ABCD July 2020

Ten of us (Artists Book Club Dove) Zoomed together on Saturday, thanks to Thalia who hosted us again.
Bron could not join us but her latest blog post tells a magical story of encounters with walnuts.

Clare has been busy picking redcurrants, making redcurrant buns, eco-printing with grasses, herbs and rusty tin cans, wild-swimming, drawing cows and keeping a close watch on a local family of kestrels.

Judith has been printing with wooden type, and bottling globe artichoke hearts from her garden.

Judy has been doing more calligraphy, and it looks exciting. The Dante-related works will be shown later in an online exhibition.

Caroline has sent pictures of her pond and its ‘plump of moorhens’. She has had her book of family history printed by Mixam and is happy with the quality and service. She uses Indesign for page layout. (NB you can also download a template from Blurb.) She’s now working on a book based on her gap-year diaries and sketchbooks.

Carol has made a set of little books contrasting decorative papers with pithy topical words and statements.

Here are an Elephant hawkmoth and a Privet hawkmoth, photographed in her garden by Carol.

Jane told us she had returned to childhood, making scrap-box puppets (Rapunzel and the wicked witch who imprisoned her in a tower) and cardboard constructions (Covid Towers). Politicians “looking thoroughly intelligent” inhabit one tower,  nature has taken over another, and the third is full of terrified citizens.

Janine has made another embroidered box using the last of her dyed silk scraps.

Pauline has been busy printing. Mokuhanga, lino and eco-prints. The results are delectable.

I (Ama) am still dyeing Khadi paper with red cabbage (blue) and red onion (green/brown). This time I dipped one half and then the other in the jam-jar dyebath, producing some accidental icebergs, seascapes and landscapes. These are intended to be book covers. But I might frame one or two.

Our next Zoom meeting is planned for 1st August. We have a bold new project!

Finally, here are some of the random quotes from my notebook.

July Dove-droppings

I’m trying not to kill any ladybirds
two funerals next week
pandemonium contagion isolation

three globes covered with fish-skin
sitting in the field drawing cows
and swimming in the brook

the blobs turned into ladybirds
the collective noun is a plump
dreamy aren’t they

ten minutes with a kestrel
smart feathery jacket
white fluffy long-johns

I’m doing “Charter Hand”
it looks angry
sitting on the roof of the barn

planting thyme for the bees
I haven’t been in a shop
time has lost its value

suddenly it was summer
racing towards autumn
I’m living in 1966

she was imprisoned
and I lived in a cave
with pretty paper and words

liars are in charge of the truth
lurking in the garden at night
an elephant hawk-moth

every day it’s raining
alum and hot water
a cup of white vinegar

spring back into life
communing with the hens
coming to our senses