Lockdown 2 - Make, write, walk, repeat......

 

 

Forgive me if I sound a little flat. For flat is how it feels.

It is lockdown number 2, and I have run out of jobs that need doing that I clearly don't intend to do.

I realise now that the main goal for these few weeks is to get through them in a reasonable state of mental health.

 And to that aim I have three priorities

1. Make stuff
2. write stuff
3. walk

 

 Make stuff

 

I joined an on line art class; 'Where Drawing Meets Words' with The Royal Drawing School

 I wasn't sure what to expect, but the title felt manageable. 

 

Words and pictures, stories and illustration. 

 

I have long hoped to illustrate a childrens' story that I have written about a mountain, and this class seemed like a good step in the right direction.

The book 'Uncommon Genius' was recommended by our tutor as a guide to creativity; I ordered a second hand copy in 'GOOD' condition.

This is it. You can be the judge with regards the condition.

 

 

It tells me that creative people, amongst other things

• know where their talent lies and play to it
  
• make it shine
• stay loose
  
• are not afraid to fail
• need to know how to facilitate getting into their 'flow' state, where ideas are formed
  
• often travel
  
• have lots of projects on the go

All of these things less easy to achieve when locked down. 

 

 

We worked on the story of Little Red Riding Hood, making a storyboard as if for a book.

I had forgotten what a gruesome tale it is.

 

dead wolf in cardboard

 

 'Make a cardboard mock-up of one of the scenes, and then draw or paint from that' was the point at 

which I realised that I was not working within my 'talent zone'. 

I made a dead wolf, with stones in his belly. 

He is consigned to the bin.

I never did draw him. 

I did, however see how others in the class were able to make very realistic drawings and to visualise the lighting and shadows for their drawings. 

I am just not there yet....

I decided to make scenes from my mountain story instead. I was being kind to myself, and avoiding total failure..... putting sanity above risk....

I was happier playing with ink.  I made some very nice stones.....

Ink 'stone'

 

 

 My ink rain was a disaster. I blew ink across the paper with a hairdryer. It was a mess.

So I chopped it up, at which point it became something completely new.

 

My blown ink became snow scenes. 

I agree with the 'Uncommon Genius' book that every mistake has potential.

I am also reminded that working in an abstract way is my 'thing'.

 

So for now my story remains without pictures, but I have a direction of travel.

 

Write stuff

 

The writing element of the class was liberating.

Writing about a picture. 

Cutting out phrases from the writing. 

Turning these phrases into poems.

 

I chose to write about this painting by Victor Pasmore. We were asked to describe the scene and also repsond to questions posed by the tutor. Taking those written words and cutting them into phrases I formed a poem.

A Winter morning ( after Victor Pasmore “A winter morning” 1944)

Dawn. 

A paved garden.

Sun low on the horizon

warming the early morning sky

Tangled trees overhang a purple shadowed, dull green lawn.

Fallen leaves spill sideways onto the cold stone path.

Wind whistles in the whip-like branches

A hum of engines from the river beyond.

Indistinct grey-white objects hanging at the distant lawn’s edge appear misplaced. 

Sheets masquerading as headstones in the morning mist.

An upturned terracotta pot lying untidily in the corner wonders  

“why am I abandoned; 

almost invisible in this dark shadowed place?”

Birds on the clothes line and leafless woody stems perch patiently.

Waiting for worm time.

A balustrade enters, stage left

wondering who will pass this way today.

Later, when the warm sky has faded to steely grey

a man in a long tweed coat descends softly into the garden in brown laced boots,

causing the birds to fly away.

He passes silently through

the quiet

the ordinariness

the muted simplicity

of just another winters’ day.

   

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

A lesson in observation, and ways to find words.

 

 

Walk

 

Which brings me to walking; one of the best ways that I know to find my state of flow, where ideas formulate and I can begin to create.

 

 

I walked in the winter morning light. 

 

seedheads

Stems on a winter morning

 

 I walked the streets picking up litter.

 

 

I walked on the beach picking up litter.

 

 

beach litter

stranded beach plant

 

I have walked more miles in the last month than in any other month this year.

 

The highlight of my walks was a murmuration of starlings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And where is my other half I hear you ask?

 

Well he is in trouble..... for leaving me alone in our bubble.....

 

 

Alone in a bubble

I am alone in a bubble

Other half’s in trouble

he’s left me on the shelf

all by myself

locked down

in Bromley town

while he’s on a plane

for ‘work’ (again)

it’s been so long

he’ll no doubt explain

Dubai, no less.

I must confess

I lack the will

to lie very still

on a posh sun lounger

in stifling heat

looking over my shoulder

for covid 

or corona

virus;

is it worse

here or there?

Do I even care?

Either way

I’m much better off

at home

alone

in this half empty bubble

Waiting for a needle

to release us

from this overrated story;

this year of purgatory.

Roll on 2021.

