show and tell Tuesday

Pania Press had an impromptu outing in the weekend when we were given the opportunity to make a small display of our books in a print fair being run as part of the St Paul St Gallery's 2011 Print Season. Although we don't have a lot of stock at the moment, I fleshed out the display with some of my paper models, which proved to be very popular with the kids. It was mighty nice to share the Symonds St Gallery space with the Adam Art Gallery, Enjoy Gallery, St Paul St, Artspace, Cherry Bomb Comics, and Alphabet City, among others. Here's a Show and Tell of a selection of the publications I swapped and bought during the event.

This is my wonderful and stylish sister Therese, the administrator at Victoria University's Adam Art Gallery, sorting out a display of the Adam's beautifully designed, high-end publications.

The top image is cropped from a poster/catalogue designed by Jonty Valentine and produced by St Paul St Gallery in 2005 for Stella Brennan's exhibition Wet Social Sculpture. What a brilliant aerial photograph of suburbia with all the gorgeous blue swimming pools in all kinds of geometric shapes.

From the same table I gathered up a selection of free postcards relating to the forthcoming Sightseeing exhibition, curated by Hanna Scott, that opens at AUT's St Paul St Gallery on 7 April and runs until 29 April. The idea is that we take a postcard, write something on it, and send it back to the Gallery. The completed cards will then be displayed in the exhibition.

Being a sucker for all things baking related, I couldn't resist buying a vintage fabric covered recipe book  from the display put together by Bopha from Wellington's Enjoy Public Gallery. I really like the unpretentious and low-grade design of Enjoy's catalogues. I also bought a nice Ben Buchanan catalogue with a silver screen printed cover.

This is a little stash of letterpress postcards and bus ticket zines with cute eraser prints that I bought  from two lovely ladies from Alphabet City. They are opening up a bricks and mortar business in a few weeks time where they will be selling hand printed goodies as well as running letterpress classes. One night a month they will be having a letter writing group where folk can come along and write letters on beautiful handprinted stationery. Doesn't that sound charming. When I asked for a businees card they typed one up on the spot for me and I heard their little typewriter tapping away throughout the day - a promising indicator that their small business is off to a great start.

A few other zines caught my eye and made their way home with me before the first day was over. An anthology of twisted fairy tales by emergent writers and artists, edited by Emily Starrett Wright, was a must have, of course.

And last but not least, here's a great photo of Alex Wild minding the Cherry Bomb comics table and shamelessly promoting her book The Constant Losers published by Titus Books in September 2010 and already into its second print run. Alex even typed up and xeroxed an A6 zine that morning to pitch her book to visitors. A very impressive and effective exercise in self-promotion.

large print 3

Friends of ours are having a baby girl in a couple of months time, so I've been thinking about what 'welcome to the world' prezzie I'd like to give her. Books seemed like the best option, so for my second project using large print fabrics I've made a sturdy book bag with her name embroidered on it, and I've filled the bag with a selection of books to get Rita's library off to a good start. Here are a few of them:

Every bub needs a copy of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar, so that they can enjoy turning the nibbled pages of the book and watching the wee critter munch its way through a week's worth of food, then build a cosy cocoon, and emerge as a gorgeous butterfly on the final page. Nobody does colour like Eric Carle. Even after all these years, his illustrations continue to fill me with joy.

From one greedy critter to another, no little one's library can do without Judith Kerr's classic, The Tiger who Came to Tea.

After reading this book when I was little I longed for a tiger to show up at my house for a tea party and then devour the contents of the pantry. Of course, I couldn't resist buying a copy of the book for Rita that came with its own little china tea set.

I know I've said it before, but in terms of essential picture books, you simply can't go past Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, so a copy of this book was the first item to make it into Rita's book bag. The emotional arc of this story of a young boy's anger, defiance, and regret was a huge influence on me when I was young, so I hope that it will resonate with Rita too.

Our Dad was very fond of reading us sad stories - 'little tear-jerkers' as he called them. His favourites were Oscar Wilde's stories, 'The Selfish Giant' and The Happy Prince', and just thinking about those stories still brings a tear to my eye. But perhaps the story that resonated most powerfully with me, my brothers and sister, was The Lorax by Dr Seuss.

This story about a passionate 'eco-warrior' and his quest to save the beautiful Truffula trees from being destroyed by the evil capitalist Onceler, never failed to get our blood boiling. But then you come to that image of hope at the end when the reclusive Onceler places the last Truffula seed into the hands of the young boy to whom he has narrated the whole sorry saga, and you close the book hoping like heck that that seed will grow and eventually restore the landscape to its former beauty.

We found Rita a nice edition of The Lorax printed on recycled paper, so I hope this moving little tear-jerker of a tale will matter to her as much as it did to us, and I hope too, that our contribution to Rita's library will mark the beginning of a long and wonderful relationship with books in her life.

large print 2

For my first 'large print' project I reused the cane handles from a worn linen knitting bag and gave the bag a new lease of life. I used the leaf print fabric, lined it with cream coloured cotton, and added a handy inside pocket. The bag goes really well with the string of chunky wallpaper beads I made last year and my favourite woven scarf.

large print 1

I have some lovely upholstery and curtain remnants with large leaf and flower prints that I've been planning to do something with since last autumn. I think I'll devote my next few crafting sessions to turning these pieces into something useful, other than a cosy bed for Zero, that is.

pop

In the process of playing around with woven paper last weekend, I stumbled upon a cover design for our next Pania Press poetry chapbook, Pop Riveter by Jen Crawford. The sequence of poems describes a summer job that Jen had a few years ago working in a sail making factory.

Pop Riveter is full of text columns and lists describing the repetitive nature of the tasks that Jen and her co-workers had to carry out: sanding the sail frames, cutting the cloth, glueing, ironing, stapling, trimming, stacking and packing the sails. The rhythmic and repetitive descriptions of the job itself are interspersed with Jen's observations of the people working with her, subtly revealing the interpersonal dynamics and the hierarchical structure of the workplace. All of this is set against a background of pop music blasting over the radio in the factory, with Britney Spears voice bursting into the poems with the lyrics from 'You want a Piece of Me?'

I wanted the cover design for this small (A6) chapbook to replicate some of the processes described in the poems, so cutting slits in the card and weaving strips of paper through it seemed like the best technique. The pop colours work well with the theme of the book, and I'll be creating different colour combinations and woven designs for each book in the edition of 30.

It always feels good when the prototype for a new publication is completed. I've set aside time over the Easter break to make up the edition and I'm really looking forward to it!

woven felt

Something about this experiment pleases me. Maybe it's the simplicity of it - the fact that the woven felt strips hold themselves in place without the need for stitches. I haven't figured out the 'what' or 'why' of weaving with felt yet, but I think that if I saw a cushion made out of four joined squares like this, or even a big winter tote bag slung over someone's shoulder, I'd be intrigued and want to take a closer look. Anyway, it's definitely worth a bit more experimentation.

woven paper

I noticed that my handmade card supply was getting low this week, so I topped it up with a batch of cards made from textured Canson cardstock in assorted colours. Instead of my usual collage technique, I decided to make vertical and horizontal slits in the card and weave thick and thin strips of card through them to make intersecting areas with contrasting colours. I'd quite like to try something similar with felt...

Have a lovely Sunday.

Sunday

Pink hydrangeas in an Agee jar. An eclectic assortment of bedside reading. A batch of warm bran muffins. A tidy office. All the fixings for a quiet and relaxing Sunday at the end of a busy week. I hope you're having a relaxing Sunday too.