Getting my hands dirty

A row of freshly brushed lower case 10pt c's

I bought myself some lead type the other day. There's two fonts, a 10pt condensed sans serif that I haven't identied further yet, and an 18 point Gill, which, if I could only own one typeface would be it. Bonus! They come in a funny old cabinet with only four of the original 10 drawers, so lots of empty spaces (which I have plans for).

But first job is cleaning and sorting my new type. It looks like they are complete, nearly unused founts, but instead of being correctly sorted into their upper and lower case drawers*, they all are crammed into the upper case compartments. It's a long slow process removing each complete set of letters from its tiny space, checking and cleaning them and then putting away into their traditional place. Fortunately there's not much pied (mixed up) type, or it would be an even slower process.

The before photo

I'm guessing that my new fonts haven't been touched much, if at all, for the better part of 50 years. Transfering the accumulated filth onto my fingers isn't so bad as some type drawers I've cleaned where there was as much mouse poop, insect carcasses/nests and unidentified sticky stuff as dust and wood shavings. At the rate I'm going it's going to take about 12 hours to complete this project. And then I can start thinking about finding a printing press to use it on!

The after photo: clean 10pt lower case a's

*Printing geeks: mine are not California cases

Take Two Eggs

I am busy doing lots of stitchery and even secretly working on binding an edition on my own. But the most fun, interesting and photogenic thing I want to share about is still my collaborative altered book project with Bethwyn. We had a grand session yesterday working on our Man and Woman Books. I think the photos speak for themselves.

Man Book and Woman Book

After a winter lull, Bethwyn and I are back in the swing of our collaborative altered book project, Frugal with the Breugal. We are being very good about completing unfinished books (of which we have many) before starting anything new.

The book I'm focusing on right now is our "A Man Owner's Manual" aka the Man Book. The base is a 1950's British car owner's manual altered with a 1960's men's hairdressing textbook and 1950s knitting patterns. Bethwyn is focusing on our companion Woman Book which is based on a gardening book and incorporates something from almost everything in our ever growing stock pile of sources. Our self imposed rule for these books is no colour but lots of sillyness. We seen no reason that anything we do should make sense.


PS Click on each photo to see the details.

A spring sketch crawl

Storm battered poppies in ink

It's been ages since I've been to a sketch crawl. The WSA has taken over the organisation so competently that they've been trundling on throughout the winter quite nicely thank you very much; while I've been staying home and keeping warm. But last Saturday was such a perfect warm Spring day and I couldn't resist an excuse to be outside in pretty Parana Park. The Waikato River is still very high, up and over the banks and flooding the footpath in places.

Every time we moved to a new sketching spot I chose a different type of pen or pencil. I had carelessly brought along the journal that is almost finished so I ran out of pages after an hour or so and then had a snooze in the sun.

My best sketches were of flowers, but I also drew boats, butterflies, people, lichen and an aeroplane on a plinth.

Red hot pokers rendered in a novelty multicoloured pencil souvenir from the Cairns Regional Gallery.

Sewing Bee with Anna

Boring, but extremely useful op shop blouse ruined with bike chain grease on the cuff, restored by cutting off the cuffs, hemming the sleeves, and adding the cuff buttons to the placket: more buttons= less boring

At this stage in my life I don't have much interest in clothes, although they were something of an obsession during my teens. A life-long tendency to yo-yo between size 12 and size 16, a lack of money and other preoccupations have steered me into considering "clean, comfortable and weather-appropriate" to be my most relevant sartorial considerations. Thus I have ended up with a second hand wardrobe that conceals, more than reveals, my sense of who I really am.

In the past couple of years the only items of clothing I have sought out and bought new for pleasure rather than necessity are rainbow stripey socks. These are the clothes I own (and wear frequently) with which I can most associate a sense of expressing the self I aspire to. To me, these are the socks of a free-spirited, playful, hippy-chick with an exuberant creative optimism and I bought my first pair while living in the rainforest. These days my socks are usually hidden under jeans, giving me a similar frisson of secret self to that suggested by magazine ads promoting sexy underwear concealed beneath a power suit.

