Positive space, negative space

The blue/green blanket stash

I've been on a binge of building up my materials stash for all the work I have planned for the coming months. I've been buying blankets in many colours, and a whole kilogram of wool roving for felting! It usually comes in 5 gram packs so this was a major investment. I also bought a new set of felting needles for some serious needle felting and every now and then I think I might have enough embroidery floss to keep me going. But I use it up so fast I always seem to be running short of one colour or another.

After a very slow start on my big iceberg, its starting to become an object instead of lots of half worked pieces. The base of the iceberg is momentarily shaped a bit like a hat. Unlike a hat, this is a very solid piece and will end up quite heavy, so I'm reinforcing the blanket stitch and needle felt with some invisible internal sewing to hold it all together when its hung. It's becoming a very substantial object.

The very base of my iceberg, just starting to spread out and change colour as well as shape.

In contrast, I'm also starting to make pieces that are hollow, cutting away and stitching up from the inside instead of down from the top. It's taken me a few experiments to get this kind of negative space working the way I want. The brown piece is my latest, most successful, experiment with results encouraging enough for me to launch into making it for real, in the materials I've intended all along.

Experimental tunnel

Thrilling Science Reading

Bibliophilia has become a bit of a misnomer for this blog over the past few years as book arts have taken a back seat to textiles as my favoured form of creative expression. But my love of reading books has not diminished. This year I intend to start sharing more of my reading with my blog readers, not least because books are by far still the most influential media I consume.

My summer reading so far has been mostly guided by what catches my eye on the Public Library's science shelves. These casual choices have kept my brain bubbling with unexpected connections, new insights and revived enthusiams. As a result I'm getting more purposeful in my book choices. Here is one strand of thrilling reading, I will share others soon.

The first frisson came near the end of the Kathleen Crane's riveting memoir of life as a woman oceanographer, Sea Legs. She underwent some incredible challenges to break into the all male world of oceanography, and had some incredible adventures on the high sea. Her passion for the deep sea floor ignited a spark in my imagination: can I use bathymetric data to make emboidered blanket representations of the bottom of the sea? This riveting idea led me to seek out an Philips Atlas of the Oceans so I could look at bathymetric maps, and the contour lines. Suffice to say I have started buying up blue and green blankets and I expect I will be blogging more about the sea floor.

My newfound passion for the deep drew me to Deep Blue Home by Julia Whitty. Julia Whitty writes nonfiction prose like a poet and savouring a few chapters before sleep each night is one of my great pleasures at the moment. Here is her describing a close encounter with an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland:

Its skin is wind-polished to the luster of diamond, water -sculpted to sapphire, its form purely feminine, purely voluptuous, curves hewn hard in the foundry of the far north. Although the air termperature is cold enough to make us shiver, it is not cold enough for this relic of snowfalls past to survive, and a silver cascade of meltwaterpours from its summit down a chute of polished translucent turquoise. Crystal by crystal, its ice diminishes, collecting in a pool on the iceberg's saddle, where Arctic terns dip and splash, unfurling freshwater rainbows.Deep blue veins and track marks of gravel scar the ice, records of good years and bad years in the glacier world.

Can you see why I am in love with this book? I will be chasing up her other books as well, not only for their sea content, but for the delicious writing.

Six Years On

Oil slick on ice

This week marks the beginning of my seventh year blogging on Bibliophilia. Some 750 posts over six years have traced the development of my creative passions from book making to letterpress printing to hand stitching textiles. Many posts also share stories from the rest of my life, other creative pursuits, friends, travel, play, all of which form a context and narrative to make sense of my life as an artist.

The nature of blogging is that only the most recent material is visible to the casual viewer . The disadvantage of this is my art-focused blog is not always presenting an art-focused face to a first time visitor.

However, since my original gallery website was lost many years ago when the long forgotten hosting service disappeared, I've relied on Bibliophilia and my Etsy shop to represent my art on line. Though each is wonderful in its own way, neither adequately does the job of a gallery website.

