Shift

I decided last year that I would try to write a blog entry every month. I can't imagine doing this every day, and even once a month seems too often; if I look the other way, focus on something, or forget to check the calendar, the month is gone.

But, it's still March, so this entry can squeak in. I'm just home after a short self-directed residency at the Banff Centre. I spent nearly two weeks thinking (with my hands) about worm-shaped books. I also did some of the preliminary printing towards an editioned artist's book about an encounter with a worm.

 

I was in a group of 16 artists from across Canada and Europe. It was amazing. Just being at the Banff Centre is like inhabiting an alternate reality where anything can happen to your work. A conversation, an insight from the mountains, access to new tools--transformation is always hovering in the wings.

As I folded paper and made worms, people asked: does your practice consist of a lot of paper folding? The answer is no. They asked, is this like origami? No. But are my answers the same, now that I'm at home? No.

Residencies (I'm beginning to understand) are less about producing work, although that happens too, and more about creating a special environment in which to ask questions about practice, aspirations, expectations. Sometimes these questions are asked with the hands, or are asked of the materials. Sometimes they are answered on a mountain top, or over lunch, or during sleep.

Sometimes they are not answered, but carried back to normal life...lighter-than-air, making it seem like your stuff, your self, is not the same as when you left home.

Am I the same artist I was before I left? No.

Diving In

For the last two weeks, I had a wonderful opportunity to work at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, in Minneapolis, as an artist in residence. The Center is huge and vibrant, full of school kids doing workshops every day, and artists and adult learners working away in the various studios at night. Every day, presses were humming, silkscreens were washed, fibres were beaten, fresh sheets were pulled, paper was printed, folded, marbled, lino was carved, books were bound. It was amazing to be surrounded by so much book-related activity, and to meet so many people passionate about 'the book'.

I used my time at the Center to work on a project about rivers, sort of a set of poetic tools for navigating a particular river and its surroundings. I used one of the larger Vandercook presses to print two 18" x 24" maps, both of which included pressure printed images, something I had never tried. It was scary to be simultaneously experimenting AND trying to complete a fairly ambitious project in such a short time. However, if I was a little less neurotic, I might just say it was exciting.

Practice

 

Each morning and afternoon spent printing, every evening and midnight at the press blends into one never ending session .  Sesshin—alone with the effort, this one includes the one that came before, becomes the next, like breath, the koan of a handle forever turning.  There is a stance: ready, balanced, energy from the floor, head bowed slightly. There is the scent of ink, its hiss, fingers grasping  paper, fingers grasping paper, and the muscles in their remembered movements, feetlegsbackarmswrists. Fingertips lift paper, grip handle, an economy of gesture flows from the fullness of preparation.  The repetition that leads to this moment, its endless beginning: lead and steel kata, the quiet steps that led here, focus birthing practice. An emptiness in rhythm:  within the mechanics of making, with each sighing impression, within the machine-noise—silence.

Salmon Books and Bitches Brew

It's a misty, moisty morning in Southwestern Manitoba. I'm listening to Miles Davis and slowly assembling the last four copies of my salmon book. The grey weather and the focus required to cut and fold with precision carve a special, contemplative space out of the middle of the week. So much has happened in the nearly three years since I printed this little book.

Sparks

 

I've been trying to convince myself that Rob Brezsny is right, that the Universe is conspiring to shower me with blessings. Some days I imagine a small cloud hurrying east, trailing dark strands of rain. I go outside to meet it; it drenches me and drenches the land--everything but the small patch of earth masked by my feet. Other days, I imagine something more like Pig-Pen's dust cloud, a loose snarl trailing me whether I like it or not (does my dust cloud smell? can everyone see it?), vaguely embarrassing, but natural and somehow comforting.

But maybe these blessings are more like autumn sun making its way around the corner of the house on a frosty morning, finding a way through the trees to the place on the porch where I can bask like a ripening hazelnut. Or perhaps the shower in question is even more immediate than daylight: perhaps it is the particles, compounds, tiny organisms, pollen, and odours that pour in with every inhalation--transforming, enriching, revitalizing. Even if I hold my breath, even if I'm cynical, blue, cantankerous... those microscopic clouds of blessings will find their way in.