However, recent exposure to a couple of women around my age who dress beautifully with little reference to 'fashion' or excessive spending; and reading Linda Grant's The Thoughtful Dresser, have me considering my wardrobe more critically as a potential expression of my identity. (You may notice that I cannot name a single sartorial blog which has had any influence on my shifting attitude to clothing. Please feel free to suggest inspiring links).

Anna is the friend with the most influence on my shifting attitude. I've never seen her in anything other than beautiful rich colours, flattering cuts and luscious textures. Her style is completely her own and seems to perfectly express her passions for children (she is a kindergarten teacher) and sustainability; and a sensual yet practical generosity manifested in gardening, cooking, crafting, nurturing and fun. It's not that I want to dress like Anna (though we like the same colours), it's that she's made me reconsider the desirability of dressing more like Meliors.

Every few months Anna and I have a sewing bee at her place. She has a sewing machine and an overlocker and I am gradually overcoming my fear and loathing of such equipment. These sewing bees are almost the only time I do anything creative relating to clothing. I don't mean by this that I make clothes from scratch, though I did once make an apron out of a table cloth. Rather, I mend, alter and, lately enhance, clothing acquired from frock swaps, op shops and hand-me-downs.

Hand me down merino pullover with uncomfortably tight crewneck cut down the front to make a cardigan and trimmed with leopard

Anna and I have completely different approaches to the sewing bee experience. It's her house, and her school holidays, so for her our bee is part of a continuum of several days of sewing. She pulls out her entire and extensive stash of fabrics and clothes-to-be-worked-on and can happily spend hours considering creative possibilities for that stretched t-shirt or this embroidered tulle. Her sewing day is punctuated with numerous long phone calls with friends and family, the provision of endless cups of hot juice, tea, snacks and meals and frequent patient rethreading of the sewing machines.

Meanwhile, by the time I've got to Anna's, I've gone through my own small stash and chosen a pile of potential projects to bring with me. I launch into the first inevitable hemming task as soon as I arrive and work without stopping until lack of chocolate has me weak and shaky. Then once refueled with my drug of choice, I continue until I've finished or the light is gone. As I'm not naturally inclined to moderation or balance I benefit enormously from Anna's generous and distracted hostessing.

Yesterday's sewing bee was distinguished by some experimenting on my part, to expand my pragmatic wardrobe with some clothes that I might choose for pleasure in their look and feel, rather than for being tidy. This experimentation is exemplified in my use of the bundle of leopard print plush scraps I pounced on at our last frock swap. My enthusiasm for this fabric stems from fond memories of a vintage leopard print swing coat and matching pillbox hat I wore through several teenage winters in 1980s Dunedin. No matter how tacky leopard print may be considered in the mainstream, it has a special place in my heart, and now once again, in my wardrobe.

Plain red skirt from frock swap taken up and decorated with applique cat in leopard print

Toxic tailings

More stitching... this was inspired by an aerial photograph of the tailings lake of a open cast copper mine in the Atacama Desert in Chile. The byproducts of such mining operations are sludges of poisonous chemicals so nasty they won't even blend together but instead sit on top of each other in pretty patterns.


This will be part of a larger, more complicated, work concerned with mining. I'm a bit ambivalent about the mining project so I'm also making a lot of lovely icebergs simultaneously, to balance things out.

Birdie Bowers' Hat

I've written another poem about an Antarctic hero and Harvey Molloy has published it as his Tuesday Poem this week at Molloy Notebook. I am honored to be included in the Tuesday Poem project (for the second time), and to be invited by Harvey, who I respect very much.

I was also pleased to see my name included in the Tuesday Poem roll call on Beatties Book Blog, but not so pleased that Graham Beattie managed to spell both of my names (and one of the names in the poem's title) incorrectly. Sigh.

