getting at it

the yukon is a land of tall, skinny spruce trees

blackened trunks, short gnarly branches of dark green 

the trees often grow quite cramped together, perhaps gathering warmth from their close quarters

leaning this way and that

and invariably festooned with a hairy black lichen of the bryoria genus

we called it "witch's hair", others referred to it as "old man's beard"

I've always loved it though I can't tell you why, perhaps it's simply that my first memory of it is at our family cabin at  marsh lake and everything I noticed and remember from that time in my life matters to me...

so many happy memories

fast forward then to sometime in the winter of 1986/87 when I first learned to make paper

though the paper we made in the class was from recycled papers, the instructor spoke of making paper with plant material and I immediately thought of the lichen 

(yes, I know it's not a plant but it came to mind anyway, I suppose because it hangs out on one)

this week I finally gave it a try

I had picked some last summer but couldn't find it so when a friend came to visit me in November I asked her if she could bring me some

she brought me a small bag of it, gathered from a couple of trees in her yard

the paper-making learning I've been doing for the last few months has involved using linters (cotton and abaca)  and/or plant material (reed canary grass and corn husks) and neither the course I took nor my paper-making book cover lichen so I was on my own

I weighed the lichen and into the pot it went with tap water to cover and then some

it sat for a few minutes and then was brought to just before boiling on medium heat...  a bit of soda ash stirred in and finally the heat was turned down a bit and I let it simmer some more

two hours later I turned it off and let it be overnight

the next morning I gave it a stir and found the lichen had lost it's "hairiness" and become a lump of black goop

I didn't know if I should be delighted or mortified and though I had no idea if it would work I gave it a go

so, so glad I did

the first sheet was bolstered with a small amount of cotton linters, you can see it on the left below

(the darks are darker than they show here - I've taken photos of it for two days and no matter what I try I can't make them look as dark as they are)

after that initial sheet was pulled, I added abaca linters instead - abaca is a stronger plant fibre than cotton and I wasn't sure how strong the lichen would be

when I blended the lichen pulp I did it in two batches -  the first batch literally disintegrated in a heartbeat so the I didn't blend the smaller, second batch, just dropped it in the pulp/water vat and stirred it in

that's what made the larger dark spots

so glad I did it that way, they look beautiful, and in some cases have a navy cast to them

yesterday and today I spent some time laying other papers and things alongside the paper, thinking about whet I'd like to do with it

with some work done in one of Karen Ruane's classes a few year's back  

also, I had two sheets that were almost identical in weight and value so I took one, coated it with konnyaku and crumpled it 

"momigami", the Japanese call it

those two sheets are laid side-by-side below

although these papers are incredibly special to me I'm itching to use them and have almost completely upended the studio looking for any and everything that might look good with them but after several hours of trying things and thinking I got nowhere

I simply couldn't decide what to do, where to start

frustration started to build... I know how this story goes... I can't make up my mind so I pack it all away and move on to the next thing I've always wanted to experiment with

this time I had a back-up plan though, a way to push myself forward

two actually... one is a 12' x 12"  floating canvas in a black frame

the other is the same only 6" x 12"

two collages then

no excuses

next week I will have at least one to show you

(that's back-up plan #2... make a commitment!) 

take care,

jillayne

new year, old(ish) work

a new year, still brand new and somewhat shiny

I can't help but feel the same excitement at the turning of the year that I felt as a child, watching my parents planning New Year's Eve parties or getting dressed up to go to them, talking of "resolutions", hopes and plans

there was something enticing in the joy of the prospect of a fresh start so I took that feeling of enticement for a walk and yesterday I did a big sort out and tidy up in the studio, finding new ways to organize things so I was finally able to get the stacks of current work off the floor and into boxes, baskets and trays that are easily shelved and no longer a tripping hazard

my list of what to continue working on and what to experiment with is rather long and growing and I'm excited to begin to move some ideas forward whilst also working to improve skills such as watercolour painting, paper-making and calligraphy so being organized seemed rather important and a good place to begin

today I got to spend time in a tidy serene serene space - well worth the time and effort

in the tidy up I came upon a small bowl I crafted back in November using papers I had made as well as commercially made Japanese papers I had printed with some of my newly edited photos, all things I learned in Karen Olson's "Focus & Flow" course by Fibre Arts Take Two

in addition to teaching ways of editing and how to make paper Karen also taught doing sculptural work with the paper using Jin Shofu, a wheat paste that is said to be one of the smoothest adhesives there is

for my first attempt at sculptural work with the paper I chose a bowl, mostly because I had several good options to use for a mold

papers torn, cut and layered over a form I had wrapped with cling film

working upside down had me thinking of the bowl from the inside out, the first papers laid down would be the most visible on the inside, the last papers, the most visible on the outside

not wanting to overthink it, I pushed away thoughts of a desired outcome and simply focused on a somewhat balanced placement of the graphics as well as working to ensure an even thickness

the cling wrap didn't turn out to a good idea, the bowl didn't want to release from the form and I finally had to give it a good yank, tearing it slightly

remembering seeing pottery mended in France using bent wire I grabbed my stapler and fixed it in a jiff

three petite brass staples... they add a little air of rustic elegance I think

 vessel #1 taught me a few things and whilst I don't have a hankering to continue much with making bowls there are a few other things I can think of that have sculptural qualities that I've got on my list but first up is another foray into making paper

and so the adventures continue...

