Shelf- An exhibtion of small objects

Looking through the window of Katherine Pigott's cardboard house three stories tall and each interior perfectly and delicately drawn and painted.

I'm honoured to be included in the roll call of well respected artists in this group show at The Framing Workshop in Silverdale, Hamilton until 19 January 2011. We were given the brief to make an object to fit on a shelf 165x165mm and the diversity of responses is satisfying. All so different and every piece a small gem.

The piece on the left is a resin water balloon

Left is a found deer sculpture that has been dressed, centre is Ann Bell's shishiro vessel, and right is a fascinating assemblage.

The Framing Workshop is one of the classiest galleries in Hamilton (and one of the smallest). This exhibiton, curated by owner Sarah Marston and artist Gaye Jurisich, is one of the most satisfying exhibitons I've seen locally this year (am I allowed to say that if I am included?).

I toyed with idea of making an iceberg with the tip on top of the shelf and the 80% underwater hanging below the shelf. This artist was the only one of us to actually use the underside of the shelf, and so wonderfully.

Unfortunately there wasn't a take home catalogue and I didn't document the artist's names as I was taking these photos. Sorry- if you see your work let me know names and links so I can acknowledge.

I submitted four icebergs and there are a pair displayed in each window

Punctuated Equilibrium in Store

Embroidered ammonite fossil

As the end of the year approaches, I am reviewing my achievements of 2010. One of my proudest was the installation 'Punctuated Equilibrium' at the Waikato Museum earlier this year. Almost all of the elements of the installation were actually created (or at least begun) during my 2009 residency at Hamilton Girls High School but I'm counting it as a 2010 achievement as that's when the project was completed.

Embroidered crinoid fossil

It felt quite poignant to un-install 'Punctuated Equilibrium' earlier this month, but I am thrilled to be sharing all the individual elements again in another form. As a 'site specific' installation, this combination of works won't be shown again outside of the Vitrine. Instead I have added each of the pieces to my Etsy shop. If you liked my embroidered fossils or the microfossil sketchbook, you can buy these now, just as they were exhibited.

Microfossil micro-sketchbook

Deep Time, the 570 metres of paper scrolls representing 570 million years of multi cellular life on earth is also for sale, as individual scrolls. You can pick and choose among your favourite colours (not all the scrolls have been added to the shop quite yet, so if the colour you want isn't there, just ask). I love the idea that someone will draw or write on the painted paper, or collage on it or with it, creating a new other life for these unusual books. Of course if you just want to have a pretty cylinder of colour sitting on your shelf, or unroll the paper to make your own installation, that's going to look rather fine too.

Blue painted paper scroll (Deep Time)

The 500 or so woodcut blind embossed fossils in brown kraft paper are also for sale. I'm suggesting them as sets of 10 paper ornaments or gift tags (and have attached hemp twine for ease of attachment. Of course these woodcuts are still available (on luxuriously creamy paper) in the Five Fossils artist's book as well.

Embossed fossil ornaments or gift tags

AJ Seely Gully

The sign says 'second biggest kauri 37 years old'

The other day I heard a radio programme about ecological restoration happening in the Hamilton area, and one of the sites discussed was the AJ Seely Gully which is in my neighbourhood. I have noted the entrance before but not yet explored it as the path appeared steep narrow, muddy and generally unformed. But the weather this month is all hot and dry so a scramble down the track doesn't seem so intimidating as in the middle of a rainy winter. I suggested to Robin that we go check it out last weekend. So we did and this is what we saw.

Not exactly a bridge, but a board walk over what would often be mud. The sign says 'careful'

It's not a big area, and its a nice easy walk when the ground is dry. The land is private and the tree planting the 50 year project of a local man who decided to restore bush long before it became fashionable. There are some impressively big trees only a few years older than me, that he planted. Best of all were the wonderfully quirky hand written signs. Worst of all was the rubbish, though Robin and I picked up most of what we could and carried it out of the gully.

'Miro, note clematis above'. We looked and looked but couldn't spot any clematis.

Deconstructionist Delight

Beads salvaged from Soul of the Sea. Even the most of the snippets of thread go in my scrapjar as future stuffing.

Bulky old unsold works of art, no matter how beloved, are a millstone. I don't want to keep putting them out to galleries because there's always new works I want to show. Keeping them in storage is inconvenient and expensive.

Thus one of the most effective cures for the persistant existential angst plaguing me this spring has been deconstructing pieces that for whatever reason have passed their used by dates. It is extremely satisfying to be actively engaged with the materials, solving logistical problems and clearing the decks for new creativity. I am determined to salvage as much as possible for reuse.

Being gentle to the planet is a central concern in everything I do, not least in my art practice. Deconstructing my work is giving me fresh insights into how I can improve my art footprint in the next pieces I make. I am most pleased with my latest dismantlement which resulted in only a handful of gluey threads and some sticky tape from the packaging going to landfill. Every thing else from the work itself, the hanging hardware, and the packaging will be reused.