Birdie Bowers' Hat

Birdie Bowers was universally loved
for his old-fashioned virtues:
hard-work and loyalty, the most
stoic and cheerful member of Scott’s party,
he was the kind of chap the Empire needed
and chewed up
and spat out.
(...)
Read the rest here.

Also, while you are indulging in some poetry, check out this poem I really like by Olivia Macassey called They Say In a Healthy Economy There Should Be 5% Unemployment, or What Has Social Welfare Ever Given You?

Making icebergs

I just can't find the motivation to write at the moment. All I want to do is stitch. So here's some photographs of my icebergs to keep you going.

Iceberg #1

Iceberg # 2

My foam work surface, just starting the second iceberg. Needle felting and embroidery

Almost finished second iceberg. See the fleece being needle felted onto the circle of blanket- its the softest thing in the whole world just before I sandwich it with another blanket and sew it all inside.

"Careful Considered Production"

Rachel Kent, judge of the Bold Horizons National Contemporary Art Awards, speaking about her selection process. I was so thrilled by what she had to say about the place of craft in contemporary art, that I didn't mind not winning.

Tip of the Iceberg

Four months ago I dreamed about making an iceberg in the form of a tiara, or maybe a crown. In my dream it was twilight shades of blues and purples. Subsequent research identified my iceberg as a combination of the types called "dry dock" and "pinnacle", fanciful fairytale ice structures sculpted over time by wind and waves. Unfortunately my dream didn't include directions for how I could make this wondrous object. Would it be embroidered, quilted, felted or crocheted?

I have imagined all of these possibilities, rejected most, and trialled a few. Finally I seem to have found the method which will work: a variation on My Antarctica technique which favours height over breadth with substantial needle felting and loose embroidery. Its taken quite a bit of unpicking to get this far, but I finally seem to be back in the zone.

Reluctantly I abandoned my dream colour scheme and reverted to the white on cream materials that are left over from my first Antarctic projects. I have a policy of using the materials I have on hand rather than buying new where ever possible, and the blue/purple spectrum is almost entirely absent from my floss stash. Besides, I'm confident about my white on cream scheme, and think it worth forgoing the risks and uncertainties of experimenting with colour at the same time as experimenting with technique.

I'm using my beloved Kaiapoi blanket and with every stab and stitch this weekend, my thoughts are with the town of Kaiapoi just north of Christchurch, evacuated after yesterday's earthquake. My dear friends Sharkey and Sean live there in a little old house which has miraculously survived, when many of their neighbour's homes haven't.

Miner’s Cook

Flying in, the sea is dark and demanding.

Our island appears like a jewel and grows

green until we circle to land,

then I see the red sore gouged at its centre

and my bile rises as the plane drops.

On the ground I am lost in the chaos

of unloading in a sudden dark that hides everything

beyond our beams. I’m looking for the bread,

fresh bread brought to last this first week

but by the time I’ve found it the loaves are gnawed to stale crusts

and I’m in despair with a hungry crew to feed.

I must push my fear and sorrow

out into the dark and be grateful when our neighbours,

the whalers, come over the hill with roast meat.

I stumble asleep among crates of food

and dream of home but when I wake up I’m still here

and a relentless dawn calls me to breakfast for thirty.

For days of sorting supplies and learning a new kitchen,

fuelling men between their shifts,

all I ever see is the grassy slopes sheltering our camp,

a wink of water behind us and a sky full of strange stars.

Finally there is time for a walk, up the hill:

I see again the bleeding gash I am feeding,

and vomit into the grass.

Editioning- The Movie

Editioning from Meliors Simms on Vimeo.

It's taken exactly 13 months to finish making my short film about making an edition of 100 books on commission. I wrote about the experience last year, and actually put a rough cut together straight away, then stalled on finding a soundtrack. Then I recently discovered The Serious Ukulele Ensemble, and their music is so perfect that I could finish the editing quite quickly.

Playing in the snow and mud

Almost Antarctica, except for the ski lift cables.