While I gradually work on overcoming my internet intertia as well as technical and other obstacles on the way to creating a gallery website, I have started a new Facebook page for my art: Meliors Simms- Handmade Art. I know that there are still admirable hold-outs who refuse to go near Facebook, and others who avoid it as much as possible, so it is not a long-term solution. But its free, its easy, its wonderfully interactive and for now, the best way of plugging my online gallery gap.

This Facebook Page will be a web site that is all about my art. Photos of all my work will be easily accessible by theme rather than chronology. I will also post links to the best from Bibliophilia's archives because I believe the knowing context of my work is crucial to appreciating the images.

This is a new project for me, and there's not much on the Page so far, but if you 'like' it, your Facebook wall will be updated whenever I add new material. Oh, and please share the link with your Facebook friends.

Sewing Marathon

i love my collection of old wooden spools, even if the thread tends to snap on the machine

Here are the results of Thursday's 12 hour marathon sewing bee with Anna. It was a hot humid day so we took frequent breaks in the paddling pool to cool off. In fact we spent the whole day in our swimsuits and sarongs, which is the perfect summer sewing outfit as you can try on half-made garments for fit without having to change.

When I arrived, the machine was already threaded with turquoise so I jumped right in with altering a skirt into a dress, inspired by Bored and Crafty. The beautiful bright skirt which my Aunt Laura gave to my mother and she eventually passed to me was originally made by sewing circular tiers so there are no vertical seams. I've never seen a garment made like that before. It was a wonderfully full skirt, so when I trimmed the bottom 25cm, I had enough fabric to make the whole top of the dress, a matching hairband and still have some leftover for future fun. The finishing touch to my new dress is a beautiful embroidered applique flower from the amazing box of goodies that Helen sent last month.

This white skirt has been altered twice before at sewing bees and ended up shorter than I really wanted so this round of sewing bee the objective was to lengthen. I bought some bridal veil, cut it into two different widths and sewed them inside bias binding so I could attatch it to the skirt lining without getting the open weave of the veil tangled up in machinery. I also trimmed the outer skirt's hem with some ribbon to cover up the ugly yellow overlocking that I did last time. I'm not too keen on how the ribbon looks, so this long-suffering yet much loved skirt may yet return to a future sewing bee for more attention.

In an unprecedented flurry of attention to clothing I made a pair of shorts as well. These had been bright blue trousers which I cut off just above the knees and trimmed with part of an orange flowery skirt from Helen's magical box. The rest of the skirt I made into a drawstring potato bag.

set of four vegetable bags

In fact I was on a bag-making roll. I tentatively made a few net vegetable bags to take to the greengrocers and store fruit and veg. They are light enough to not add to the weight of my purchases, reusable, washable, pretty, close securely and open easily! They were also super quick and easy to make and I wish I'd bought more of the nylon net so I could have made a full set for myself and some to give away.

Inspired by the double drawstring technique I was using for all my pouch style bags, Anna was easily convinced she should make a lettuce bag. She used a wonderful handprinted Pacifica print tea towel and used it straight away to make our lunch salad.

Anna's lettuce spinning and storage bag

Anna spent the day altering patterns, cutting fabric and overlocking. I think she was deliberately staying off the sewing machine because I was in my usual obsessive focus and running the machine hot. I'd done most of my planning, cutting and pinning in the days before our bee. At Anna's suggestion I have discovered the wonderful world of free sewing patterns on the internet. I'm all keen to make this pouf, as soon as I find the right kind of fabric, but in the meantime I was looking for a peg bag pattern and found this.


I made three little blue baskets from scraps of quilting fabric passed on from Anna's friend Tai, decorated with sweet wooden hand buttons from Helen.

mini peg bag

I altered the basket pattern to make a slightly taller peg basket (it wouldn't hold a normal quantity of clothes pegs but I don't have very many). Anna was cutting out shoulder bags from these gorgeous floral print linen tea towels and offered me the offcuts: just enough for a short little peg basket.

