Ancient Wisdom

22 Friday Mar 2019

Posted by Laurie in art retreats, book arts, dyeing, Mixed media art, North Carolina, North Carolina beaches

A couple of weekends ago, Susanne, Sandy, and I went to Topsail Beach for a long weekend. Sandy hung out by himself mostly while Susanne and I took a workshop with Leslie Marsh and Kim Beller called Ancient Wisdom. We stayed at the Jolly Roger Inn and Pier. The weather was a bit chilly and cloudy and it rained really hard one night but we got out on the beach a little. We had oceanfront rooms and that was nice.

We drove down on Thursday evening and ate dinner at the Beach Shop and Grill. With that name we expected hamburgers and hot dogs but it was a very expensive and wonderful restaurant. Sandy saved us by picking up the check. He had crab cakes that were divine. I am not sure that there was any bread in them at all. Susanne and I had shrimp and grits and I think that they might now be number one on my list of favorite shrimp and grits places.

In the morning, we indulged in doughnuts from the Fractured Prune. At this point I knew that there was no hope for my diet. When we went back to the hotel room, Susanne and I walked on the beach and picked up stuff, as you do, and after we went up to our rooms this guy showed up drawing fabulous runes on the beach in front of our hotel. Our own personal installation artist.

Friday afternoon was spent cutting our windows into bookboard and wrapping the covers with plaster gauze. They had to cure overnight.

When we got back to the hotel, the artist had finished.

Then we drove to Wilmington and ate dinner at one of our favorite places: Indochine. The rumors of its demise during Hurricane Florence are not true, thankfully.

The next day was dyeing day! Leslie had eight different natural dye pots going in her backyard and we spent most of the day dipping our book pages in them. What a great opportunity for overdyeing! I have never had access to so many colors at one time so I went nuts. I could not tell you the combinations on a lot of my pages, but I used indigo on most of them. Turmeric, avocado pits and skins, black walnut, and turmeric made good combinations too. Other dyepots held madder, yellow onion skins, red cabbage (which fades to light gray) and blueberries (also light-sensitive and fugitive). Honestly, I never guessed that you could get such beautiful natural dye results on paper.

We forced ourselves to stop and paint our plaster covers so that they would be dry by the time we bound our books the last day. I cut my mica too close to the edge because I was thinking that the plaster would be covering it. Stitching it that close to the edge ripped out through the sides so i improvised. Those sea oats were picked up off the road after the hurricane, by the way; no illegal picking of sea oats happened here. I scratched and stamped circles into the plaster to honor the art work I had seen on the beach – this is still a work in progress.

That night we ate at Sears Landing in Surf City near the bridge on the Intracoastal Waterway. This is a place where I will definitely return. All the weight I lost and more came back by the end of the night.

After dinner we went to Quarter Moon Books and Wine Bar where the three of us and Pam, a friend we met at the workshops down here, had drinks and listened to some great acoustic music by The Doug McFarland One. (He is a hoot.)

On Sunday we bound our beautiful colorful signatures with longstitch (for using as warp for weaving later) and then put the whole shebang together with coptic stitch.

We didn’t have time to do the woven binding but I drilled holes in the back cover and I am working on embellishing this book further now.

Thanks, Leslie Marsh and Kim Beller for another exquisite workshop experience! Also to Bee Shay for spending her lunch teaching a few of us to wrap stones with macrame stitching for hanging. What a sweet weekend it was.

Email to the Triangle Book Arts group

07 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by Laurie in art retreats, book arts

≈ 2 Comments

(Posting the email below since I think it got blocked as spam to the Triangle Book Arts group. So many links, and it would be a shame to waste the work in putting it together! Anyway, some others might find it interesting too.)

Hi everybody,

I came home from the TBA Holiday Party so happy, and believe it or not I am NOT a party person so THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

A lot of you were interested in the three books that I brought. Each was constructed in a workshop and I promised to send information about those workshop teachers. I am an art retreat addict, which is why I still drive a 1996 Chevrolet.

**************

Leslie Marsh is a book artist and natural dyer who lives on Topsail Island. She teaches workshops all over the country, and now she lives here in NC! Her website is http://www.leslie-marsh.com/. I plan to take the Ancient Wisdom II class March 8-10.

The book with the leaf and indigo printed pages is from her Zhen Xian Bao workshop that I took in June this past year. Here’s a link to a blog post I wrote about it:
https://slowlysheturned.net/2018/06/12/zhen-xian-bao-by-the-sea/.

