No matter how often we consider the matter of art and frames, the fact is a good frame enhances a work, it gives the viewer clear boundaries to accept or wonder about, it provides a window onto a work, and sometimes a better entry to it.

And in this case, I think my framer has done a wonderful job.

The next pivotal ‘found’ piece was a full page ad in a local weekly current affairs magazine that Sky TV were running to encourage sign ups to their Arts Channel. The ad was based around Jackson Pollock, and it resonated with the Diploma studies we did last year, and reminded me of the changes that the study had brought to my own work. So, with various ripped and glued random pieces the cards began to grow, usually in the evenings when the mundane stuff of the day was beyond worrying about and my mind was free to just zone out and let the ‘maker’ in me free to work. It seems a mindless process at times, with little conscious effort, yet I find myself waking in the early hours with a clear idea directly related to whatever is on the coffee table mere feet away, sometimes a phrase, sometimes a line of thought. This time I woke with the series title, ready made – these collages were going to be ‘A Load of Old Pollocks’.

So now they are three quarters done, and I am gathering cliches, the ultimate ‘old bollocks’, to apply to each as text to pull the disparate magpie gathered images together. As I need at least thirteen of these and I have less than a week till deadline I am deliciously focused just now. It is a joyful creative release to hold onto amid the stressful unavoidable family life stuff we all contend with at times.

Thank heavens for deadlines.

In September 2011, a gathering of artists who make books will be held in Takapuna. We plan to bring together a selection of artist books for display and exhibition, and invite some of our more obsessed New Zealand artist book ‘smiths’ to provide public demonstrations of the vast array of techniques and forms they use in creating their books. Plans are in the very very early stages for this artist project, but expressions of interest would be welcomed, as would the spreading of the word to anyone you know who might be interested, in any way, shape or form.

At this stage it is envisaged that as few boundaries as possible will be placed upon submissions or participation, books, after all can take many forms beyond (and including) the traditional. It is the intention though to provide public access to the ‘artist book’ – a completed unique singular art object in itself, rather than book binding as a craft – although hopefully there will be enough cross fertilisation to make it intriguing for the purist craftspeople as well as non threatening for the rank amateur with a desire to explore.

Those of us enraptured by the form and the process know well that there are some superb artist books being created out there in the creative community, from altered books, to fabric fat books, visual diaries, book sculpture, extraillustration, journals, story books. But there are very limited opportunities to show these pieces of work to each other, let alone other book lovers in our community. We know that the act of making an artist book – in whichever form we choose to explore – is more than just an exercise in technique, it is a personal journey of self expression and self discovery that brings a very special joy. The Takapuna Public Library has some artist books in it’s wonderful Angela Morton Collection, so it is the perfect venue for this gathering, perhaps we can even pass on the obsession while we use this great excuse to focus on an exhibition date.

So spread the word, think about it a bit, and get in touch if you feel so inclined…

A couple of drawings, graphite and charcoal, to get the year underway. I’m tempted to add colour, but last year I learned about applying discipline to my practice, so I’m letting light and dark out for a play for a while, to see what happens…

This last image shows another artists work – I do not have the name unfortunately, the facing page is my response to that work.

These are the pieces I am contributing to the  Stage Three students end of year Exhibition ‘Praxis” to be held at the TLC campus in Taita, Wellington, NZ over months end, hanging on my studio wall before I wrap and pack them up this week.

This piece is one of the results of the exploration of the red dot as a ‘sign’ or symbol, brought together with another commonly encountered form of the sign – words, specifically four letter words linked by the fact they are all ‘s words’ (or ‘swords’ as my love of puns breaks out yet again). I also rather enjoy the fact that the letter s and the letter f derive from similar old forms and to a novice eye reading old written language are often confused. They, like the dots, share similar forms but are all different, all unique, even those that look alike are in fact different words because they reference different things. So here, for those who like philosophy I am playing with sense and reference as well as form and repetition, figure and ground, colour and tone, symbolism and reality. I also like the way the entire piece resembles a commercial paint manufacturers sample card complete with idiotic varietal nomenclature. The dots by the way, are paint on paper, fixed to the canvas with a single dab of glue, so they are not part of the painted ground, but lightly resting on it, fighting gravity and remembering their horizontality in process.

This piece is Bookworm, made in autumn 2009,  the painting that started the entire red dot journey off for me when I realised the ‘bites’ could also be read as holes allowing a view through the ground into another dimension, in which case, somewhere there was a pile of red dots. And sure enough, there were. And what a merry chase they have led me on…

This piece is the end of the red dot journey, and is a direct response to several things I have encountered this year. It is a drip painting a la Pollock, the materials have been severely tested under a heat gun developing blisters and burns, hot paint rivers and pools driven into drought. It has appeared in multiple incarnations on my TLC blog throughout the year, from bone matrices to hidden surfaces to the cross icon marked grid, never quite dying of boredom but never quite reaching any acceptable level of satiety, until it at last provided a roosting place for the involuntarily and abruptly orphaned dots. And even then it had something to teach me before finally clawing it’s way to a state nearing completion, a small lesson that still has the power to make me grin. Another little visual pun.

And on the other wall there is my first deliberate hidden surface piece, which pays respectful homage and gratitude to my tutor for this year,  Australiasian painter of incomprehensible theoretical dimensions,  Peter Adsett. The deliberate theft of his floating line is both referential and symbolic, the best luck I had this year was when the other tutors tossed my name into that Too Hard basket. Thank you Peter for both the laughter and for keeping me sane and standing still under the onslaught of fools and idiots.  Alongside it two small sign pieces, labouring the point for those who still don’t get it, and on the other, a larger more complex and personal expressive collaged piece which just now wears the title ‘Cacophony’, with a smaller balancing collage that speaks of seeing and language and staying true to the vision. And finally, closest to the camera, the four rounds, black and white, minimally developed pieces that I still hold strong doubts about including, but they are I think the seeds of a future pathway with their roots firmly in 2009, and for that reason I will send them.

And there are the two Doubt books as well, because I promised I would send those too.

I apologise for the poor quality of the pics, I am no photographer, and the blurring and loss of detail is my fault not the the cameras. As always, the work is better in the real.

I hope.

On the studio table are a gathering of the small square canvas blocks in process before I rebuild them for sale, and as they sat drying I picked up an earlier canvas from the years work and started a few modifications to that one too. Funny the way things turn out, I think this now just might morph into something I actually quite like…

There is a kind of scraped back old dinghy feel to this in real life that doesn’t show up so well on screen. It’ll be fun to see how it turns out…