It was a long, busy, fun, productive day and I finished ten separate items, almost all repurposing old clothes and off cuts. I also harvested yellow and purple beans and two kinds of peas from Anna and Chris' vegetable garden. We have gone in together to buy a freezer, so I have blanched the beans and frozen them into one- and two-portion sized bags to grace our shared freezer. Which is already well on the way to being an overflowing cornucopia of summer harvest: Anna and I picked about 8 kg of blueberries the next day, and Chris went fishing and caught four fish!

beans in a net vegetable bag

Pretty Chutney

I made eight jars of chutney using the plums from my parent's tree. I'm not sure the chutney is going to taste so great, but I really like the labels, and the circles I cut out of a fallen-apart picture book to decorate the lids.

The gift of the blue knife

I was given a beautiful, blue, very sharp, paring knife. It puts all my other knives to shame, so yesterday I cut my finger while peeling potatoes a little carelessly. It's a shallow but long and wide flap right across the side of the first joint of my right index finger.

Turns out its pretty much almost impossible to cook, clean up, eat or anything else without bending that joint, so it didn't stop bleeding (and throbbing) until I went to bed. This morning I built a little splint for my finger which is working a treat and allows me to type and do most things without pain or blood.

But not stitching. Yesterday morning I'd been out shopping for some long-awaited iceberg supplies and was raring to get back into my project. Before that had been several days of no stitching, partly because I decided it made sense to take a real break and rest properly but mostly because I didn't have all the materials or tools I need to move forward.

Now my break has been involuntarily extended because I just can't hold a needle comfortably or control it reliably. I could feel frustrated but I don't. I have plenty of time to complete the iceberg, there's no urgency driving my desire to work on it. Besides, it's really too hot to be covering my lap with wool blankets right now.

Luckily I can still wield scissors, so today I have been cutting and pinning in preparation for my next sewing bee with Anna. I'll be altering some clothes, making net vegetable bags (no more plastic!) and some other bits and pieces. I'm excited about trying new ideas and using some of the pretty fabric I've been given.

It always feels so self indulgent to use time to make personal and domestic things when I could be working on art to exhibit, so I tend not to. Today, this time out from hand stitching feels like a delightful gift from the blue knife.

First Steps in Crochet and other makings

There are a few memes floating around the internet urging people to share influential books from their childhood or recent reading lives. I've never seen a 'how-to' book mentioned on any of these lists (or a recipe book for that matter) but I was recently reunited with one of the influential books of my life.


Bethwyn picked this up along with a pile of other old books to contribute to our altered book project, Frugal with the Brughel (have you noticed I spell the B word differently every single time I type it?). She had no idea that I would fall upon it with coos of delight and sighs of nostalgic rapture. I had no idea I would either, but every single spread was deeply familiar even though I can't have seen my, or any other, copy of First Steps in Crochet since at least the early 80s.


My first copy would have been well thumbed through the mid-70s, when I taught myself to crochet by laboriously following the excellent diagrams and instructions provided by the 'Editress: Patience Horne of Clackmannashire'. I don't remember actually following any of the patterns to make a 'dashing little bolero' or 'jaunty little hat'.


I suspect that even at a tender age I was more interested using traditional methods to make my own original designs. I do remember working a sky blue wool with the tension too tight, and my frustration at not having the manual dexterity at 8 or ten years to be able to satisfactorily manifest the creation I imagined. Even if all I ever finished was that wobbly-edged scarf I must have studied the whole book very closely to have imprinted it so deeply on my memory.

My first real success with a craft was knitting, which I took up some ten years later, after disappointing dabblings in sewing, embroidery and zine making etc. Penelope started making me a complicated fair isle pullover and then stopped at the sleeves, leaving the body for me to finish. So I was forced to learn to knit but at least I didn't have to cast on until I'd made a whole garment. I became addicted to knitting and didn't stop for about ten years until I'd made everyone I knew a jersey or a hat, and gave myself OOS.