 

 

 

 

But I have got so much done while he has been away for just a few days.... 

 

I have nothing to do but make stuff, write stuff and walk......

 

 The art classes are over, but I am filled with new ideas. Christmas is coming and the gold paint is out.

 

 

 

 

 

I leave you with a poem/drawings based on a work 'Tremolo' by Agnes Martin, 

 

Agnes also liked a bit of gold paint, along with her pencils.

 

 

Agnes Martin| Tremolo| 1962

 

 

Tremolo booklet  (after Tremolo by Agnes Martin)

 

 

Tremolo   

(after ‘Tremolo’ by Agnes Martin 1962)

idea

ruler

pencil

mathematical calculation

 and a blank white sheet.

evenly spaced graphite journeys

with irregular endings

minor imperfections

unintended gradations

pencil lifting

border shifting

stop thinking.

a vision

of living

above the line

in happiness and love

___________________

________________________

I wonder how often she sharpened her pencil?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder how often she sharpened her pencil?

 

Not long until we are unlocked.

Until then I'll keep walking.....

 

 

 

So said the Sun ; a new artist book

So said the Sun

When I was studying book art we spent a whole morning debating the question

 'when is a piece of work finished?'

It was a rather silly session involving lots of equations and collaboration in groups.

At the end of the morning I came to the conclusion that the answer to this question was not a mathematical equation but was

'when I say so'.

And now the book that I have been working on for the last 3 weeks is finished.

I wrote about its progress in my last post, and after enjoying the Japanese aesthetic at Japan House, I had a clearer idea of how to make my book of abstract images of light on water work( for me at least).

Along the way a new title came to me that I hope expresses what the book is about.

So Said the Sun .....

Messages from the sun.

Asemic text ( an abstract text that cannot be read except by one's imagination)

So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

 I finally mastered getting the thin Kozo paper to print, by temporarily sticking it to a sheet of more robust paper.

I bought some strong but soft Satogami paper for a hard cover, and for the first time in years made a hard bound book.

satogami paper cover

It looks and feel so much more serious than a soft card covered book.

The inside is delicate and fragile.

The outside is firm and protective.

title page..... So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

 And on the last page appears a rabbit.


So said the Sun


It is done.

I will be making 5 copies to sell as a short edition. 

Message me if you are interested. 

So Said the Sun © Caroline Fraser 2018

'If I only had more time' - in which I make an edition of 42 books in 8 days in collaboration with Nina Rodin

Lac Leman, Vevey, Switzerland

Last week was one of the most intense weeks of my life.....

Back in September 2017 I was artist in residence in Trelex, near Geneva, .

Whilst there I made a little book about being artist in residence, and how there is never enough time to complete a project. It was a small hand sewn, not very well crafted book using materials lying around in the studio.

To my delight, Nina Rodin, founder of the residency invited me back to make a first edition of the book with the aim to raise money for further residencies and for charity. This was an opportunity not to be missed, and I jumped at the chance to collaborate with Nina who is a very exciting artist, a perfectionist, and who has a lot of experience of making books.

The chance to revisit such a peaceful place was also something I could not resist.

fields of grain, Trelex

We worked hard.

Very hard.

From dawn until bedtime in the studio with occasional visits to Vevey to collect materials.

First I made a tiny mock up to work out how the pages would run.

 And then we sent for some enormous rolls of paper and got started.

The shops in Trelex are rarely open, so there was no excuse not to keep working.

I never managed to get inside either of these establishments, and the bakery was closed too, due to 'hand surgery'. No delicious fresh bread for me. Just wonderful juicy cherries, fresh from the tree in the garden.

The book was printed on a very large printer.

The huge sheets were then trimmed into strips for a concertina book.

I trimmed 280 metres with a small pair of scissors. It took 2 days, and was not that exciting. I was very glad when it was done.

Nina made 960 folds for the pages with her creasing device. She, too, was glad when that particular task was complete.

creasing device

When making a 31 page concertina, keeping everything square is critical.

Otherwise you get a 'bad' book, in which the images are not square to the page.

More exciting was a trip to Vevey to the book bindery, to choose materials for the covers.

I was allowed about 3 minutes to choose.

The original book was shocking pink, which would have worked well for rasing money for breast cancer, but there was not enough card in stock, and no cloth.

So no pink.

I wanted it to be cheerful.

The orange buckram cloth just jumped out at me.

It had to be.

I thought about blue, but I keep thinking back to my book art course and how I wasn't allowed to display an orange sleeve with my work when we had an exhibition in the library.

Defiance is a powerful emotion.

I am now free to rebel.

We found a red-orange card for the soft covers that almost matched.

Done.

And then thinking back again to my book art course, and how I would have to write why I chose orange/red and how it works for this specific book I took a stroll in the village to think of all the possible connections to that colour.

This is the art world at its worst; pretending that there was a good reason for the choice, when actually it was because I felt rebellious.

