Postcards from the Heart

Have I left you all in suspense for long enough?

It's probably time to put you all out of your misery and let you all in what has been going on in the studio for the last few months!

As many of you know I have been buried deep in the Pulp Redux collaboration and am really enjoying it too, but what I haven't let out before is that I am also involved in another collaboration with the gorgeous Caterina from La Dolce Vita.

When Caterina and myself decided to embark on a collaboration together I had all the usual ideas but somehow it wasn't working for me. I just wasn't satisfied with how things were shaping up in an already existing book structure so decided to make my own.

Introducing...

Postcards from the Heart.

The book is constructed entirely from fabrics, many hand dyed along with the embellishments.

The story is set in the late 1800's and finds our heroine about to undertake a tour of the continent, something reasonably common amongst the well to do families of the time. The story is told through a series of fabric constructed postcards sent by our heroine back to her friend in England. The pictures on the postcards are actual photographs of various european cities taken during the late 1800's and transferred onto the fabric. The reverse or postcard side of the cards is also achieved using transfers and are also photographs of actual period postcard documents. Each postcard sits inside a pocket on the page and is an interactive element.

The pages themselves reflect the nature of the postcards they contain, contributing to the overall theme and feel for the story.

Of course the story remains unfinished until Caterina adds her own piece to the whole so you will only be able to view the goings on so far as I have done them. There are a number of pieces of prose throughout the book contributing to our knowledge of our heroine for whom you never find out a name. She signs everything only with an 'A'.

To bring you to a starting place I will give you this piece which is included in the first page of the book. The words by James Kavanaugh provided me with a wonderful starting point for the story.

Some people do not have to search - they find their niche early in life and rest there, seemingly contented and resigned. They do not seem to ask much of life, sometimes they do not seem to take it seriously. At times I envy them, but usually I do not understand them - seldom do they understand me. I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach - we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with the one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it is to share our laughter. We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we want to love and be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love. We are wanderers, dreamers and lovers, lonely souls who dare ask of life everything good and beautiful. - - James Kavanaugh

So would you like to take a peek at the book now?

Enjoy the slideshow!

(You can click to bring it up full screen size)

I can't wait to see what Caterina does with the storyline, or what happens to our girl. The photographs used in the book are all curtesy of the Commons project and available to the public under a commons licence through Flickr. Many thanks to all those institutions for their continued support of a wonderful resource.

From the Heart

Something is going on in the studio.






There seems to be lots of this...

and a little of that...

and one of these could come in handy too...

which leads to this...

resulting in...





problems

with





ones heart.

I'll fill you all in soon.

Journal Update

Phew doesn't time run away when your busy. Working crazy hours at the moment, and spending time in the garden now that the weather has retreated to something under boiling point yay! Winter is finally around the corner here and I am so happy! I love our winters here. They're probably more like everyone else's springs, warm days and cool nights, perfection! Hooray for the ability to finally wear jeans again without collapsing into a squishy, perpspiration drenched heap!

But fear not bloggers, I have been arting away quietly, well somewhat noisily really! I've been buried in the studio trying to catch up a bit as well as enjoying lots of new music I've just downloaded and getting lost in projects! It has been a fabulous battery recharging time and has resulted in a huge increase in creative energy again! So, I thought I'd give you the rest of the journal making pics today so you could se how it turned out. Here's the inside back cover.




Yes time to go back to reality again, thanks for playing!


The back cover.

and here it is all finished and sewn together.

This was so much fun to do. Thanks to Teesha for all the inspiration, it's been a blast, in fact it has been so much fun I may just keep doing some more journal pages in this style for a while!

Journal Experiments

I've been flat out buried in various projects, family staying on holidays with us, then a virus and have only now realised how long it has been since I have posted on the blog. Doesn't time just wizz away when life gets busy! After being ill for a few weeks the creative mojo was barely able to be scraped up to lie around the house with me. Lots of ideas spinning around in there and zero energy to do anything about it! However I did manage to drag my journalling bits out to the couch and the mojo and I spent some time in the prone position playing with our journal and watching a few movies (in between bouts of virus wrestling)! I'm always spinning ideas around in my head and after accumulating a pile of loose but completed pages realised they needed some sort of home, so decided to create a book binding to put them all into. I know I should have made the book first, but I was flat out holding a piece of paper let alone a book when the virus frst attacked and so everything sorta ended up being done backwards.
I've long been a fan of Teesha Moore's fabulous journal work, so decided to take a leaf or ten from her style to create the covers. I had loads of fabric lying around (I'm in the middle of a fab project with that but we'll talk about that another time) so decided to create fabric covers for the book. I've painted and collaged directly onto raw calico to construct the covers then doodled to my hearts content in between movies, virus wrestling and sleep and am quite happy with the end result.