Bethwyn was so thrilled at my delight in reconnecting with First Steps in Crochet, that she withdrew it from our altered book pile (one of our rules is that either of us can withdraw any book from contention for cutting up at any time) and gave it to me as a birthday present.


And then for Christmas Bethwyn gave me this even better gift, a badge made out of an old blanket label (I think it's the label from the blue blanket I used as the ocean background for Ross Island). I love it so much, even though when I wear it, everyone I meet peers at my chest and says 'Hospital? wha?'. The fabric in the background is the excellent bag that Anna sewed for me as a Christmas present. And below are some (just some) of the insane variety of cookies that my mother and I made together last week.


Happy holidays!

Below the surface

Colour tests for underwater iceberg

I am beginning to make a new iceberg. This one will include the 80% of the iceberg hidden below the water. It's been very difficult to find information on and images of icebergs below water, but after several months of research I finally feel ready to begin.

All the iceberg tips I have made (including the current work in progress) are based on photographs; there are so many beautiful and detailed images of iceberg tips for me to copy. However, my below-surface berg will be based on a composite sketch, pulling together all I have learned, seen and imagined, without having a single reliable image to inspire me.

The Rayleigh effect scatters sunlight so that the further from the surface, the bluer the light that shines through ice. I'm actually basing my underwater ice colours on a description of a deep crevasse in Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, Antarctica where he says

...only the very bluest light made it down here, glowing from out of the ice in an intense creamy-translucent turquoise, or actually an unnamed blue unlike any other she had seen. (...) all of it a blue that could not be described and could scarcely be apprehended, as it seemed to flood and then to overflood the eye.

KSR's novel is the origin of my Antarctic obsession, my most thumbed literary reference (though I do double check my facts in my Reader's Digest encyclopedia of Antarctica). His book can be seen as a framework for the exhibition of Antarctic pieces I will have next August, for he seamlessly brings together the sciences, the human history, the current politics, and potential futures of Antarctica. These are the same themes that I am responding to in my work, and so it is no accident that the next step of my imaginary Antarctic journey is to go below the surface, below the entrancing and accessible tip of the iceberg, to explore the unnamed, the indescribable and the scarcely apprehended.

Snail mail joy

Look what was inside the enormous box of goodies sent by my delightful internet buddy, Helen Lehndorf, a talented poet, crafter, performer, Flickr photo curator, brilliant blogger on sabbatical, now the best Facebook status updater out of all 500 million users.

I knew Helen was planning to mail back to me a DVD and book I'd sent to her and I assumed it was taking so long because she is a busy mother and creative writing tutor, with craft fairs to sew for and poems to write. I had no idea she was filling an huge box with a treasure trove of delightful treats.

Here's a small selection of highlights, for example...

A couple of sweet badges which I started wearing straight away: one handmade flower and one bird print . The fish is on a Frankie poster I have hung next to my desk at work. (Another Frankie poster was given to a young workmate who needed cheering up).

From left: cubes of exotic herbal teas, Helen's collaged cards some of which have already been dispatched to lucky friends; CDs of the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, and the Crimson Club; and the DVD I sent Helen a while back called The Winter of the Beard. If anyone else wants to borrow my copy, you are welcome even if it's not returned in such lavish fashion!

Beautiful embroidered and beaded flower appliques- I have come back from Melbourne determined to wear more flowers (à la Frida Kahlo), an idea reinforced by reading Carol Kaesuk Yoon's wonderful book about the umwelt called Naming Nature: The Clash Between Instinct and Science. (I should say that nowhere in the book does Yoon offer any fashion advice, but rather she explains why humans love (representations of) the natural world and why it is so important to our psyche).