Shroud for King Tutankhamun/Soul of the Sea

My latest act of deconstruction is a piece with an illustrious history. It started its life as New Shroud for King Tutankhamun and was selected as a finalist in the NZ Art Guild Art Award in January 2008. It went from that exhibition straight into storage while I set off on my Australian adventure. Later that year when I set up my Etsy shop I renamed the piece Soul of the Sea and it continues to be my Etsy item most frequently selected for Treasuries. So often has it appeared in various mermaid-themed collections that I became quite blase. Last year I touted the piece around a couple of local galleries and Soul of the Sea enjoyed a few months in a prominent postition in the Thornton Gallery, then went back into storage.

Watercoloured die cut circles straight from the Sea

It is always the handwork that I love most about my art. Taking apart the Soul of the Sea brought back the happy memories I had of every stage of its original making: hand painting offcuts of water colour paper, diecutting them with my daughter on the Chandler Price press, pricking the holes, stitching the circles together with beads and finally building the elaborate packaging that has kept this fragile piece perfectly intact through its travels.

Inside the packaging I made out of cardboard from windscreen boxes, masses of bubble wrap and duct tape

As a finished object I was pleased that it was so well liked: as a finalist, as a Treasury frequent flyer, inviting much attention in the gallery. But I also was mostly frustrated that it never sold and so had to continue to be stored. If I had a big enough house I would have happily hung it in my living space. If I was close to anyone with enough wallspace I might have given it away. But now instead I am all afire with new enthusiasm to be beginning again with stitching the circles.

Post Sea circles, tidied up and ready to be stitched again.

This time I will make an edition of smaller Soul of the Seas, that are mounted on a rigid backboard and can be easily and affordably posted overseas. It will be so much easier to spread the love of the original piece in affordable and postable packages. And I get to do a whole lot more pleasurable making without having to buy any new materials!

The small pile in the foreground is going to landfill. The cardboard will be repurposed (for the third time in its life) to make a solar oven. The bubble wrap will come in handy, though these days I prefer to give it away rather than use it to package art.

Out into the world

Icebergs for Shelf - An exhibition of small objects opening 19 Nov at The Framing Workshop in Hamilton

It's an ambivalent moment sending work out from my studio to a gallery and I'm doing it twice this week. Ambivalent because exhibiting is the point of my making and yet it feels so risky. I'm never completely happy with what I've made, the minor imperfections glare out at me almost obscuring the bigger picture. By the time I've finished making something I've learned how much better I could make it next time, and its hard to believe that not every viewer will have as critical an eye as my own.

But out my pieces go, with the gallery fee I can ill afford, with the artist's statement I've sweated over, with my hopes and wishes that it will provoke thought, conversation and affection in many people; and (please God) an overwhelming acquisitive desire in at least one person with the means to satisfy themselves. Sending away my work marks the end of what has inevitably been many hours of pleasurable production, into an environment where those hours of effort are not necessarily valued. It's risky, so I'm ambivalent.

Coral Threnody for the Textile Show opening 13 November at The Depot Artspace in Devonport

Spring programme

Poor neglected blog! I've been navigating a delicate recovery from existential angst, not a process I wanted to expose to the harsh light of the internet. I'm not angsting over 'what's the point of trying to be an artist?' anymore. Now I'm just getting on with it; which is much more fun.

But I'm too busy to try and craft a narrative about anything, instead here's a partial list of what I've been up to:

• reading Ranulph Fiennes' biography of Scott and thinking about the Scott poem I want to write
• un-installing 'Punctuated Equilibrium' from the Vitrine at Waikato Museum
• finishing preparing two years' worth of tax records for the accountant
  
• watching with despair as my 'money-put-aside-for-taxes' goes for yet another dental bill
• eating rice bubbles
• avoiding Twitter which I find oppressive and confusing
  
• experimenting with kefir milk grains
• enjoying bicycling in fine weather for a change, the air smells so sweet
  
• cleaning dirty old letterpress type
• cuddling alpacas at the A&P Show, also viewing bunnies, horses, sheep, goats and cows
  
• finishing the icebergs for the Shelf exhibition later this month
• finishing a present to take to Melbourne at the end of the month
• reading Pie#02
• reworking 'You are an Agent of Change' into two 'new' pieces
• reworking 'Breathe' into costume jewellery
  
• growing a small vegetable garden in pots (dwarf beans, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, lettuce, parsley, coriander and calvo nero)
  
• hanging out with my parents
• sewing with Anna
• my day job which is really an evening job ie the non-arty stuff that pays the bills, or would if the bills would stay under control
• starting a commission for an edition of two handmade artist's books
• watching the Beatles Anthology series and listening to a lot of Beatles music
  
• wearing skirts most days, and getting sandal tan marks on my feet
  
• moving 'My Antarctica' into storage
• planning an 'Open Studio' day on 12 December, everyone is invited to my place to come and see new work (including 'My Antarctica' which I will bring out of storage for the event), enjoy birthday cake and hopefully buy some handmade books and stitched pieces
  

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.