wishing all of you a  New Year that inspires and delights you, one filled with interesting adventures of your own

take care,

jillayne

continuing

a slash of colour, watery, drifting across the paper, then another...

the pencil draws a gently curving line

grey ink, words flowing up on one side, down on the other

more colour, faint

exaggerated letter forms, ascenders rising high through thin winter light

words as lost on the page as they are when spoken on a frigid winter day, frozen in mid-air only to fall back to earth, breaking into pieces and lying strewn on the ground

my sheet is slowly filling, each section adding something different even though the words all come from the same place, repeated over and over in my mind and with the pen until we are one

I love that I no longer have to think what to write... the beauty of repetition, and a single source; the pen touches the paper and the words flow, one tumbling after the other

many strokes are shaky, tentative, still trembling in the newness, unfamiliar

there is a sadness in the knowing that with dedication to a daily practice the hesitancy that creates those shaky lines will eventually be lost and from then I will ceaselessly be trying to recapture it

tape as resist, creates interruptions and interjections... calligraphy following the "rules" of spoken conversation

there is a joy, a freedom, to be found in making a mark as you please, sending a line down when it would go up and vice versa, bending them this way and that

pushing the limits of how far you can take a letter from it's norm and still have it be recognizable, though perhaps not necessarily immediately

it becomes almost a game, one with no rules nor boundaries

there are only four spaces left to be filled on this large sheet of paper and then it gets made into a book, the folding, tearing and folding again creating new combinations and hopefully yet more inspiration

this has been a lovely, thoughtful and methodical way to close out the year and one I have truly enjoyed

wishing you all the best for 2026, and may you also find that which fascinates and inspires you

take care,

jillayne

word play

another quiet week...

I took the luxury of spending four days in the studio, working on some calligraphy ideas from a course I took a while back

trying all sorts of interesting techniques and ideas, taking photographs as I went

this one illumined one of those "happy accidents" that occur every now and again where two sections, done days apart, seem to come together to make a scene reminiscent of trees, a field and lines of grass

intrigued, I decided to have a play with the idea a bit...

thinking of a winter night by the river,  and wanting something not completely pictorial I settled on an upright slash of blue for the river, intersected with a full silver moon

a bank of trees on the right, using the words from the "Spell of the Yukon" beginning with:

"the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming

and the stars tumbled out neck and crop"

and continuing on from there 

as this was a "working out the ideas" piece I chose a fairly heavyweight cartridge paper but it buckled under the silver leaf sizing

other observations:

the band of the river is too wide for the size of the moon

I'd like the moon to have more interest - more texture perhaps and a crater or two

a bit of tweaking here and there with spacing and shape of the trees...

the ground needs to change

even with all that I'm very pleased and think there's good potential with this

so pleased in fact,  it spurred me on to try something else; a line of blue again, darker, and this time with the writing on top of it

I like it very much though I haven't settled on what to do with the rest of the space

and so the work on the large sheet progresses though I do want to try things that are little more involved

 it's all a bit out of my comfort zone so lots of trials and writing practice are happening, 

along with being on the lookout for any other interesting combinations or juxtapositions that happen on the page as I go

they do make for a nice side-step into further investigations

take care,

Jillayne

in the quiet

in the quiet of the past week I've been puttering away at organizing my studio working space

I am forever dealing with an incessant array of paper scraps with scribbled notes on everything from creative insights to process revelations and everything in-between along with small stacks of supplies for works-in-progress

those have now been brought back under control and as the quiet days of winter are here I finally find myself in a place where its time to choose what I'm going to work on for the next while

so back to the river I go

I have a loose plan for the work I want to do, based on the same ideas I've had for many, many months, some for a couple of years, but as time passed I found some of those ideas had lost a bit of their lustre; they are now getting a boost from new insights

to feed that thinking, and perhaps take some of it a step or two further, I pulled out a sketchbook where I had worked through different ways of depicting aspects of the river in paper, cloth and stitch

organic lines, straight lines - tucks and gathers and random stitches became water, ice, current, drift wood

lace for the water froth at the rapids

marbled paper for a swirling current

and thankfully, all are fully annotated

(insert a smug smile here)

I think this next page of work holds a lot of potential, especially that piece of ragged grey lace

it has me thinking of the small channels that open up in the ice only to disappear again

over the next few weeks I'll be taking some of the ideas shown here and working them in to what I'd been doing and try to finally move some this work forward

and there goes the state of the studio again!