Ruth Smith did the research to bring this book structure to the States. A link to a PDF about the structure is here:

http://www.foldingdidactics.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/zhen_xian_beyo.pdf

**************

I took another class in this structure at Focus on Book Arts in Forest Grove, Oregon. This book arts conference is held in late June every two years. For its scope and quality it is one of the least expensive art retreats out there and well worth the trip. Here is a link to FOBA and a link to my blog posts about classes there:

https://focusonbookarts.org/

https://slowlysheturned.net/category/focus-on-book-arts/
(Keep scrolling for the posts about the actual classes I took. But Forest Grove is a pretty cool little town, about a 30 minute drive west from Portland.)

I save up for and do everything I can to attend this one every time it is held. This year I hope to take at least one more class from Leighanna Light, but the calendar is not up yet. The sneak peeks are up.

*************

The little box/book with the tiny books inside was constructed in Sharon Payne Bolton’s “Hertel” class, part of the Stamford, Connecticut “Talk Story – Eat Cake Create” art retreat. This is another great art retreat for mixed media and book artists.

Here is the link about my experience in the class with photos of other students’ books:

https://slowlysheturned.net/2018/10/14/talk-story-eat-cake-create-art-is-you-movement-stamford-ct/

The art retreat info: https://www.eatcakecreate.com/ which should be updated for 2019 soon.

Sharon’s workshops: https://www.sharonpaynebolton.com/workshops-in-the-works-coming-soon

***************
The deck of painted playing cards was painted in the 52 Card Pick-up workshop by Seth Apter and it was held here in Greensboro back in February. He also is a educator for Eat Cake Create art retreat and holds workshops in smaller venues all over the country. Helluva nice guy, too.

My thoughts, with a lot of other personal journaling you might want to skip:
https://slowlysheturned.net/2018/02/10/saturday-morning-coffee-pot-post-96/

Seth’s web site: http://www.sethapter.com/

All these instructors and retreats have Facebook pages.

I hope you enjoy going down these rabbit holes! Have a great wintry weather weekend!

Laurie

Talk Story – Eat Cake Create – Art Is You Movement – Stamford, CT

14 Sunday Oct 2018

Posted by Laurie in art, art retreats, Art-is-You, book arts

≈ 1 Comment

There are so many different names for this collection of superb art retreats organized by Sallianne McClelland. I tend to still call all of them Art Is You because I’m a stubborn old gal, but this particular one was called Talk Story in Stamford, Connecticut. When I saw that Sharon Payne Bolton was teaching and her class was scheduled over our two day fall break at the university where I work, I busted out my tired old credit card and headed north. Here’s a link to the blog post about my previous class with Sharon.

I did not take many photos of the class or the event itself, and that for me is a good sign, because my brain is totally in the present moment and focused on what makes me happy. And God knows we women needed a lot of that last week. Another great feature of Sallianne’s retreats is that she feeds us well. The Sheraton hotel food was excellent. Most importantly, though, is that these retreats are welcoming communities. Many of the attendees have taken classes with the Art Is You family (and they do seem like a family) for years and have developed lasting friendships across the states. This was my first AIY retreat on the East Coast, and Sallianne had pronounced it the last one in this location. There was such sadness and outcry over this that she decided to schedule another one in Stamford in 2020. In the meantime, she has other West Coast and midwest locations in play, and I hear that she might do one in the south.

This art retreat addiction, especially for Art is You and Focus on Book Arts, is the only thing that makes me regret not being rich.

Anyway, the class that I took from Sharon Payne Bolton was called HERTEL, based on a box structure that she designed. One of the boxes had a piece of book cover with the word HERTEL on it and she has a story about someone buying it from her for a good friend of his with the last name Hertel. It was a two day class and she had not taught it before so she was nervous. She is SO dedicated to providing everything you needed, right down to tools and aprons, so that you can come to her class and not bring anything at all if you wish, which is super great when you are flying. I was able to fly with only carry-on luggage. Plus, instead of having us cut all those little pieces of bookboard and paper text blocks for little books, she did it.

I told her that if I could swing it financially, I would be her groupie and follow her around like a stray puppy.

We built the box on the first day, and spent the second day further embellishing it and building little books to go inside. She had Apoxie Sculpt (which I immediately ordered online after the class was over) and encaustic medium and moldmaking materials for us to use. There was a plethora of gorgeous papers, leather scraps, ephemera, and baubles to attach. She taught us coptic stitch for single sheets on the second day, which I have done before but I needed a refresher.

