Nature and Goddesses

I am participating in an altered book round robin. We are each doing our own theme and Pascale's is "Nature and Goddesses". I chose the goddess Venus because she is the goddess of fertility. I created a lino cut of a statue of Venus which had been discovered in Romania.

Truth, Secrets and Lies

I belong to the Altered Books Europe Yahoo Group (ABEurope). We are currently doing a round robin, each with our own theme. Jacqueline's theme is "Truth, Secrets and Lies". I have been thinking about how to approach this and could only come up with "infidelity" and political lies such as weapons of mass destruction (or not) in Iraq and the existence of God. None of which I was comfortable exploring in somebody else's book. So, I googled for poetry. (One of my work colleagues reckons that Google is "Go Ogle" and I reckon he is right.) I found two poems that were possibilities, Secrets and Lies by Cleola and Secrets and Lies by Hannah Baukert (aged 11). I chose Hannah Baukert's poem. I browsed through some other poems on this page and was concerned that children of such a young age would have such insight. I am 50 now so may be wearing rose tinted spectacles, life became tough for me at aged 11, but I still did not feel as bad as some of these children. Selfish Pain by Leah Hamilton, My Secret by Nicola Churchman, Millie's Secret by Emily Wayne and My Big Secret by Tiffany are just a few that I find disturbing.

Any way, when I was in Sommerhausen with TJ and Carol, just last month (it feels like such an age away), I created a lino print. TJ is really into printing and has encouraged me to do so myself. We did a print in Jacqueline's book ready for when it came to me. TJ had it when we were in Sommerhause, it went on to Eileen and then I received it a week or so ago. This is the original print.




I have been doing an art journal course with Carol at the FiberPaperArts yahoo group. She encourages us to cover things (particularly text) with gesso and paint. So, I decided to do the same with this page, leaving a heart as the main motif. Hannah' s poem is about not breaking hearts by revealing secrets or telling lies. I chose a vibrant section of the print to retain for the heart.



I glued a heart down using my xyron and repositionable glue and painted the page with gesso. I was surprised (because my memory is rubbish) to find that the ink "spread". It was a happy happenstance. The glued heart was then removed. I learned yesterday at a workshop how to make rubber stamps with funky or fab foam and created a couple of hearts which I stamped onto the page. I also found some bright red heart brads, which I painted purple and also a plastic heart frame. Finally, a padlock has been added because Hannah is locking other people's secrets away so they are not revealed.



The right hand page was painted with purple paint and stamped with my newly made heart stamps. The poem was then written on it. The poem title has been painted, which is a positive move for me because in the past I have not been able to keep inside the lines when using a paint brush. I decided that there was too much space so used my favourite stencil of curlicues.

Sommerhausen

Last week, I went to Sommerhausen in Germany to meet up with TJ, a member of my altered books Yahoo group. It is so nice meeting up with people in real life that you have met on the Internet. TJ and I have known each other for a bout 3 years but this is the first time we have met in person.

TJ organised the hotel and work room for us, we just had to bring some "toys" and turn up. I decided to travel by train. I have never been under the channel before. We travelled on Thursday January 29th and stayed in Brussels for that afternoon and the following morning. We then travelled from Brussels to Frankfurt and Frankfurt to Wurzberg. TJ picked us up and drove us the 20 minutes or so to Sommerhausen. Sommerhausen is in North Bavaria.

We had an enormous room for us to work in, there were only three of us most of time. TJ's friend Petra came on Saturday.

A lot of what we did was printing be it screen printing (I had taken my print gocco along with me), lino cutting - TJ brought along some fab lino and tools for us, polystyrene "stamps". DH saved some pizza circles for me and I took half of one with me and TJ made this most fabulous print. I also tried some pzcut but it didn't do it for me. Petra and TJ were both pleased to hear my tip for cutting lino, iron it and when it is warm it is a lot easier to cut. Sara, my first art teacher as an adult, taught me that.

Some photos about the area may appear on the blog in due course. The crafty ones which are about to come next are more important though!