"Tactile Dialogues" is another black work and deliberately unstable and "messy" like the coal industry. It refers metaphorically to the current dialogue about the transition from the use of coal to other more sustainable "clean" alternatives. The viewer is invited to wear gloves and use a little lifter to ease open the tabs to view the hidden text and code while keeping the hands clean.
(Click onto an image and you will be able to see the images closer up and more clearly.)
The pages have a silvery metallic sheen from their graphite rubbed surfaces. A beautiful surface despite its instability and impermanence which the gloves will show. Also we keep our hands clean trying to come to terms with the difficult issues.
Each page is cut and scarred with deep scratches suggesting the process of mining.
As I'm still only "scratching the surface" I think there may be a few more black books in the pipeline.
My next book "cutaneous"has just been completed. It is another black book and joins the small series of black work I have started for the year. Although it is in a very conventional codex form, it also has perforations, windows and flaps that reveal several layers at a time. The book is about skin and the Chinese carbon paper screwed up and straightened, is soft and wrinkled like my skin.
I was researching how to make the Japanese cloth-like paper using momigami and using different papers and glues instead of the konnyaku paste and stubbled on some very interesting surfaces and textures to use in my books.
The results were encouraging and I hope to get back to this artist's proof to make a bigger, better version once I finish my next few explorations into the black.
It is always surprises me how we can keep generating "new" ideas and ways of working. Sometimes, I am influenced by the content of work by other artists but sometimes it's the media and new processes used that gets me excited.
Recently, I have been working with carbon in the form of charcoal from trees in a bush fire and the idea of carbon capture . However, it was a series of black/grey graphite sculptural works at the Asia Pacific Triennial that got me exploring other forms of carbon. These works by Ayesha Sultana were highly polished, minimalist graphite works that gave off a lustrous metallic sheen.
As she explains -"Instead of reading into an image or work of art, I slowly began to discover what ‘looking’ could be. Drawing is useful and concentrated in this manner in that I’m able, to an extent, to assimilate experience by recording myself looking. It was a gradual but deliberate process of discarding the narrative content in the work."
Even though her abstract approach and concepts behind her work, differ greatly from mine, I was captivated by how she would have made these surfaces. This resulted in a process of graphite (pencil) rubbings on different papers to create surfaces completely new to me. Once I had different surfaces to play with I started looking for ideas that overlapped with the physical qualities of the papers.
This has resulted in a series of "black" books using graphite and carbon paper exploring different themes. The different layers can be accessed by opening flaps.
"Scratching the Surface" is a Black book that uses layered pages with openings that can be open
and closed. The densely black pages have been scratched, cut, damaged or pierced to suggest surfaces like indigenous skin with the interior content peeping through. These
inner layers are from images for an earlier book on Uluru and consist of symbols and references to early maps and geographical features.
A few more drawings in this tiny book to show how they develop and change in the process. I tend to get a bit carried away and they sometimes lose their directness and become a bit busy. I'm only about half way through and can't help wondering what the last drawings will be like. (I'm trying to use more or less the same materials in each drawing)
I've started to open up the pages with holes and folds but it's a bit hard to see so I'll take some photos instead of scanning to show the spaces better.
The three-dimensional changes as the pages open offer a new and exciting visual experience.
Recently, a very good friend gave me a beautiful tiny book with thin paper and a red elastic tie that keeps it closed. It was blank. She has an identical book and will also work in it when she gets a chance. When we are finished we will share the results.
At the moment, I try to draw in this book every day till I hit a snag. The other day I took a few very simple little directions that completely changed my drawings in an exciting way and thought I'd share them with you while they're still hot on the page.....
We all have different strategies we use while we procrastinate with a difficult problem. I find it useful to give my mind time to think about different possible solutions but don't like doing "nothing" in the mean time.
So one of my strategies is to draw in many little books at the same time and keep drawing till I encounter another problem and stop. I have these books all going together and don't finish any all in one attempt. I keep returning to each book and often find the problems solved in one book unlock some in another and I can keep going forward. (I often don't "finish" some books and find them years later and continue working in them, but not always)
Exploring the properties of various media and trying new ones, also helps me find new areas to investigate. In these drawings I was interested in having some transparent/translucent areas and was using stand oil(any oil would do but some take a long time to dry or are smelly, which could be good?) to create this.
This works well in the collage area with text on both sides as the text from both sides is visible at the one time. To enable me to draw on the oily paper, I used china graph pencils. Being waxy, they are easy to smudge and I started to do this deliberately with a paper stub as another way of mark making.
Instead of oil, I have just started to use Shellac which also make the paper a little transparent but id darker and easier to draw into. All of these materials have been used in these little drawings for different visual marks. I hope you find them interesting and will explore them yourselves in your drawings.
Who would think that a scrap of paper torn from the page of an old book of poetry found in a garage in Tasmania, could be the starting point of a series of drawings that break new ground for an artist.
