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

Posted on 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 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.”

Clever students. Busy students.  All they need in a class is to be let go so I can follow along after showing them a thing or two.

And here I am rushing to catch up and being sidetracked again by those oh so beautiful Eucalyptus leaves.

I will be back.

 

 

 

 

Getting Ready to Say Goodbye

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am sitting behind this lovely door of a cottage built in 1860. Three bedrooms, a sitting room and one step down to the dining area on the right and kitchen on the left.

Through another door with an old fashioned apron hung on a nail is the access to the bathroom. It is also the door that locks you safely in at night or while you are wandering about the town during the day. The bathroom, or “toilet” as they call it here is through another door off to the right through a small open entry way from the alley in the back.

The “back” has a lovely old table built around an over-hanging fig tree that is just now bearing fruit.

 

The only figs I have ever had other than the dried ones are here in Australia. I drew this one just before popping it into my mouth at my friend Anne’s house in Melbourne.

Anne is the most amazingly hospitable person for us from the US traveling in Australia. This time she was working very hard getting materials ready for the tutor of a workshop she was taking when I arrived. It was so much work and preparation but she greeted me, the tutor and her dear friend arriving from England. She even managed to get me to the offices of Treasury Wine Estates for a memorable encounter with a public relations manager who could advise me on which winery is responsible for the 19 Crimes wines we so enjoy at home and the vintner to contact.

This time I recorded Anne in just a general conversation among a group of us women after class sharing a delicious wine. Now I can hear her voice whenever I want to feel I am in her company. So thank you, Anne and Tony, for taking me in, getting me where I need to be and giving me the very best memories of Australian hospitality. I hope to never take advantage of your kind generosity. Thank you.

Today I went out to find gifts to take home, contact those at home wondering how and where I am. I thought I would have dinner out tonight but most places are closed on Tuesday night. Well only those that have an “all you can eat” menu which means batter fried fish with “veg” as they say here are open. I came back to the cottage and decided to pour a glass of wine…maybe two. I had a lunch earlier of olive bread, mixed greens, grapes and cheese.  That seems enough and I can always have a bit of Greek yoghurt with passion fruit later with that second glass of wine.

It is getting dark. It is 7:30 pm. My pajamas and a good book on the Kindle are waiting. Tomorrow morning I will post this on my blog while using the local library’s internet. I will have to copy and paste into the blog with the appropriate pictures. Then it is just two more quiet days on my own in Goolwa before teaching a three day class on Memory Vessels before flying back home to construct my own memory vessel of this wonderful trip back down under.

 

The Magic of Eucalyptus

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am back in Australia…back with the gum leaves of Eucalyptus trees. They are magic. I start at Baldessin PPress Studio in St. Andrews north of Melbourne and gather the leaves before my workshop on book bindings. I bring them back into my apartment and into the studio.

I sketch them.

My students use them in their work.

I make time in my schedule to do some dry point etchings and prints while at the studio.

And then I pack up and arrive at my next stop…another workshop….more gum trees.

And more trees are here with seductive shapes, colors and aromas.

And this workshop too, has gum leaf inspired pieces waiting to be completed into Memory Vessels.

Then it is me and the gum leaves. Adding more drawings.

And trying my hand at contact printing with those lovely leaves.

I will gather more at my next teaching stop. And again I have factored in extra days just to explore and try to capture the magic of these leaves. The ones I have gathered at this stop will be packed with the sketchbook. There is no way I can leave them behind.

I will be back next week and show you what comes next. I think it will be another white line print of the gum leaf since that is the class I will be teaching. Till then, can you smell the Eucalyptus from these pictures?