Lost Time

Where have I been for the last year or more? I have been in the garden. I’ve been coaxing thin plants from old seeds, I’ve been pruning melon vines, harvesting dandelion greens. I’ve been in the forest. I’ve been walking late at night. I’ve been mushrooming. I’ve been printing. I’ve been asleep in the tent. I’ve been folding and piercing pieces of paper. I’ve been dreaming. I’ve been in the marsh. I’ve been listening. I’ve been in the archives, nose-deep in books and maps. I’ve been making lists of archaic names for animals and fish. I’ve been drafting poems and proposals. I’ve been binding books. I’ve been travelling around Nova Scotia, I’ve been talking to the river, I’ve been around Lake Superior, I’ve been in the water, I’ve been worrying and packing and starting over. I’ve been to Newfoundland. I’ve been thinking of you, I’ve been meaning to write. I’ve been sewing and scrubbing, I’ve been broadcasting oats and buckwheat. I’ve been watching the horses. I’ve been homesick, nostalgic, restless and uneasy. I’ve been driven and listless. I’ve been carrying water from the shrinking stream. I’ve been watching trout and catching smelt. I’ve been unable to work and unable to think. I’ve been taking my vitamins. I’ve been eating berries. I’ve been waiting for the big toenail on my left foot to fall off and reveal what is happening underneath. I’ve been taking notes, and I’ve been paying attention. I have been stretching the tendons in my arms religiously. I’ve been taking deep breaths, and going through the motions.

 

 

Almost-forgotten music

Winter stayed and stayed, and its quiet way of being has stretched into these daylight months. Now, the almost-forgotten music of leaf on leaf fills the air, and the sun's touch delights my skin, and colour and song are everywhere. I think I've met a new bird every day this week. I've also printed like a demon, for no good reason, just needing to finish a project that's been with me a while.

I am wondering what will happen next. I mean, I know what will happen next... sort of: summer will come, the long days will make me drunk, I'll dig in my garden and make some art. But will it all mean something else when I wake up tomorrow?

Yesno.

Maybeso.

Past and Future

I don't know why the end of the winter always makes me feel nostalgic. Maybe it is about waking up from all the deep dreaming I do in the dark months, waking up and remembering the life I lived before winter, and the life still to be lived (can one be nostalgic for the future? how about nostalgia for alternate realities?). Maybe we all emerge from winter tender as new leaves.

Anyway, for several months, I've been busy sifting through photographs and trying to remember dimensions, and generally being forced to reflect on what I've been up to the last several years, while my friend, graphic designer Kristy Read developed a website for me. Dear blog, don't take this the wrong way, but this is finally the elegant, grown-up (yet-Basmian) website I've always wanted. Dear friends and friendly strangers, I hope you will visit: http://www.basmakavanagh.ca/

And, as usual, I have several other things cooking. Some have simmered almost long enough (they're thick and sticky and smell just right). I'll serve them up any minute now. The others, well...they might mature overnight like mushrooms, or they might be 14 year cicada larvae. It's hard to say... but at least one of them will be:

Oh Bacon, Bacon

I've been playing around with eel imagery for months now, knowing I would soon be collaborating with my sister on an eel poster series, incorporating my images and quotes about eels from Mi'kmaq Elders who have helped her in her thesis research on eels. We finally got down to work last weekend. These posters will be used as gifts, and as educational resources.

Here's Sana getting ready to pull the first print of our eel motif (actually, several eels) from a photopolymer plate.

Voila! The first eels.

Here I am wiping some extra ink off the boxcar base. That's a school of bacon swimming on the plate, one of several elements on our second poster.

I'm sure you can imagine that we worked up quite an appetite.

Good thing we had all those tasty prints around.

Delicious.

It's funny how the really crazy stuff never makes it into photos. Setting the Mi'kmaq texts in the type we had at hand was pretty challenging. There simply weren't enough q's or k's...but we managed. Not to mention the weird spacing... this typeface was not designed with words that start with "Wj" in mind.

However, by Sunday evening, although we had tired feet and sore hands, we also had a rack full of finished posters. Yeah, there was some giggling in there too, not to mention a totally new version of a well-known pop song. It went something like this:

"Oh bacon, bacon, how was I supposed to know..."

Sap and Sprouts

I have a lot of little projects growing at the moment, all at different stages of development... some are merely subtle subconscious stirrings, others actually underway but seemingly perpetually-in-progress. Yet -- it all feels right for this time of year. It still looks like winter out there, but underneath the snow and the river ice, all sorts of things are happening.



One of the things brewing is a new website, which will allow this blog to be more "bloggy"... a place for ideas and process, rather than finished products. In that spirit, I am posting a video of my most inspiring spring moment so far, recorded at the mouth of the Fraser River in Vancouver at the end of February.