Work space:

In progress. The “Inspire” pin is a gift from Maria. It might go in another book.

My book, outside and inside:

Reva and Kathy’s books:

A better shot of Reva’s book:

David’s book:

Maria’s book:

I think that this is Eileen’s book:

Four people had to leave before we took photos. I wish I had taken photos of everybody’s books because they were all so different, especially some of the ones that left early.

I will add more photos later. My box is at my office this weekend, but I want to show you more of the little book with the key embedded in the cover.

Once again, I came away with not only tons of inspiration, but many new friends that I hope to keep up with at future art retreats and on social media. And five “new” cigar boxes for the studio!

Zhen Xian Bao by the Sea

12 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by Laurie in art, book arts, dyeing, Nature printing, North Carolina, North Carolina beaches

≈ 3 Comments

This past weekend, Susanne and I went to a wonderful Zhen Xian Bao book class at Topsail Beach, NC, taught by Leslie Marsh and Kim Beller. The first day we spent natural dyeing with plant materials and indigo on paper and fabric. The next day was spent constructing the book, which is made with glue, scissors, and folding. The book structure is a traditional Chinese thread book made for the purpose of holding embroidery threads, needles, and the odd bits that might be kept for different projects. Ruth Smith researched this extensively and published books about it, and it is being taught by artists in the United States now. I took a class on this structure at Focus on Book Arts last summer, which I absolutely loved. Kim and Leslie put their own spin on it by adding more layers and the natural dye/shibori element. Of course, Leslie acknowledged the instruction of India Flint in her teaching of eco-printing techniques.

The big dilemma in making this book is that you have to sacrifice some images that you might love to be on the side that is glued down. The biggest one for me was the big box that makes the base and the cover. Both sides had their charms, but I had to pick one. The other can be seen on the bottom of the lowest box when the book is opened. I thought about embellishing the cover further, but I think that I will leave it alone other than brushing some Dorland’s wax medium on it to make it a little stronger and more weatherproof.

above: unbundling, trying out cover sides and the finished cover

I added the 70% silk/30% cotton thread to every bundle. I now have some dark and bright indigo threads to add to my tapestry, once I get them untangled. One groups of the threads I laid inside a bundle made a portrait of two humans. Fortunately I was able to preserve this image in the bottom of one of the boxes near the top.

More photos of the dyeing/bundling process:

Update: I don’t do Pinterest too much – too overwhelming and I don’t need another rabbit hole. If you are into it, here’s a great board on the Zhen Xian Bao book structure.

Re(f)use Exhibition at Artspace

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by Laurie in art, book arts, North Carolina, Wonderfulness

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Even though this Triangle Book Arts group exhibition at Artspace in Raleigh, North Carolina is much better seen in person, as any book art exhibition is, I took a few photos yesterday when Sandy and I visited. Book arts are so interactive – in many cases over half of what is there is inside a book! In the show, there were many forms of books, some folded books hanging from the ceiling, some hanging on the wall, others were sculptural, and others invited you to explore inside them. One even invited you to add to it!

All were constructed from materials “reused” that were at least 80% “refuse.”

There were many that I wanted to photograph but a camera just could not do them justice. Susan Leeb’s “Catalogue of Nostalgia” installation using an old library card catalog cabinet and cards could have easily soaked up an hour of my time exploring its drawers, but I gave up trying to photograph it.

Here are photos of my two books in the exhibition. “Flow” hung with a group collaboration and was difficult to photograph because it was very long and the lighting was odd. However, I loved the shadows cast on the wall by another hanging book, “Holy” by Lisa Gilbert, so maybe the lighting was perfect. First two photos are details of the front and back of “Flow.” Then the bottom, then a page in the middle.

Here’s “First the Seed,” opened to its first page. I really have to write in this book when it comes home. It’s like the book that refuses to be finished.

See the shapes on the wall cast by the holes in “Holy?” After this photo is a detail shot of “Holy.” I really love this idea of combining a piece with light and shadow.

I love the shadows cast by Barbara Livingston’s fascinating “Renovating the Library” also.

Kathy Steinsburger’s “East:West” really got to me, pictured along with other works along the back wall. Again, those shadows!

By the way, the other gallery exhibit with encaustic collages by Jane Wells Harrison is well worth the trip also. It made my husband and I both want to play with encaustic. I especially loved the map imagery encased under the wax.

The exhibition is on the first floor gallery on Artspace through March 3. You can see other photos by clicking on any of these photos to go to my Flickr page. There are too many to post here – I know I posted too many as it was.