weavers know about tieing up loose ends. we do alot of that. there are, of course, decorative and fancy ways of doing it. if you don’t tie them they unravel. or ravel. either way it falls apart. fiber artists are all about making the fiber hold together in many ways, for many reasons, often involving spin or twist and knot or loop. books are for me a part of all of this, and i recognize that the letterpress printing clan of book workers are barely concerned with my concerns. which is as it should be. madeleine l’engle spoke of all writers as kinds of streams feeding the lake. in our case the lake is books, and for a brief time in a couple weeks there will be a lake called codex viii.
words on the edge seems absolutely appropriate for codex viii
i seem to be spending a lot of time over on instagram, largely because this bloggin format is a bit difficult for me and now i have too much catching up to do here and not enough time to do it properly. apologies. i want less and less to be tethered to the smart boxes, more and more to be imagining.
a flax commonplace, labels now glued, is ready for codex
i have many books, small and large, and this edition of 8 (7 for sale) for my table (#49) at craneway, and many more botanical contact prints of three different papers available for other book makers to enjoy. plus i have a few shifu things, mostly books, and some nifty cover materials, including shifu and fish and traditional parchment. i can include all my weird bookish stuff because codex is so jubilantly eclectic, that my books with few or no words can be neighbors with books printed by angels puzzling out type and ink. i love it all and am honored to vend amongst these folks. but i am scared of going out, far and expensively away, to a big amazing city, leaving my little river house for a week.
this fantastic red from avocado has been a great surprise
large fishnet basket
the exploration of materials is endlessly fascinating for me and now there are five baskets, one large piece in process, and a book, five four selvedge woven folios awaiting their cover. it seems that all these components and ideas are just waiting to be woven into something to ponder. this work is an antidote to power, its entirely else, perhaps akin to poems. anyway, this snowy/sunny late march morning i’ve been thinking of how the day unfolds, unravels, or weaves, stitches, knits, together. like ideas and images…
i am scattered and content. for now.
ian’s snake
over the weekend my son ian made his first two paintings in watercolor in 22 years. they are interpretations of one of my snake prints and a haddock parchment, cleaned and drying. i find them sensitive, beautiful. i recognized them immediately from the matteria of my making life, and they have become a continuous thread into his making. what a conversation!
ian’s fish
i’ve been stunned by these, and want to nurture this work as we see if and where they will go.
today i’m dyeing some small shifu pieces, flax paper and shifu, and they have been pinned out this way to fight shrinkage while drying.
another pinning
and a new shifu book, and edition of two, about thinking about losing species. sewn on red vellum tapes, laced into fish skin, the ones i’ve made into parchment, the ones i’ve eaten.
i will end here, in this photo you can see judy serebrin’s calligraphy under my printing, scrolls premeiring at codex. it was terrifying to print on TOP of her beautiful hand, but she said not to worry, to let the wintertime plants dance and sing in the bundles. they did!
