Journal
CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS
My good friend Lilla Duignan, book artist & bricoleur, is offering book making workshops this October. Her own creations are delightful and inspirational. You will have the oppportunity to create your own handmade books combined with rubber stamp printing and a fantastic tutor to guide you through the process.
For more details contact lilla@seeingthings.me.uk. For an abundance of inspiration check out her blog. seeingthings.me.uk/blog/
There’s something very special about receiving post through the letterbox when so much communication takes place on the web these days.
This morning I heard the flap of the letterbox springing into action. I usually find either a bank statement or pile of junk mail ready to line the compost bin. This morning I found a little brown envelope addressed to Ms. Mog Fry with a 1st class Darwin postage stamp in the corner. Three queens also stamped in 2p bottle green, 20p grass green and 10p rusty orange lined up next to Darwin. When the cost of postage had risen a fair bit, I can see why people are less enthusiastic about sending a small letter which almost amounts to one pound. It costs nothing to send an email (if you don’t include your broadband, electricity bill and possibly a few more pounds spent on trips to the optician or the osteopath). But how many emails can you tear open along the edge to find tangible gifts? (unless you have a 3D computer but then you have to wait at least 8 hours for the object to print before you can pick it up.) In the little brown envelope are two miniature paper objects - recycled magazines folded into delicate forms and a miniature book shaped eraser.
I am curious about the folded gift in the shape of a winged jacket. I open it up to reveal a dynamic world within. Black expressive marks within their own canvases. I’m curious to know who made these as only the name of the gallery is written by the side of the images and they feel so familiar. The Sabine Knust gallery doesn’t lead me to the artist so I enter the string of words printed in Italian next to the images. I type into google images - incisioni puntasecca e acquatinta firmate datate e numerate su Rives - which reveals lithographs and etchings by artist Emilio Vedova.
Finding Emilio’s work in paper form and then discovering more about him on the web is where the wonderful dance between the physical and ethereal world meet. As I continue my exploration in cyberspace I find a film of Emilio’s work being installed by robotic shuttles at the Emilio e Annabianca Vedova Foundation, Venice.
“The main aim of Fondazione Emilio e Annabianca Vedova, created by the artist and his wife, is to promote the art and work of Vedova and to highlight his importance in the history of 20th century art through a series of initiatives, such as studies, research pro- jects, analyses, exhibitions, itineraries and teaching spaces, conferences, scholarships and prizes.”
Thank you Lilla for your precision folded treasures which has opened the doors into chiaroscuroctic corridors of the 1900s.
See more of Lilla Duignan's explorations at www.seeingthings.me.uk/blog
Fabulous find at Bristol Flea market - John Bull Printing Outfit No.9
All the more relevant after recently stumbling across this fascinating film with Stephen Fry.
This is the trailer. See full film here https://vimeo.com/59440552
A creative space to meet and share, explore and play
Inside John Bull Printing Outfit No.9 there is a tin box full of tiny rubber letters and a line of letters placed in a wooden holder. I ink up the letters in the holder and press it into a piece of wood to reveal the word 'Acceptance' and so the rest of StampDuty is a cathartic expression of acceptance with fields of numbers and unspoken characters, cows and pigs, dogs and milkmaids all choo choo chewing from the southern trains.
See Lilla's website for evolution of StampDuty Stamping it Out
If any of these self initiated creative explorations have made your heart sing please consider making a contribution. Your support will help me continue creating art and music to nourish the soul.