One of Helen's handmade bunnies in a cross stitched vintage fabric, now making friends with my Peter Rabbit bedspread. A stash of mostly orange fabrics. In my life of the past few years it seems to be the colour associated with creative transformation and so I have learned to welcome its arrival. Also a swatch of embroidery flosses, which I will make good use of you can be sure. I try and do all my experimental and casual embroidery with second-hand floss, though I end up buying new for the final works, to get the colours consistent.


A couple of paperbacks I look forward to reading this summer. Plus the return of Response (with the green on white letterpress cover), the collaborative travelling journal project I launched nearly two years ago. There are a couple of blank spreads left to be filled, if you are interested let me know. It's fascinating to look at how the contributors in three countries so far have responded to the challenge of the blank page. It's a beautiful book, and I look forward to sharing it on this blog when its finished.

Open Studio 2010

Welcome to my Open Studio.

My Open Studio was a great success. Plenty of people came along, and most of them weren't even friends or family! Seeing strangers walking up the driveway clutching a clipping from the local paper gave me such a thrill. It was wonderful to meet some folks who have been following my art for years but not made personal contact before.

Some of the artist's books that I made between 2003-2009

The Open Studio was a chance to pull out a pile of older work which hasn't been seen for a while. I hung Membranes on the clothes line, and enjoyed watching it dance in the breeze- far more dynamic than it's ever looked inside a gallery. The Optimistic Heart remains a perennial best seller, and I'm down to the last dozen or so of the original edition of 400 (it was to be and edition of 1000, but water damage destroyed some of the stock, along with many of my personal possessions, in 2006).


The main attraction of the Open Studio was My Antarctica on its first public outing. My Antarctica is stored off-site so not even I get to see it very often. Spending a day in its company was a pleasure. Visitors stopped and stared when they walked in and saw it dominating the room, even just resting on the floor nestled in its dust sheet. I have recently confirmed a solo exhibition of Antarctic-themed work at ArtsPost in Hamilton, August 2011 so My Antarctica will finally get to hang on a big white wall where it really belongs.

Assorted wall art, book art, and embossed fossil tags displayed on my book press.

Two of the three Coral Portraits sold. They don't photograph terribly well, so I haven't put them on Etsy but if anyone is interested in the remaining portrait (the one on the right in this photo) email me for more information. The first of the embroidered fossils that were in my Punctuated Equilibrium installation sold as well (Sea Stars). The remaining three are still available in my Etsy Shop (or contact me directly).

A box of crocheted coral pins, a pile of painted paper scrolls and some recent artist's books

After looking (and touching with gloves) to their hearts' content, visitors were treated to chocolate cupcakes (recipe here) and homemade lemonade. On Saturday I had taken up a Freecycle invitation to pick lemons from an overburdened tree and they turned out to be the juiciest, sweetest lemons ever: making delicious lemonade. Some visitors lingered to chat in the shade outside the studio. A couple people departed only to return with mother or husband, whom they guided around the studio pointing out their favourite pieces.

It was a relaxed, sociable and profitable afternoon of sharing my work with interested visitors. Thank you so much to everyone who helped me get ready for it. The many days spent preparing and following up were worthwhile and I think I'll do it again next December. See you then.

Bethwyn Littler, with arms akimbo, my collaborator on the altered books project- we had a selection of works in progress for people to leaf through..

Melbourne Highlights

I like the juxtaposition of beautiful old architecture against the tall shiny buildings. Not so much the murky Yarra.

Some of the best moments of my ten days in Melbourne were the ones where I didn't take any pictures. So the pictures here were mostly taken while waiting for trams or other quiet interludes.

So many lovely architectural details everywhere. Just somebody's house near Brunswick St.

An exhibition of historic lace at NGV didn't so much inspire as intimidate me. It was a reality check on the commitment required to make great lace by hand. Do I really want to strain my eyes, abandon all other media and devote years to learning making lace that is all but indistinguishable from really good machine lace? It was all very beautiful but sobering.