Thanks for stopping by,

Jillayne

nourish

a slow week this one... some long-awaited surgery took place on Monday and since then I've been dealing with daily bouts of nausea and dizziness thanks to the after effects of general anesthesia

the urge to work creatively was a stubborn one though and I had in my mind a textured "frosty" base for some winter-inspired calligraphy

over the course of the last few days I made a start...

it began with layers of white gesso scraped and smeared on heavy-weight cold-pressed watercolour paper

alternating between smoothing and scraping along with some scratching into and then flowing on indigo pigment followed by granulating watercolour, I slowly built up what I thought to be an interesting surface, one that looked appropriately "cold"

using window mounts I blocked off interesting areas where a word or phrase could be penned

pleased, I started on a list of possible words:

frost

frozen stillness

snowflakes

snowdrifts

sparkling snow

you get the idea... 

next was to start playing with different ways of writing the words, perhaps adding flourishes, thinking about style - jagged and rough like the ice itself or the branches that have been frosted with it?

what about curved and flowing like the wind that blew the snowflakes down?

and what colour of ink?

it was all interesting and felt creative enough but it also felt over-planned... maybe contrived, perhaps not yet, but definitely approaching that state

as I sat debating the various options other words, ones I had read the day before, floated in my mind

"dive deeply into the creative instinct... whatever form it happens to take

nourish the imagination

cultivate a practice of attention, to the mysteries and yearnings of our own hearts"

- Sue Monk Kidd

a practice of attention, to my own heart

the words rolled around and around, and I knew instantly I had not been doing that, not for a while

I liked what I'd been working on, it was interesting and challenging, but it was not what I had to do, it was what I thought I wanted to do

I love words and paint and letters and I like working with them in ways that intrigue me but I don't yearn for them, at least not regularly

what does fire me up though, what gets the wheels turning, the what-ifs flowing, is textiles

its been a good long while since I played with fabric or ribbon or thread but it didn't take long for me to find my ribbon box and start pulling out everything I could find that spoke those same winter words through their colour or texture

just looking at them lit a spark, and there it was...

a little dose of nourishment for a creative heart

take care,

Jillayne

circling...

around and around I go...

I read something a few years back about artists noticing things in a way that is different from most other people... a rather generalized statement and certainly not an absolute though I think one that rings true more often than not

I've thought that about a lot since then, especially when I am out and about with friends and family who do not make art... they are at once puzzled, bemused, sighing, and sometimes discovering they too are interested in whatever it is that has caught my attention

so too with some of the different artistic techniques I find myself playing with from time to time though my husband becomes rather fearful when discovering me working with a new medium concerned I am falling into a big, black, bottomless pit that will surely result win the backyard turning into a cotton or flax field, or waking up one day to the addition of a sheep or two for wool

tempting, but I've never gone that far

I do like to try out interesting things I see online or in books though, and not long ago I became intrigued with folding paper and then painting/staining it with either watercolour paint or ink 

I chose a rather soft paper of unknown content, rather thick but one that tore and creased easily, so I drew a grid and scored it

folding this way and that, hills and valleys, the paper immediately started to degrade and split along the fold lines

a wash of walnut ink I made with walnut crystals and a splash of gum arabic in solution along with some water followed

it was interesting to see how folds resisted the ink - I thought the "broken" paper would grab it more and the lines would be darker rather than lighter

I then did another, this time with only straight lines, mixed media paper and watercolour paint

here the folds did not degrade the paper, the paint settled on them and they came out darker 

some cold winter day I'm going to cut a pile of different paper samples and do a round of sampling folds and washes - sampling is always a fun way to spend the day and at the end I get a wonderful resource

 but at the time of doing these it was high summer so they were set aside and I thought no more about them until going through my photos today and saw this

a photo taken last May whilst in the Yukon - it's part of the riverboat "The Tutshi" that caught fire many years ago

looking down into the charred remains of the hull I was quite taken with the effect the fire had on the wood, the patterns created, the texture and the colours

As I looked at it I thought of the folded, stained papers I had done and a thought occurred... that just might be the perfect technique to emulate the burnt wood

the rest of the group wandered along but I remained rooted in place for a good long while, looking, thinking and photographing - nothing particular in mind, more an interested noticing to file away for some day

I love how if you follow these whims, the ones for making and the ones for pausing to look closely at something they can circle around and around, one leading to the other, a connection made

the two coming together, another idea born

take care,

Jillayne