Casting Call!

Fellow bloggers may recall that some time ago I made these by casting them off a porcelain Frozen Charlotte

With that in mind, last year, I proceeded to photograph the journey from found object to metal charm/object I then sent my Charlottes to various jewellery artists asking them to have a play

Following which, I wrote an article for Belle Amoire Jewelry who incorporated all the artists' stunning jewellery pieces

Then we waited with baited breath for publication as those who publish things knows is always a long wait.

Today, the wait was over and well worth it for I received my contributors copy of which Stampington has done an amazing job in showcasing the work of fine artists like

Ro Bruhn, Jen Crossley, Kecia Deveney, Diana Frey & Deryn Mentock

(I only put the Aussies first here as the list is in Alphabetical order!)

Hope you enjoy it. Many thanks to Christen Olivarez who was a pleasure to work with and to Jenny Doh and the team at Stampington for a wonderful publication. Naturally, they are available at my ETSY store.

“22”

For Michael

Mainly sneak peaks here folks The inside portion of the cover after cutting and reconditioning as per the previous post The first page is revealed

What’s inside?

Ahh this that took me forever to rivet together because of the curve

Aaawww, I can hear you all saying….

You cannot imagine how long that took to make for my bebe!

A message I engraved onto both wings

"De-sketches" using book spines and bits torn away from antique books stored away just for a piece like this

The story of us, symbolically told in this Visual Anthology™

Which I will be teaching in Philladelphia, thanks to Bee Shay, August 8 & 9

The workshop is for artists wanting to learn how to put their mixed media works, assemblages and shrines into a book form. Within the class we will also learn lots of ageing techniques and we will spend time learning how it is that I put pages together and how I work symbolically...

Binding made from the softest kid leather, aged and created to fit the book covers.

To best put the book and pages together so they students can tell their story. Email me if you are interested (email address is on my profile)

Hope to see you there!

Ciao

xo

Talk about arthritic hands and shoulders! Time certainly does run away when working and researching.

I have been very busy preparing kits, class proposals, new mixed media books for workshops etc etc.

I have four Visual Anthologies I am busy preparing for, the lead up to the piece some times takes longer than the making of the art work.

This latest piece, which I cannot show yet is almost done.

At least that was until I started to cut into the cover today. 4 hours to cut.

I was going crazy.

One would think it was paper or board right. Well its compressed wood and at over 150 years old

you cannot use a knife. So off I ran to the harware shop to find something to cut through it - even my wood dremel wheel seized up.

Actually this happened in my Melbourne workshop but these cuts had to be fine and small so I had to be careful what I used - no quick fix here.

I came back empty handed and back to the laborious task of using small cut with the chisels in the photo. The material was so tuff that the chisels just stood by themselves.

Then I had to use a surgeons scalpel to try and make the final cut.

Every time I did the blade would come apart from the base.

It was hell but a labor of love.

This book is for Michael.

There are so many components to it. Dont even ask about this part, you can imagine how long it took to get all the skele's on this old rusty something with 53 holes in it!

Yes I counted.

I will be teaching it in Philladelphia in August to a very small group. There are a few places left so if anyone is interested let me know and I will give you the details.

I will announce more details when I finish the book hopefully by Monday.

Actutally it is similar to the one I am teaching at Carol Parks in August but there are some new techniques and I have used old covers instead of using velvet like my "Just In Case Class". But I will be covering the same techniques in both classes.

I have had a great time embossing with velvets as you can see below - not a great photo yet.

I used Michelle Ward's gigantic rubber stamps and they worked really well - see them in the first image here.

So when I found that book with the Salome spine I started investigating her and found out alot of fascinating information.

That somehow led me to Italy in the 17th Century.

Four amazing women have taken up almost a month of research.

I have started one piece which will be for my proposed workshop with Stacey in Cortona, Italy next May. More on that later when the piece is nearly done - its very interesting though.

It was difficult to stop that piece to start and complete this Art Journal. It is something I rarely do, that is jump from one piece to another but when time restrictions are in place, one has to stop.

It does interfere with the creative process and I am itching to get back to the Italy piece but that piece actually led to Michael's book anyway so that was a good thing too.

From Italy, I jumped all over history to research another piece which I am also itching to do. It will be a complex piece and I am formulating how best to approach and do it. I have learned so much I did not know.

I am interested if others jump from piece to piece or do they, like me, prefer to work ona piece of art until it is complete then move on to the next piece?

xo