This week I went away for a little break, mostly because after spending so long with the idea of Antarctica I wanted to see at least a little snow made of frozen water instead of wool and cotton. The nearest place to see snow is the mountains in the middle of the North Island of New Zealand, about three hours drive from where I live. I persuaded my buddy Robin, who has a car, to take a few days holiday with me. I didn't have to twist her arm very hard at all.

I thought that once up on the mountain I'd be able to narrow my focus and squint a little and maybe be able to imagine myself in Antarctica. Unfortunately, wherever I looked there was always some bit of greenery, or if not greenery, some building, road or ski lift. But it didn't matter, because there was snow, and some of it was blowing into my face in a very cold wind, and that seemed pretty authentic. Also Robin brought along a blow up sled, and that was very fun!

Three seems to be the optimal number on the Twister sled

After Robin and I took a few hilarious uncontrolled slides down the slope, she wondered how many kids could fit on the sled. Playing on the edge of the sledding slope was a group of children from Ngaruawahia Primary School who didn't have sleds or skis or snowboards. Watching them play on Robin's sled was even more fun that sledding ourselves. After a couple of hours in the snow, in conditions that could be generously described as stormy, we retreated back down to the Chateau for port and hot chocolate by the open fire, eavesdropping on rich people's complaints about the poor skiing conditions.

Taking a stroll to the Falls

But it's a truism that the weather in the mountains is changeable: the snow clad golf course we stomped across on our first day was melted to a green swamp (dotted with snowmen) on the second. And while we were recovering in luxury from the blizzardish morning, the sky suddenly cleared giving us the rare sight of all three mountains cloud-free. Ngarahoe, aka Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings, is such a perfect volcanic cone that I had to take about a million cliched photos of it. I don't know why, since I've chosen Robin's photo of me to illustrate.

The best thing about our little break was the hot pools at the Oasis in Tokaanu. The Oasis is perfectly adequate budget accomodation that I've been visiting for at least a dozen years. Guests get unlimited use of the on-site hot mineral pools and there's nothing like a hot stinky soak to ensure a very good night's sleep. The volcanic mountains and the hot pools are all reminders that the earth's crust is very thin here, and the landscape rather volatile.

On the way home we visited the Craters of the Moon, a geothermal feature consisting mainly of steaming holes in the ground.

My favourite part was a really big crater with shapely Chinese-looking rocks thrusting out of bubbling mud pools and steam vents, covered in lush primordial greenery.

Amundsen’s Dogs

My Antarctica (Pancake Ice)

Amundsen's Dogs

In loose drift,
the bicycle wheel clogs
but Amundsen ices the runners
and the sledge, laden
like a steamer ship
follows the dogs smartly.

Happy dogs, running
fighting, resting in the snow
they like to burrow in,
let the drift cover them
like a comforter
and tuck their noses under their bushy tails.

"This land looks like a fairytale!"
Amundsen exclaims, and he builds
hundreds of cairns like ice queen castles
marking the route at intervals
to suit his dogs.

So much energy contained in each rest:
men conferring, dogs alert and wagging
still tethered to the ship-shape sledge
skis, flags thrusting upwards
all straining the reach the South Pole
first.

(c) Meliors Simms

Words
I wrote Amundsen's Dogs a few months ago, while immersed in my big Antarctic project, when I was devouring all the Antarctic books I could lay my hands on. The poem was inspired by a book of Amundsen's photographs, mostly snapshots he took himself. Unlike the British expeditions, he didn't have a professional photographer in his party. His photos aren't as brilliant as Ponting's or Hurley's but they evoke the mood of his expedition quite well. It seems impossible to write about Amundsen without reference to Scott, and this poem is as much about Scott's second as it is about Amundsen's first.

BTW For those less obsessed with Antarctic history than me, in the days before GPS a bicycle wheel was attached to a sledge and measured the distance covered. Not very accurately, because if the snow was soft the wheel wouldn't turn.

Pictures
I whipped up this little piece of Antarctic stitching very recently. Despite my enthusiasm for oil and mining, it seems I can't leave the ice completely behind. Pancake ice is so pretty and apparently there's more of it about these days. Unfortunately this is caused by warming polar seas and itself contributes to a feedback loop by allowing the seas to warm more quickly.