The outer front cover.




and the inner front cover.

Yes, leave your reality elsewhere and welcome to my world!

I have placed heavy cardboard between the fabric layers before sewing them together to form the front cover and the whole works well. The calico becomes quite stiff after numerous layers of paints, collage and inks, but flexible enough to sew with ease.

Anyway that's the front covers done, I'll show you how it all works out when I finish sewing the rest together.

Biohazard 101 and a few fossils!-Final contributions to Lisa's Pulp Redux Book

Lesson number one in how to avoid becoming a biohazard...





Don't include natural stuff!!!



Sigh!



Okay so it sounds like common sense doesn't it.
Don't put any items that were once alive in anything you want to post to New Zealand!
Apparently I wasn't listening.

After finishing the pages for Lisa's Pulp Redux book I thought I had the customs guy beat. Surely imbedding everything in resin was going to beat the biohazard importation rules! Maybe not! Sad to say, I chickened out.
After a little more research into New Zealand customs do's and don'ts I was pretty sure I was going to challenge almost every rule they had on importing anything prohibited into the country, (short of trying to bring in a dead body and maybe that would have been easier)!

In short I decided to rehash the pages rather than risk Lisa's book and run the risk of it becoming the latest addition to a Guy Falkes night bonfire! (Does anyone else still do this or is it only me??? I love a good burning, LOL!)


But... I'm stubborn!!!
(Stop it, I can hear you all snickering away!)



So I flatly decided I was going to stick to my theme and keep to my idea of reflecting on labyrinths in nature... or nothing!

and so...




Tada!

Here 'tis!


When last I left you we had pondered the idea that man is constantly finding inspiration in nature. We mulled over one or two ways of reproducing nature's labyrinths in a man made form, then...
boom! In comes the resin encased natural items I decided to include to represent natually occuring labyrinths in nature.

So now to carry on...


Heres the latest on natural labyrinths.


Leaves and trees!

Oh yes you say, wonderful Kim, but aren't they also natural items and therefore their inclusion is banned by every law pertaining to the customs importation of a certain country.

Well yes, but I didn't put in any real ones!


So here's the page as it now stands.

The cabinet is still there, more on that later.

On the left, a leaf.
Well my leaf!

Enter the labyrinth of the trees.
(You know the deal, click on the pictures to see the details if you like).

The background structure for the page is created from burned book pages (yes, yes, more burning, LOL), acrylic washes, and inks.
The leaf is made from leather and embroidery thread. The page is a reflection on Spring. The world turning new again with the unfolding of Spring's new leaves on the trees. The colours here a reflection of brown wood and the bright green of new growth.

The page is hinged and opens to reveal the contrast between Spring and Autumn. From the green of spring to the decay and golden colours of autumn, the leaf's structure is revealed.

The leaf here is one of those skeleton leaves in glorious autumn colours of gold and rust. See no real biological hazards in sight!


Of course since that page flips out another is revealed.


The trees.

Here's how the page looks opened out at this stage.

Lift the flap and the tree is revealed...


as a living thing.


Here I have created a little pocket for Lisa to put in feathers, twigs, leaves, real ones of course, and any other items that remind her of trees. I have been very good and only included a few artificial ones here for reflection.





And below...

Winter lays bare the beauty of summers dress to reveal the bare bones reaching towards the heavens.




I have kept the page free of overdressing, trying to imply the bareness of winter in the trees.




The view unfolded.




But then, there's the cabinet door...

and what lies behind...

Of course last time we had a page of natural items embedded in resin inviting you to touch.


Now I was still determined to keep with the touching idea, I rather liked it!


And so, how to continue without compromising the original idea?


By creating fossils!


Yes, it was nature again to the rescue!


Fossils, natures fabulous means of showing off her former accomplishments even though they haven't existed for millions of years!

I decide to create fossils of my own, taking negative copies of the natural itmes I wanted to include in my piece using Fimo clay.


After a little pressing, baking and paint splashing...
Tada!


Fossils, well sort of!




You can still touch!

I knew you would be soooo excited!
The pieces retain all the texture of the original items in negative and feel wonderful to the touch!


Here's the pages spread out from the book.

Excuse my photography skills or lack of them, it was a real challenge to take pics of the entire opened structure!

So there you have it, finis, complete!
Lisa's book will be away this week to the next person.
(My humble apologies for the starburst that used to be a book that will arrive on someones doorstep!)


And as for that customs man...

Haha! I won! LOL!

I'm such a child!

