CrumpArt » Books

Wootage!

May 5th, 2008 by Crumpet

Went to the Convention Centre very early in the morning yesterday to see Neil Gaiman speak. Mr C teased me all the way there about being a total fangirl because he saw the present I had to give to Neil at the book signing. For the record, I gave him a little handmade blank book, and one of these. And yes, I am a total fangirl, but I also just thought it would be a nice thing to do.

Today I’m blowing off my theory tutorial taking one of my uni friends along to the State Library to see Neil talk again — one of the benefits of going to school in the centre of the city. I’m sure my lecturer will understand.

Posted in Books, Random | | 2 Comments

Well, here we are on the raggedy edge.

April 20th, 2008 by Crumpet

Remember my handmade paper from not too long ago?

Back at the beginning of the semester, I was formulating a proposal for work that explores themes of creation, both in the realm of “creation” of the universe, and creation as an artist. I am interested in making art that reflects my world view — that human life is a chance occurrence in this incredible amazing universe. That certain elements, or building blocks, exist as the base of this universe, and it’s their chance interaction that causes change and growth through the process of evolution.

I’m not just interested in the science, though. I’m interested in why people believe what they do, and the stories and myths that we create in order to explain and give meaning to our lives.

This is the start of my project. I’ve been constantly amused and slightly annoyed when people see my paper and ask what images I’m going to print on it. To me, art is not necessarily about creating an image to represent something. It’s not about the end result so much as the journey. I didn’t make paper so that I could make a picture; I made paper (from offcut ragpaper and my old lithographs) because it’s one of the ways to represent evolution in my work. Creation from destruction. Renewal.

The paper has been printed on now. Both sides (because there are two sides to every story). I took 224 photographs of books on evolution, science, cosmology, myth, religion and fairytales, then used solvent transfer to get those images onto my paper. A photograph implies truth, and as a result it’s one of the best mediums to use in order to manipulate your audience. We also assume that books classified as non-fiction will tell us the truth, yet many different arguments on the same topic can be found on one shelf. Now they can be found on the same wall.

As you can see, there is some information missing.

There’s a whole side of the work that you can’t see in this setup. And one of my pages is currently missing — very annoying, especially when I would have filled the whole wall up perfectly otherwise!

The work isn’t going to stay like this though, it’s just another stage in the process. Here is how I set it up for my critique on Thursday.

I was really pleased with the outcome, and while it’s not finished at this stage in terms of my proposal, it is something that I’m interested in recreating down the track (although it could be logistically very difficult in terms of setting up anywhere outside of university for an extended period of time…)

From here, I’m going to glue several pages together and print on them with some of the etching/lino/woodblock plates I made last year, and I’m also going to carve some new lino for printing.

From there, I plan to shred the lot, weave it all back together and print over the top one last time. It may not work out how I expect it to, but really, that’s half the fun.

Posted in Books, Universe, Art | | 2 Comments

Geeky Excitement

April 1st, 2008 by Crumpet

I just booked two tickets to see Neil Gaiman speak in May! Squee!

Posted in Geekery, Books | | 3 Comments

Submerged.

March 10th, 2008 by Crumpet

I started back at uni last week. I’m in the final year of my undergrad, and it’s already pretty full on. After much to-ing and fro-ing with admin, I managed to be approved for an uneven workload, so I’m doing five subjects this semester and three next semester. Doing this means that I don’t have to give up an extra day of work next semester, and I’ll also be able to concentrate more on all the big end of year assignments and whatnot. So, this semester I’m at uni for pretty much four full days. I’m very excited about it all though. My theory class (Theme and Variation) seems really interesting — there are two 1500 word essays due for this one, and I’m hoping to write the first on Dave McKean. I’ve just finished Cages, and it was one of the single greatest reading experiences I’ve ever had. Very, very relevant thematically to the work I’m planning at the moment. Hence the essay for Theme and Variation.

It’s been a big week or two with the reading. Aside from Cages, I’m working my way through a bunch of other sciency library books, another philosophic astronomy book I bought earlier in the year and the Librivox recording of Moby Dick. Suffice to say, all the reading and processing of information has left me pretty exhausted. And of course, it being the Labour Day long weekend here and all, I had to work today.

I did have yesterday to myself though, and I made the most of it.

I finally, finally, finally finished spinning the yarn that’s been sitting on my bobbins for over a year.

It’s 100% merino spun from tops, which I realised I’d spun and plied in the wrong order during the last step. I meant to ply the purple and green together then ply it again with a thicker single of the teal, which I’d bought extra of on purpose, but screwed up by plying the teal and purple together. Of course, I didn’t have enough of the green to finish the job, but it turned out for the best anyway, because I ended up making a yarn I love more.

It’s the rest of the blue and teal plied together with a strand of commercial acrylic yarn that I received a massive cone of on my birthday, then plied again with a very fine strand of orange wool I bought a long time ago. I see a very cute handbag in my future.

And the best thing from all this spinning? The bobbins are completely clear and I can start the mammoth spinning/knitting/crocheting project I have planned for school.

Yep, I get to spin, knit and crochet for class! I’m in the best. course. ever.

Posted in Books, photography, Spinning, Art | | 2 Comments

Beginnings

January 27th, 2008 by Crumpet

I started a couple of new paintings yesterday. It’s the first time I’ve really made any art since the end of the semester (I wanted to make sure I had a break), and the first time I’ve done any painting for a year. It feels good. The paintings are a gift for a friend. I don’t know if she’ll like them, as she’s pretty much my polar opposite, but I love them.

And yes, those are Amazon boxes being used as a dropsheet. I have an easel, but I kind of prefer to paint with the canvas flat out on the floor.

Scarily enough, the boxes aren’t from my stash that I keep to recycle. They’re all new.

The 1001 Paintings book was a Christmas gift from my parents, The Portable Atheist was a Christmas gift from myself (gotta love irony). Fitted Knits, Stardust and Signal to Noise were bought on sale after Christmas with gift money, Pollock: Veiling the Image was purchased secondhand from Amazon with a gift voucher from the awesome Alex, and the rest were well thought out splurges made with my extra public holiday pay. So while not all the books were from Amazon, I have managed to winnow my wish list down to two pages. You know, so it’s easier for y’all to choose something for my birthday, coming up in exactly one month.