Unnerved: The New Zealand Project. (I didn't go to this exhibition because I figure I can see NZ art at home)

But I didn't stay sober for long because downstairs in the bookshop I found a book on art embroidery that so excited me and filled me with ideas for my next project that I read the whole book right there (too expensive to buy). Then I went to the Contemporary Landscape Photography exhibition at the Ian Potter Centre which was very satisfying- very large format pictures that challenge the scenery.

Multicultural Melbourne

Other great exhibitions in Melbourne last week included Self Portraits at the Ian Potter Centre and the Awards Exhibition for RMIT graduates- some very wonderful things to be see there including a wall sized painting of fountains and an interactive cloud. I went to one opening, at the Australian Print Workshop which was crammed full of beautiful prints and crammed full of people too, on a very humid evening. But I wanted to see their Albion and Columbian printing presses so I kept going back inside.

Cake and crochet in a cafe with Rayna- her first afternoon off without any babies all year.

Hubble 3D at the Imax theatre in the Melbourne Museum was fantastic and really did a good job of giving a visceral sense of the immensity of space. And the natural history wing of the Melbourne Museum was pretty fabulous too. Fossils... I've been so disappointed in my search for fossils in NZ museums but here was everything my heart desired. I also loved the collection of taxidermy animals that was so beautifully curated that it completely changed my thinking on such things.

Window shopping on Smith Street (I liked the irony of the taxidermied birds right next door to the vegan shop)

Who knew vegan shoes could be so seductively elegant? (I took this one for you Sarah and remind me to show you the boots as well)

Most memorable meals in Melbourne: dinner with Louise and Alex at Rice Queen; lunch alone at Don Too, the Japanese noodle bar recommended in a guidebook that I was glad I sought out; dinner on my birthday at Mamasita: we had to queue to get in but the Mexican food was exquisite and the service exemplary; Portuguese pizza with Dutch Rob in a very Euro-feeling laneway; Book Club potluck with Louise's friends on her living room floor (milk cherries!); breakfast on my last morning in the back garden at Mixed Business in Clifton Hill.

Sukiyaki at Don Too on Little Lonsdale

Several meals consisted entirely of fresh, ripe, in-season mangoes: a whole 'nother class of fruit from those we eat as imports. Also, special mention must go to the European cake shops of Ackland Street, St Kilda. I tried to try them all and over a couple of days enjoyed a cherry danish to die for, macaroons too heady to share and a pecan tart piled high with sticky crunchy nuts. Oh, and I mustn't forget M. Truffe and the small, exquisite bar of chocolate so divine I keep tasting smaller and smaller crumbs because I never want it to end.

Rice Queen on Smith Street where the entire staff seems to consist of my daughter's friends and there was a live band on Friday night.

Other things to like about Melbourne. It seems like a lot of people in Melbourne ride bikes like mine, not sporty but stepovers with baskets- very nice. Also lots of car drivers give way to pedestrians.

In St Kilda the dedicated cycle lanes were beyond impressive.

So many, so good, bookshops. I could have spent all my time and all my money in the book shops. But, uncharacteristically, I also spent some time and money on pretty pretty clothes- the best selection was Stella's who was just clearing out her wardrobe with a rack on the street outside her flat.

Window shopping on Gertrude Street (I took this one for you Anna)

I went to Bikram hot yoga sessions three mornings. Whew! I wish we had Bikram in Hamilton. Saturday's flea market at Fitzroy School- although it was sickeningly hot out in the sun, I couldn't tear myself away from the delightful bargains. On my last evening Louise took me up six flights of stairs (no elevator) to the Rooftop Cinema where we sat in deck chairs in the open air and when it got dark watched a movie (Youth in Revolt) against the sparkling lights of the looming skyscrapers.

Rock gods can be a literal description

I decided not to post my gushy fangirl ravings about seeing U2 live to this blog, but if you are really keen you can check out my photos and commentary on Facebook.

OK, just one photo here, because you begged me.

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