I made Pancake Ice as a small continuation of My Antarctica series. Ross Island is already earmarked for a buyer, and continental My Antarctica is probably out of the price range of most people who follow this blog, but Pancake Ice, mounted, is only 21 x 16cm, and priced accordingly. Email me if you are interested.

Pancake Ice image from Ian Alexancer's Nature Pattern Library

Punctuated Equilibrium

View from the stairs to the National Contemporary Art Award Gallery

You've read about the installation of my little solo show at the Waikato Museum, Punctuated Equilibrium. This post shows you around the Vitrine, and explains my ideas. I was inspired by the Vitrine’s associations with the cabinets of curiosities of Victorian naturalists. The confined space allowed me a manageable scale-representation of geological time and the glass windows are perfect for exhibiting delicate work which need to be seen but not touched.

Punctuated Equilibrium is a theory of evolution in which species stay stable for long periods with adaption and extinction happening relatively swiftly in response to environmental changes. Our Anthropocene age seems set to demonstrate this theory: the widespread species extinctions are well underway, although evidence of adaption will take a little longer to prove.

There are four elements to the exhibition: Deep Time paper scrolls, embossed fossils, embroidered fossils and the microfossil sketch book. The stories fossils tell about evolution, adaption, and the causes and consequences of extinction are particularly relevant today as we finally start to understand the long term environmental impacts of industrialisation, capitalism and consumerism.

Deep Time through glass reflecting the Museum foyer.

To understand these ideas you have to unfocus your eyes from the here and now and imagine the immensity of geological time, deep time. Last year, while artist in residence at Hamilton Girls High School I handpainted 570 metres of paper to represent the 570 million years of multi-cellular life on earth. I would love to represent the billions of years since the Big Bang, but settled for something that took only months instead of years for me to make. Deep Time is unfurled in the Vitrine as a rippling, layered cliff face evocative of both stratified rock formations and sea water.

Paper strata

Deep Time represents: millions of years when most of the world was covered in warm shallow seas populated by blobby things collectively creating our atmosphere. Millions of years of ferns and small and large creepy crawlies. Dinosaurs. Asteroids. Volcanoes and lots of tectonic plate shifting. Untold species that lived and died before mammals even thought about becoming primates, let alone humans.

Embossed fossils

I was fortunate to be able to take a print class at WSA last year, and despite Joan Travaglia's superlative teaching I became obsessed with blind embossing and never did anything more complicated after that. I made five woodcuts of different fossils and embossed hundreds of them onto heavy paper, then cut out each one by hand.

Stories Below Ground consists of 500 or so brown kraft paper fossils are spread across the floor of the Vitrine, like leaf litter (and in fact at first glance are easily mistaken for leaves). The same fossils embossed onto heavy cream paper are packaged as an artist book called Five Fossils which includes copy of my poem Punctuated Equilibrium and is for sale in the Museum's micro shop (as well as on Etsy). The five fossils are an ammonite, star fish, sea urchin, trilobite and Ediacaran jellyfish.

Framed embroideries

In the months between finishing last year's coral reefs and starting My Antarctica projects I stitched up a few small fossils for Punctuated Equilibrium. This was how I discovered the joys of embroidering onto blankets. I enjoyed playing around with a wider palette of stitches and colours with these projects. The fossils are from left to right: sea stars, crinoid, tessarolax and ammonite.

Micro fossil micro sketch book

By far the most common fossils in the world are the microscopically small ones, the planktons, pollens and other tiny life forms which have always been the basis of the whole food chain, the balance of gases in our atmosphere and nutrients in soils and the sea. Zoom in on images of these micro fossils and you will see an incredible variety of different shapes and textures. I sketched a selection to make into a tiny hand made book, a micro fossil sketch book.

Micro fossil sketch book on its own plinth (I love the plinth!) and groovy graphics by the Museum designers