A Fresh New Year of Art and Exploration

Don’t you love the freshness of a New Year full of potential? I do! I have my pile of books, I have time and I have all the ideas that have been incubating and collecting in my notebooks while I celebrated the holidays with friends and family.

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start,
with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
~JB Priestley

Some fresh new exploring is in order. I want to explore collections – my own, and ones I have been gifted. I’ve always been one to walk looking down at the ground and picking up seed pods, feathers, lichens and such. I collect shells, rocks and miscellaneous finds from the beach. I like vintage white buttons, clasps and fasteners; the older the better.



Having been gifted a few brass bells, I add to my collection when just the right find comes my way. A vintage desk bell is my newest addition, having arrived in my Christmas Stocking. I wonder what kind of business it served in it’s former life, announcing the arrival of a new customer?

I am collecting beautiful objects. A pair of shoes. Some glasses.
Telephone. Typewritter.
…Their delicate and finished appearance is friendly.
And they are quiet.
~From the movie The Science of Sleep




Books have always called my name. “Come look!” they say from their shelf. So I am especially enjoying the book Etcetera, by Sibella Court. You might have read the recommendation about this book at Donna’s blog or at Ro’s blog. It’s full of yummy photography of all kinds of collections displayed in interesting ways. Being freshly inspired, I am starting a new collection of photographs of my collections.

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen
from one to another mind.
~James Russell Lowell

My pile of fresh new books includes one about working intuitively in the studio. A suggested exercise using a burning candle to “paint” with smoke has caught my eye and my imagination. How fun! What a great color!




I’m inspired by a book of interviews of artists in New Mexico and peeks into their studio spaces. My own studio remains unfinished, but the insulation is here and will be installed in the ceiling soon. I am looking forward to the added warmth! It’s time to think about the finishing touches and final arrangement of equipment and working spaces.


Books are not made for furniture,
but there is nothing else that
so beautifully furnishes a house.
~Henry Ward Beecher




For rich images and insight into process, I am reading Histories Real and Imagined. It is a detailed look into Lissa Hunter’s body of work as a “basket maker” and assemblage artist. I love her work which incorporates natural objects such as rocks, mark making, and objects she has made. I’m looking forward to finding a cozy spot and flipping through the pages at a leisurely pace.

I love her because she makes things.
You know? She makes things with her hands.
~From the movie The Science of Sleep



It’s time now to begin on a series of collage for the International Collage Exchange. I enjoy the process of making 13 or so collage. Having a due date is motivating and I always learn a lot as I work my way through the series. Then there is the fun of sending them off to the world, and seeing a return package come to my mail box, plump with collage from artists all around the globe. This year my series will revolve around mark making.

Re-Fresh Your Creative Practice is a new coaching group I developed for artists which is beginning soon. You can read more about here.

A friendly hello to all the new followers. It is my pleasure to meet you! It’s deliciously pleasant looking forward to this Fresh New Year, with time in the studio and time creating. Happy Fresh New Year to you all!

The Art of Handmade Artist Books – Part Two

"Each friend represents a world in us,
a world possibly not born until they arrive,
and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

- Anais Nin


My friend Rita and I began an exchange of art on a monthly basis several years ago. We create art and exchange it, along with a letter of thoughts and happenings, poetry and quotes, and inclusions of interest. Each exchange becomes a page in on-going volumes of hand bound books. In the autumn of the year we also exchange a hand-made artist book. The editions are of two – one to keep and one to give. The world created by our exchange has enriched and expanded my life. There is an invisible path worn down between my mail box in the West and hers near the Great Lakes. Although we have never met face to face, we are the best of friends.





This year the book theme was completely open. I made my books from the papers I create when transferring paint on and off of paintings. Although at the beginning the transfers are created from totally random marks and shapes, once the paper begins to appear interesting I am more selective, and tend to the final stages with deliberate action. The Zen like quality of the marks, the quiet colors and peacefulness of the tissue pages on print making paper appeal to me. I look inward to find what will become my art. This book celebrates the new sense of freedom and authenticity I am experiencing in my work. The quietness allows me to hear my own heartbeat. I am trying to think less, and work more in tandem with the art that appears. These books have allowed me to experiment, and to push the quiet even further.



The title of my book is Stillness. I love stillness. I often work in the studio in outward silence, although I am always responding to what is happening on the surface in front of me, listening for what the work has to say. For me, stillness is about clarity, focus and purpose. It is a place from which I can create. In a bit of artistic license, I attached a very small Japanese bell to the outside of each book – a tiny single note of sound calling attention to the Stillness I suppose.



The technical parts of the books are a side stab binding of the soft pages made of tissue, BFK Rives print making paper, and a Japanese paper. The housing is a removable portfolio cover made of mat board, a commercial black paper and more tissue paper. The closure is a black cord with knots and bell.





Stillness is where creativity and solutions to problems are found.
Stillness Speaks.

Echart Tolle