Decluttering is going well.

Out went the things that son didn't want but I found it hard to let go of.

Out went two oboes. There is no point playing the oboe if you can't count bars in an orchestra. And as the oboe doesn't play a lot of the time in classical pieces the bar counting is mega. More counting than playing in fact.

Out went several more framed art works, a lot of old hiking gear and more books. No one needs three spare lightweight anoraks.....

Mental decluttering is another thing altogether. I am trying to make more space in my head for creative thoughts. I have made some progress using the 'screenzen' app for my phone. I now have about one extra hour per day to be in the real world, thinking about creative projects.

I have resigned from my poetry group. It was hard to say 'this is not really working for me', but having said it, I feel relieved. No more writing for a specific reason. No more listening to poems that I really don't understand or enjoy. No more cake.

​All of these actions are freeing me up to make stuff. And what could possibly go wrong with making stuff?

​

Quite a lot, it turns out.

Making a book requires many different steps. Designing, making a mock book, printing the pages and then fabrication. Unfortunately a lot of effort goes in before the fabrication stage, but so much can go wrong at the last hurdle. And does.

Bin it or make it anyway?

​My new motto is 'make it anyway'.

Make it even if you trim the pages wrongly and chop the bottom off the images. Done. 

Make it even if it looks too small because you wanted to be economical with an expensive sheet of Japanese paper and fit all the pages onto one sheet. Done.

Make it even if the cover paper rips as you flatten it down after gueing and have to hide the error with black marker pen. Done.

Make it even if you have a lot of pages where the printer made a mess and you have to cut off half the page. 

​Make it when the paper is too thin and the cover shows through on the last page and you got glue on the page that leaves a mark.

I realised that people don't mind a few imperfections when they wanted to buy the book that I didn't want to sell. The fact that it had empty pages and that the typewritten poem had typos didn't seem to bother them. I even wonder if they like it because of the imperfections. An enjoyment of the hand made.

If I had binned each book when it went wrong I would have nothing to show for the last two weeks work. Instead I have three new books, all different, and all trying different papers, covers and shapes. I now know that I am no longer happy with standard photo paper with its harsh white pages. I love the off-white shades of Japanese papers in differing thicknesses. They feel better. 

​But most of all I love the book made from all my errors with my 'test my patience' printer. 

It got its name from the idea of cutting up the photos with scissors to remove the ink blotches added by my printer. Stones the topic, paper the medium and scissors the method. 

I am ready to make more of this collage style of book. It allows much spontaneity and as many errors as I like. For who is to know what is intentional and what is mistake? And I get to do more hammering out words on my tyepwriter which is more therapeutic than almost anything else I know.

​Life is not perfect. And nor am I.

A new year.

New projects.....

..........gradually coming together from a collection of half formed ideas. Each time I enroll in a course I learn new skills and from these come new ideas. Not necessarily to everyone's taste, but one thing I am sure of right now is that it is the process of creativity that matters most to me, and if someone else enjoys the outcome then that is a bonus.

In February I  spent three days learning how to make a Japanese scroll. 

This is a very niche skill. Not many people choose to give up three days of their life to learn how to glue pages of fine paper together and wrap them in cloth backed with fine kozo 
(mulberry) paper and then lined with decorative paper.

For me this was a burning ambition that is now happily fulfilled. I dream of creating long books that can be layed out or hung from the wall, full of images created with my camera or with sumi-ink.  

I learned to make a scroll under the kind and attentive eye of Lucy May Schofield. 

Lucy describes herself as

'an artist whose intuitive practice explores a somatic relationship to the earth within a palette of light and time. Charting the seasonal shifts through performative interplays with paper and expanded print; a meditation on materials and making as meditation.'

She makes much of her work using the technique of japanese wood cut ( Mokuhanga). The scroll is one of many ways that she presents her work. 

There were ten participants on the course. All had different underlying reasons for attending, and all were female. I don't know what that means.....

Day one had me quite worried. At the end of an exhausting day all that we had done was to choose a piece of fabric and glue a sheet of kozo paper to its reverse. This was to be the cover for the scroll. I could not see how we would finish the whole thing in the time remaining.

Oh me of little faith!

Day two was my birthday.

A birthday made in heaven...... doing something that I have been longing to do for a long time. 

On day two we did wood carving. This was somewhat alarming for one who has a fear of sharp knives. 

Carving a post to fit a hole using a chisel was a challenge mentally. But the sense of satisfaction was enormous, and we celebrated with cake. 

Day three was the bringing together of all the elements; glueing pages together, trimming and glueing the cover, attaching the scroll to the wooden end, and finally adding a decorative ribbon in a very fiddly process also involving a chisel. Much excitement filled the room as we laid out our works of art. 

The making of a traditional scroll is fiddly and labout intensive. But the resulting structure is a wonderful way to tell a story with images. The images are gradually revealed, and the linear layout is very different to viewing pages in a book. The whole thing can be viewed in its entirety, or small portions can be revealed and concealed. 

So do I really think I will have the patience to make another?

I am honestly not sure, but I really do wish to try. If not, I may well create something more contemporary. Like any new skill. once you understand the basic principles it is allowed to break the rules and go off-piste down your own personal rabbit hole. 

Here is some work by Cas Holmes  based on fabric rather than paper that embraces the  joining together of 'pages' in a vertical display. 

On a more photographic note here is some work that I saw recently by the Canadian artist Lotus Kang at MOMA in New York.

Enormous sheets of photographic film draped over bars.... another modern variation on a traditional theme. I enjoy the sculptural nature of the work. 

Something will come out of this...... of that I am certain..........

I just don't yet know what.

But I am taking Japanese paper and cyanotype chemicals with me on my next adventure, and that will be a start.