Byron Bay Writers Festival

I have completed my stint as artist-in-residence at the Byron Bay Writers Festival....
and an interesting time it was too...

I set up a project specific blog here

where I experimented with mobile blogging as an active part of my residency.
I've also ruminated on the experience at my usual bloggy home.

During my brief residency I completed 3 main off-site ephemeral installations
(books books and more books)

 

I worked onsite from Thursday August 4 -
when I set up a collaborative sculptural piece using the slave labour
of Northern Rivers high school students to make
thousands of origami book hearts to complete a version of a book tower work

On the main festival days (Friday 5 - Sunday 7 August)
I completed more ephemeral book installations onsite 

and also spent the days binding my latest very loooooong book -
which certainly got the public's attention -
allowing some lovely conversations to develop.

I was really pleased with the work I was able to produce in the very short stint

and I'm keen to complete some of the pieces -
turning work into a small zine (or two)
a small photographic series
and perhaps a blurb book

we'll see

I will continue to work on my loooooong book

(it's a loooong way from completion)

but I also have a monster load of other arty commitments
over the next short while!

....

research poster...

Completed over the last weekend - my academic research poster for art and design display at gippsland campus (and for the academic research poster competition....)

(click for monster embiggen)

slow growing...

my slow book is slowly growing...

in the evening,
the fire is glowing,
our kidlins have stared dreaming their dreams
(we are early-to-bed, early-to-rise farm folk, so kidlins are usually fast asleep by 8pm)

I get out my booky bundles and start stitching... 

the book creature spills from my lap and along the lounge chair

it's almost 2m 'long' already (how did that happen?)

often one of the beastie cats curls itself inside the book coils...
careful not to tread on the pages - good cats!

I pat the cat and the book 

and go back to stitching

With hands engaged, my mind can wander

I am thinking about my forthcoming BIG road trip to Byron Bay Writers Festival

for my stint as the Festival's first ever artist-in-residence

(gulp)

 I've decided to take this emerging book creature with me

(I'm sure it would appreciate a good road trip -
just as I would appreciate the comforting presence
of a book to stitch...)

...

meetings....

 The last few days have been all meetings meetings meetings... 

Yesterday I was at Bermagui...

 

Arts Network meeting - special guests included Elizabeth Rogers (CEO Regional Arts NSW), Libby Christie (Australia Council Executive Director Arts Funding), Lindy Hume (Sydney Festival Director, chair South East Arts).....

 Bermagui ('bermy') is one town over from my hometown... a small fishing port (and now the fishing industry has all but collapsed.... so it's a town in transition...)

(looking through the boats and water toward Gulaga and my home at Sams Creek - to the left and at the base of the mother mountain)


As soon as I got home it was phone meeting time - with the director of Byron Bay Writers Festival - trying to work out details of my forthcoming appointment as festival artists in residence...... hmmmmmmmm its going to be 'interesting' - I'm very much having to make my own way with this residency (and as the inaugural AiR I am feeling a bit of the pressure to 'get it right'...... ahhh if only I had more time.... only a few weeks until I have to hit the road and weave a bit of booky magic... yikes)



...

down monash way....

 Winter Symposium 2011

day time - talk talk talk ....
night time - talk talk talk ....

 mulled red wine

 this year - a small collaborative book project to punctuate the talk talk talk.....

 

 (my contribution)

 

lovely covers and book collation by Rosalind Atkins

(lovely)

then home again home again

(yay)

...

winter symposium 2011....

Only a few days until I have to head off on my annual sojourn to university.... I know I shouldn't whine - I only have to take my body off to uni for a couple of days each year - it shouldn't be too onerous eh? welllllll I guess it wouldn't be, if only I liked leaving my creek home!!!!! (which I most definitely DO NOT!!!!)


ahhhh me!

I have been preparing small sections of my latest BIG booky project to keep my fingers busy in between all the presentations.... I think better when my fingers are kept busy....

This week I've been working on my presentation. I like to be VERY prepared.... so I have created a power point AND an i-photo album for i-pad  (this year I'm hoping to plug in either my i-pad or i-phone to the digi projector and take it from there). In order for my talk to seem quite fluid and natural, I don't write a formal speech as such, instead I practice what I want to say over and over again, refining the contents and then I write a few notes to use as prompts... The public speaking part of presenting actually doesn't faze me at all, but that's because I DO prepare so damn thoroughly!

I just wish there was a way for me to prepare for leaving my kidlins behind, or avoid the guilt factor of leaving my partner to shoulder a huge workload in my absence... and how to avoid the shocking homesickness I experience every time I leave my creek home...

I'm never going to be a worldly vagabond traveller...

I'm just a simple creek girl who doesn't like to be away from her creek home.....


....

piercing and binding

 I've started to pierce all the sections that have white spines....

I'm still cutting and folding and bundling encyclopaedia pages (so many yet to do) but I have hatched a cunning plan to start binding this monster.... as I will be commencing the binding with the sections that sport the purest white spines - I've got enough of these already stacked to let me start piercing and binding....

Today I start the binding....

ahead of me stretches months more of cutting and folding and bundling and sorting and piercing and sewing.....

slow work

...