Posted on by callibeth

Solo show at the Artists’ Shop in Missoula

I know I’ve been quiet. I’ve been keeping my head down and getting the work done. In between, I made a quick trip to Chicago to take a bookbinding workshop on forwarding basics with Karen Hanmer. What an excellent teacher! I’ll post more on that … when I get a little more done.

The show runs September 1 – 30.

A show of my work opens on Friday, September 1, at the Artists’ Shop in MIssoula. It’s been a long time since I had a solo show, and I had partially forgotten all the work that goes into one.

I’ll be showing 14 pieces from the book that poet Madeleine Gomez  commissioned. I’ll also have some newer broadsides and books.  Lately I’ve been into circular designs (see one example below).  I’ve become enamored of texture, specifically textures formed by our alphabet, and the circular format. I’ve always liked the square format; a circle shares properties of a square but is more dynamic, moving the eye.

Ready to work. That tall skinny box houses the framing chops, while the two large flat boxes propped against the wall hold mat board and foam core. A portfolio of some finished pieces, some cut-up foam core, and a few pieces of Plexi lie on the corner of the work table. (That frame on the floor is for a print we bought in Cuba. While all the framing stuff is out, I’d better get that done too.)
I’m accumulating off-cuts of mat board and foam core. When I’m finished framing I’ll probably cut them down to standard frame sizes for storage.
In progress: A stack of mat sandwiches shows progress; 3 originals and another portfolio of finished work await mats and back.

Orders for framing supplies – mat board, foam core, framing chops, Plexiglas – had been arriving for the past week. In preparation, I assembled a matting/framing station in the basement TV room: work table on cinder blocks on towels, cutting mat, mat knives, 4-foot metal ruler, Logan mat cutter and knife, empty trash can, and so on. Last night I started. I queued up some “Father Brown” mysteries, which I’d never watched before, and got to work. A mere 4 hours later, I had 12 finished mat sandwiches awaiting the construction of their frames, plus hole-less mats and foam-core backs for 6 more pieces. Not bad for an evening’s work, given how long it’s been since I did much framing. And the Father Brown mysteries were quite enjoyable.

In progress: paste-painted paper mosaic fills the counters of the text to the poem “Fragment,” by Amy Lowell. On watercolor paper.

About a month ago I though it would be a good idea to do this Amy Lowell poem as a paper mosaic. It’s looking more and more as though this piece may be finished in time for the show.