art journaling

Yesterday I had a fun afternoon with Kat - making pages by recycling old music/encyclopedia pages by coating them with gesso and then paint and scribbles/crayon...these will later be bound into books, interspersed with plain pages. (nothing like a tactile book I say) You can see more photos and the delicious food Kat treated me with on her blog http://artjournalingnz.blogspot.co.nz/

Printmaking session

Each year I take a printmaking session with Welfare Staff at St Margaret's College, Otago University, as part of my role as a Fellow there. It is an exciting experience as the staff are training in areas other than fine arts - they are our future Lawyers, Doctors,Dentists, Musicians etc. They approach printmaking in an open manner that is often hard for an artist to achieve, because of the double edged sword:the more we learn about a process the more binding 'rules' we (sometimes  inadvertently) take on board.  One aim of the session was to work towards making a collective print of the participants faces and I found working with them and taking on board their suggestions and results from experimenting very liberating. We tried printing over old dictionary pages (here is Hannah) - and loved the result - so this will be a strong element in the final work. Images of the individual prints can be seen on my Facebook Artists page.

Caselberg Open Day

Film and photos by Steve Ting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX3LcNImhzE&feature=plcp&context=C3a01baaUDOEgsToPDskJ8HLtC56nh-1TZsoVpfQAq

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveting/6800041511/in/photostream

Rolling beads

A while back I weathered and rusted a dictionary over a year as part of the erosion bundle project. I did not know what to do with the pages until I read about Rachel Chiesley aka 'Lady Grange' while on residency at the Caselberg House (I can't believe it, she has a Facebook page,http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lady-Grange/135930719772460?sk=info ).  During her seven years of imprisonment on St Kilda Island, Scotland she tried to get messages to the mainland - a common way of the Islanders was to tie a note around a cork and throw it off to sea. Rachel successfully smuggled a note out hidden in a spool of wool, unfortunately it did not reach the intended recipient for two years, a little too late. By rolling the words of the dictionary into beads I am changing there meaning and loosing many words, effectively making the dictionary useless. However it is poignant when words like SAIL and WISH are revealed. The rusting makes the beads appear a little like corks (or cigarette filters unfortunately). To mimic her idea I have wound them onto a bobbin sourced from the Alliance Textiles Woolen Mill - maybe this will be a way to display them, I am undecided yet. 365 beads are wound already, my ideal is to roll a bead for every day of her exile...only 6 years to go - better get busy!

St Kilda resources

Well, I'm looking forward to hearing Kat's stories of her youth in the St Kilda/St Clair area! 

In the meantime I have sourced some books and found in one of them a fantastic photo of tweed which was produced in St Kilda, Scotland. I am collecting old blankets from the St Kilda Dunedin second hand shops for the project, as they speak of the suburban history of the area, here they are - rolled up in the same manner as the tweed was in the photo.

Caselberg Retreat down the Bay Resident 21st-28th January 2012

Today's walk along the breezy John Wilson Drive marks the start of building research for an upcoming residency and project.  I saw bees, marshmallow flowers, seagulls, dogs, cyclists and seaweed strewn like calligraphy as I hurried against the weather coming in.  I especially liked the weathered road markings.
 
Lynn Taylor, Artist, Caselberg Retreat down the Bay Resident 21st-28th January 2012
Lynn will be beginning a new project based  around St Kilda in Dunedin and will focus the week on  working with a recipe book that was published in the St  Kilda community some years ago.  The St Kilda project  concept has been instigated by UK artist Deirdre Nelson (http://www.deirdre-nelson.com/) who is proposing to  investigate and respond to St Kilda's in Scotland, Dunedin and Melbourne. Author Christos Tsiolkas (http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=311&author=536) is the Melbourne link and sometime in 2012 Deidre hopes  to travel to visit both locations and see where working collaboratively takes the creative output.  Lynn very much hopes  that people from the public with stories or photos about St Kilda could come and share them with her through the  residency.

OPEN DAY AT THE CASELBERG HOUSE, Broad Bay, with Artist LYNN TAYLOR
SATURDAY 28TH JANUARY 2012 (open to members of the public)
11.00am – 3.00pm
Lynn Taylor will have the results of the weeks residency on display as well as  some of the book samples which will also be shown at the book binding workshop the following day... there will be an etching press set up  (outside in the garden if a sunny day) and some inks and  paper etc available so people can come and have a go at making a print (free)

Christmas

I have just been inspired by a blog I follow 'Taylor Made' where things to be thankful for are being recorded for 25 days. What a wonderful idea for the spirit of Christmas.  One thing I am repeatedly thankful for is that I had the opportunity to see ancient artifacts in Turkey.  For years I went along to Linden Cowell's historical lectures at Art School and to see what he showed us in slides in front of my eyes in real life was a major high.  I hope you too have much to be thankful for this Christmas.