last week when he and his wife came to dinner. I like the way it sticks out of that hole and I will ask someone to make an eye in it the size of the strip (about an inch) and thread the end of the strip of stitched paper through as an invitation to unwind the spool and then rewind to stick the “needle” back in  place. My mind seems to be traveling faster than the necessary steps that really have to come first…so we will see how that all ends up.

And then a picture of last night’s dinner. Cooking for one is a pain but this was especially delicious. My savoury scones with two farm fresh eggs poached and sitting on top.

Til later…..

A Very Good Four Days

I am feeling more like getting to work on a new project. Mainly because there was an hour and a half facetime call with friends in Australia Friday night. They are the ones that I shared a house with after my workshops there in the Grampians of Victoria. The work they did the previous week in class was so inspiring. Especially the Chinese Dragon Scale Book. I think I will make a very long drawing/painting of my river walks and use it for the turning scales. This book is worth a look online to see some of the complexities. We also are thinking of our project for the coming year. It has to do with picking a color….mine will be the browns. This way as we touch base through the year we can see how we are doing with our focus work. They are such a group of inspiring makers….and I needed that call. I have not met many artists here in my new area.

But I did have a member of my old art group here with his wife three days ago. He brought along some of his collaged sheets of interesting juxtapositions of imagery and objects. Fun to see him still making me smile. His wife brought me a book from the ones donated to her library. It is wonderful pop up from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. I will show some of the pictures here.

Some of the illustrations are cutout windows and the others are cut forms mounted to pages to create shadows. Very clever and reminded me of my own cutout books, like the Covid one.

I also had a bit of time to do some pages in the Gathering Book for basket makers in Australia. It makes me feel like I am with them when they get together with materials and laughter.

I colored the wine in the glass with my own red wine.

Then there was the walk to the river that is inspiring the Dragon Scale Book.

And the native dogwood by the river that is just a bit ahead of the one in my yard with its blooms coming out.

I took a picture of my four autobiographical sculptures of right and left brain activities just to remind myself that all I need to do is just get busy!

Now I am off to meet friends for lunch and need to tidy up a bit.

Til later….

Website Changes

I have spent the last few days working with my website manager on updating my page. It is now up to date with the much needed addition of a gallery page. It looks very good and shows work that is not otherwise seen on the website. I was thinking that I have not been doing much since shortly before Covid and Lee’s dementia, but the addition of this new section on the website shows otherwise. Next I will attempt to learn how to add videos of narrative artist books to my you tube site under Sandy Webster-artist. So far only the Expedition to Elsewhere video is there.

And last night we shared his wonderful deep dish pizza with more talk of websites and the news in our lives.

Two days ago a walk to the river and just one photo of a downed tree.

And this morning’s walk up the hill to have coffee on the corner.

The yard men are here today putting down fresh mulch and weeding. Seems Spring might have arrived after all.

It was so much fun searching for images of work to put on the website. I will post some of the images here that lifted my spirits and brought back good memories. I feel inspired to just keep going.

 

This evening at about six o’clock my friends from Australia will call to show me what they have been working on. We keep in touch during the year but this is the time I used to be with them in the house we rented together after the fibre conference. I love how we can still find a way to be together to share our work. I shall pour a big glass of Aussie red.

Earlier this week another friend face-timed me as she was going into the classroom of a basket maker teaching at the conference. What fun to see him again and all the students burying themselves in vines. Thank you, Helen, for your thoughtfulness.

My friend, Marla, is soon to land in Melbourne for a tour with a group of six. She will likely be exhausted but I told her not to waste one minute of breathing in the country and seeing as much as possible in her two and a half weeks. Melbourne, Alice Springs, Cairns, and Sydney before coming back home. She promised to send pictures of Eucalyptus trees.

Better go and check on the yardmen.

Here is a tip from my son…if your porch shades clang and bang against the metal framing of your screened porch, simply stick on the felted pads for chair feet at each end of the shade and the banging becomes a hushed whisper in the breeze. Brilliant!

Til later….