Perhaps the season I'm looking forward to isn't Spring, but Sing....
(and yup, it's sideways...but it's all about the audio).

My Own Devices

So. It's winter. The nights are long, and suddenly, I've got loads of time for making stuff. I splurged on some vellum a couple of years ago, and I've finally given myself permission to use some. Boy, is it an amazing material.



This little (4" x 3 1/4" x 1") improvised limp vellum binding has silk ribbon ties and is sewn into the vellum with gray silk cord. When I say improvised, I mean I have no idea what I'm doing, just trying to make something that I like based on photos of old books that I liked too. Hopefully, this little book will also function well, and endure.



Now, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, but playing with some curly
scraps of vellum, I couldn't resist constructing this little book ring.







I've decided that I'm on sabbatical this year. I haven't decided what that means, precisely, since of course, I will have to keep working. Perhaps this means more room to experiment, permission to say no to certain things, fewer self-imposed or external deadlines. Sigh.



I'm starting my mental holiday off right: with a small show of new, sculptural paintings in my new home town of Kentville, at the Designer Cafe, 373 Main St. If you're in town, I hope you'll stop in for a look. They make a mean coffee too.

Autumn

Texture is a big deal for me these days. I built these pebbles from various kinds of acrylic goo.



It has been a time of experiments -- but of squeezing art-making into the early morning hours, the evenings and the weekends. Part of me can't wait until winter, to spend cosy nights making lichen quilts like the little sample above, or printing with and without ink as below --

I've had access to a printing press again for the last little while, and although my first few attempts have been more about acquainting myself with the quirks of another Vandercook than about really printing anything much, I am proofing with intent, and pleased with some of the results. I am planning to print a large series with this pebble pattern (from a large linoleum block) in various shades of rose and gray.

And... in the spirit of "waste not want not" I made these little notebooks with my first proofs from the pebble block.

Summer

Well, it has been a busy summer(not that it is over, but it is passing quickly). In May, I had several abstract pieces in this year's 'Pierscape', part of the Whitney Pier Festival of the Arts. At the end of May, I moved from Sydney to Kentville, Nova Scotia to be closer to our future farm. This meant that June was very busy with digging and planting a new garden. But, I was also busy making several new textured (and in some cases, tex-tiled) pieces for a show coming up at the Cape Breton University Art Gallery, opening next Friday (Aug. 13th) and running 'til October 3rd.

After a couple of winter months of total exhaustion, and feeling convinced that I would never paint again (I'm so melodramatic...) I decided that I would try working with my obsessions, instead of against them. If all I want to do is paint, sew and emboss lichens and pebbles, then why not? Isn't that my prerogative as an artist? This decision has been incredibly fruitful, yielding all kinds of weird and unexpected work.

This 18" x 36" "painting" of apothecia (lichen 'fruiting cups') includes forms sewn & built from linen fibres, collapsed half-silk cocoons, and some embroidery.

The black piece has sewn cup forms made of carbonized bamboo fibre, which are filled with

glossy black acrylic medium. I love the matte and glossy blacks together. The white piece is also sculptural, with forms that I built up with modelling paste and other media... it was a bit like icing a cake (especially when I was squeezing medium out of a bag). I am really enjoying making forms that cast shadows.

This 12" x 12" lichen composition involved a lot of layering, and some scraping down through media. The oil pastels combined with the acrylics give things a satisfying glow.

This is one of two Glace Bay rock paintings included in the CBU show. They've got layers and layers of a honey-tinted medium that give wonderful depth to the image. If only I could capture that in the photo...



And finally, yesterday I was at the Chester Art Fair. Hundreds of people came by to see all kinds of artworks, including my letterpress work, paintings, cards, and handmade journals like these. I think a good time was had by all.

Books and Broadsides

This is my book 'Song of Salmon'; a hand bound, illustrated accordian book, printed at the Penland School of Crafts in a (very) limited edition. It was set in Bembo type, and printed on damp St. Armand paper with a #4 Vandercook proofing press (named Buddy) and a whole lotta love. I am completing the binding at home in Cape Breton. A limited number of copies will be available for sale soon.

Open the embossed cover and peek inside....



Each stanza faces a two-colour reduction linoleum cut.







All I can say is that this kind of photography is not my strength!
Better pictures coming soon.

With the accordian fold extended, you get an idea of how all the images work together to show

the salmon on their journey.

Here are the blocks, carved for the first colour (posed for style!).

Below are five broadsides I made from the poem and images - each stanza

with its corresponding illustration. Printed in editions of 12, copies are

available for sale.