Take Heart

Life seems to be all about the little things of late.



Details, it's all about the details.



Take heart...



there's one for you.

I seem to be stuck in this mode...
making hearts.




I have changed my blog header, mostly as I have decided to spend some time putting on a more professional appearance.
At least that's the idea anyway.
You will have to tell me what you think. Is it working?
Hopefully soon, a store front where you will be able to buy my art as well.

In the meantime...

remain young at heart.

You Can Touch!-Part 2 of Kim's Contribution to Lisa's Pulp Redux Labyrinth Book

I don't say this every day but...







YOU CAN TOUCH!!!



I knew you would be so excited!


Now I last left you deep in the labyrinth. If you were left a little anxious after the last post about what was going to come next...



well now you can relax!


The second section of my contribution to Lisa's book revolves around nature, how we as artists are wont to reproduce it and the beauty it provides us with. It seems since man first stuck his finger in the mud and painted on a cave wall, artists have constantly reinvented, recreated and reproduced the natural world in their artwork. Nature has apparently got the goods when it comes to creative inspiration. So how does that translate into the labyrinth theme of Lisa's book?


When I was thinking about this idea I started to notice the myriad things we are surrounded with every day and how labrynthine the structures of some of these items are. I was gazing at probably the most awful plastic placemat in history in a cheapy store when suddenly it occured to me how much the plastic reminded me of vines or ivy climbing up a wall. Said revolting placemat suddenly wasn't such a bad evil item and promptly came home with me for the grand sum of 20cents AUS, and into the book it went. Some creative chopping here and there, a little copper and voila!



The page is a reflection on mans constant reproduction of nature in art. How we take the forms we find around us and find new ways with available materials to reproduce those forms. The found poetry from the underlying page reads:

Then inspiration came,
too wild this burst of sentiment interrupted true reason?

I think creative ideas are frequently like this. A sudden burst overtakes us and for good or bad out it flows until it's finished. Sometimes the ideas and execution are great, at other times...
well no-one is perfect everyday!



The next page also reflects man's continued drive to represent the labyrinthine form in art, but has taken a somewhat 90 dgree turn in thinking. The page is a representation of celtic knotwork. Celtic knotwork sprang into being around the 8th century AD. It is supposed that originally the forms were created to represent particular significance, but unfortunately the knowledge no longer exists and art historians can come to no consensus on the matter. What is agreed upon in general is that the interlacing patterns represent the unending continuum of life. The crossing and recrossing of the plaits is symbolic of the ongoing connection between the physical and spiritual planes. The three lobed Triquetra (the design used below is a derivative of this form), symbolises the connection between the three planes of existance, mind body and spirit.

The page was designed to look like old crumbling plasterwork. Why, just because I wanted to, OKAY! :)
(I like old plasterwork, and I wanted to see if I could!)

Here's the double page spread as it appears in the book.

So having looked at man's continued drive to represent nature in his art, that leads us back to the inspirational forms found in nature itself.

Over the page we go and...





Nature produced the original labyrinths for us as inspiration and we have been reproducing them ever since.
The intricasies of a leaf that reveals its innner skeletal structure as it decomposes. A flower from my garden.

On the other side of the page...


something a little different.




As some of you know, I'm fond of doors in my art.




Couldn't resist this opportunity could I?

(Apologies to Lisa, the book will never close again!)




Under the door the cabinet contains...




some of natures best efforts!





The page contains some exhibits including, coral, bees wax, a shell fragment and an insect wing.
What better examples of natures labyrinths could I find!
(Okay, ones that will fit in the book people!)

The pages have been cast in resin then attached to the book. When I first pondered the idea of natural labyrinths and their inclusion in the book I couldn't work out how I was going to be able to post the book successfully across the world. It has to travel constantly between the States, Australia and New Zealand. This constituted a customs nightmare trying to include these items in an altered book until I hit upon the idea of casting the pages in resin. Hopefully Mr. Customs man will have no objections now and the book can travel safely through everyone's hands!

So now you can touch!



The page as it appears fully opened.




The pieces although encased in resin still reveal their structure if you touch them. You can still feel the the items under the resin.

I have created a small magnifier that detaches from the page to help one examine the exhibits in the cabinet.

And so to the end of my contribution to Lisa's book. I have had so much fun with this theme and enjoyed finding solutions to obstacles that came with the ideas I wanted to include here. I can't wait for the next book to fly it's way over the waters to me. It will be Lisa Jurists gorgeous book and I am so looking forward to seeing and touching the already gorgeous work that Lisa and Lisa (NO it's not a mistake Lisa J posted to Lisa S!) have put into it!