So here are some orangy-red things in the village, which if anyone asks I can pretend were the stimulants behind my choice.

the only way is orange

at the station

world cup fever

geranium orange

village cones

hair and watering can

But looking deep into my subconscious, maybe it is because the fountains were full of orange/red petals last September, which is how my project on water and the local fountains got started.

petals floating in the fountains of Trelex, September 2017

The petals are not there in June.

The flowers have only just started blooming in the baskets above the fountains, and the water is free of debris.

It would have been a very different book if I had visited at this time of year.

Anyway. The job is done, and I think you will agree that the covers match the petals perfectly.

completed books

And for my other half, who prefers foody things to most things, it almost matches the sausages too.

Land of my Father - a book is born

Land of my Father - Caroline fraser

I find the act of creativity hard to fathom.

Months go by in a doldrum state where nothing feels right and I am uninspired by what I make, and then, little by little, things turn around and something emerges from the mayhem.

My current project is a very personal one about the death of my father. It happened upon me in a rather roundabout way. My father died when I was a child, and for a long time I have tried to put this in the past and move on.

In 2014 I popped up to Scotland for my annual pilgrimage. I like to get there once a year for a dose of mountains , landscape and photography. I spent a week alone in Ardnamurchan and Glencoe.

It rained.

It poured.

Roads were flooded and inaccessible.

I ended up sheltering in a church taking photographs of rain dripping onto the floor of the interior.

I found my mood darkening and my images along with it.

Monochome was the order of the day.

Images taken through a wet car window predominated.

Norman Ackroyd my source of inspiration.

Image from Land of my Father © Caroline Fraser

Image from Land of my Father © Caroline Fraser

When I came home I felt flat and unhappy with what I had produced. I closed the folder and left it unedited for some time.

And then, from nowhere, came some words.

I find that words ‘come’ about once every 2 years. I sit, the words emerge, and then it is all over.

This poem was an expression of my experience of my father’s death when I was eight years old.

Intensely personal.

I decided to make a small book. I realised that the images made in Scotland the previous autumn were entirely appropriate to accompany the poem. They represented my need to keep returning to Scotland…… the  ‘Land of my Father’. The title was born and I quickly made a small book using Lightroom book module. Within lightroom it is easy to edit images and add text and then export directly to Blurb. I then felt able to create a selected body of images for my website under the same title.

Land of my Father

Some were created using a tilt-shift lens, and others using multiple exposure. Images that accompany the text may not work as stand alone images, but I felt that they worked together in the context of the poem.

eg; my sister 6, my brother 3

Image from Land of my Father © Caroline Fraser

Choosing the format of the book and typeface is always a challenge. I decided on a small square paperback with Adobe Garamond text, for a traditional look.

The little paperback volume arrived from Blurb, and while I was reasonably happy with it, I felt that I could do better. I wanted it to be something really special.

I decided to go for a hand bound edition.

I enlisted the help of Eddie Ephraums from Envisage Books, and so began a whole new process, involving the selection of paper type, cover materials and format, shape, font, size, and then the difficult decision of how many to print.

What sort of book should it be?

Hardback or soft back?

Square or rectangular?

Large or small?

Perfect bound or saddle stitch? Side stitched or concertina folded?

The only way to answer these questions is to look at lots of books and images on the web until you get an idea of what sort of book you feel is right for you.

 I wanted this book to have a Japanese style binding that shows the thread on the cover, and allows for a bit of colour and a feeling of a handcrafted object.

Next we tested different paper types for the images. Smooth or textured? White or creamy? What weight of paper?

Choosing cover colours and thread colours was possibly the hardest part. The images are toned monochrome, so the cover had to complement them.

So much rests on first impressions of a book. How many books have you not looked at because you didn’t like the cover? Almost all of the novels that I have read in the last year have turquoise covers. I had to steer myself away from turquoise as it seems to have taken hold as the common choice for getting a book into someone’s hand. I opted for a pale grey.

 Looking at threads I was keen for some bright colour. Orange was my choice. The words inside the book reference the bright colours at home disguising the sombre mood.

And so, having made all these difficult decisions we finalised the InDesign document in preparation for print.

As this was to be a hand sewn book, I limited this first edition to fifty copies, each to be signed and numbered.

The pages and cover were printed and trimmed to size by a commercial printer. Watching the printer in action was a very special moment after weeks and months of planning.

We used a small hand press to stamp the title onto the book sleeve and presentation box. Foils help to lift the lettering and allow it to catch the light.

Finally the pages were ready for sewing.

The thread is hand waxed using beeswax, and the sewing begins. It is a painstaking process, and at least one book is now bloodstained for ever. I chose a very simple Japanese binding, with double thread.

The end result leaves me with a feeling of resolution.

A tribute to my father that I am proud of.

The book is available from my website www.carolinefraser.com 

embossed box for book with print

This is an edited version of an article written for On Landscape Magazine Issue 138