Good Things

Before I get to the new toys, make that tools, I have acquired recently I want to invite you to check out all the new paste paper listed on my Etsy site. When you read on you will see why I have been so prolific. It’s the tools!!
http://albiesmith.etsy.com
It amazes me how long I let myself do things the hard way. All these years I have been working with paper and drying it on every horizontal surface I could find, mostly the floor. All that bending and making sure the paint didn’t get where it shouldn’t. Finally I broke down and bought a paper drying rack. I don’t have space for the big one I wanted so my criteria was that I had to be able to move it around and the shelves had to be flat, not at a slant so if there was a lot of soupy paste on the paper it wouldn’t drip. I decided on a portable table rack thinking I could keep it in the garage and carry it into the studio when I needed it. But it’s a bit heavy for me and awkward to carry so I wound up buying a cute red utility cart from Harbor Freight for it to live on. (The cart is a whole other story.)

Anyway, the whole set-up stays in the studio and it has to because I use it all the time now. The shelves are about an inch apart so getting a wet piece of paper on the shelf is tricky. They are hinged so they lift which makes it easier, but there you are with a wet, limp piece of paper which might take two hands to maneuver. So how to lift the shelf too.

My smart friend, Barbara, came up with hooking a bungee cord on to hold the shelves up so that two hands are enough.



I bought my rack from http://www.dickblick.com/products/double-sided-tabletop-rack/
It was about $175 with the shipping and it is worth every dollar.

The other tool I bought this year is a tear bar. They call it a draftsman straight edge at Talasonline.com (this is a great place to get gorgeous book cloth too) http://apps.webcreate.com/ecom/catalog/product_specific.cfm?ClientID=15&ProductID=27890 I think www.danielsmith.com has them too.

I think mine is the 36” one. Don’t even ask me why I waited so long to get this wonderful piece of equipment. The beveled edge makes such a nice torn edge on my paper when I tear it down for the pages of a handmade book. I have been using a carpenter’s square for years and it is adequate. But the tear bar is the right tool for the job.
Okay, this last one isn’t a tool, it is paper and a recent addition to stuff I have to have. Mostly I sourced this so that there is a paper that is readily available to my students who want to make paste paper at home. It isn’t as heavy as what I usually use but it works fine. It doesn’t have as much wet strength as the Superfine #100 I use but if you don’t work it to the point that it weakens and tears I think you will be happy with it. And it is inexpensive. It is Utrecht drawing paper, #70, 12” x 18” and comes in a pack of 100 sheets for $10.99.
http://www.utrechtart.com/dsp_view_product.cfm?item=70694
Winter is on the way and it is a great time to get into your workroom and dive into all those art supplies you had to have but never used. Invite a friend over and share the bounty. Enjoy the freedom and play.

First Studio Workshop!

What a glorious morning. It’s raining a bit and the sky is grey but it is warm and color filled inside my snug little house. Stella is stretched out on the bed and I am working at my portable desk which is a bed tray from Pier One which I use as a laptop table. The reason for my enthusiasm this morning is that this weekend I taught my first three day workshop in my home and everyone loved it, including me. Three gals came from different parts of California and stayed in B & B’s in the area and spent their days in my studio totally immersed in whatever they wanted to do. Ooohh, now I wish I had taken some pictures at lunch time. We had GREAT food for lunch and snacks, most of it made especially for us by Nora who owns my favorite restaurant which is a few miles down the road.

Anyway, back to the workshop. Everyone had slightly different goals they wanted to focus on but one thing was in common and that was they all wanted to make lots of paste paper. So we started mixing the paste and the colors. The challenge I presented was that they tweak each color and not use it straight out of the tube. This led to some fabulous colors. Unfortunately we made so many choices and didn’t keep track of what we mixed with what so some colors were impossible to duplicate. No one but me seemed to be bothered by this. There was a fabulous grey, brown, with a purple tone that I made that everyone loved. When I tried to replicate it we wound up with about 5 different grey black mixes that were nowhere near as interesting. I will be making a lot of paste paper with shades of black in the next few days.


All three women are people I have worked with before and they wanted to do more surface design techniques and book binding. So we chose two books to start with; the one I call Sculpture or Book and the Episodic Journal.
What I enjoyed about working with only three people is that we could spend time concentrating on whatever particular thing they wanted to learn. The feeling of satisfaction is huge for me as an instructor when I see the progression in someone’s work. When they feel their time and resources were well spent and when they love their creations, well, it’s the best.
For years I have wanted to work with small groups and provide the kind of experience I have in my studio where there are lots of choices, plenty of time, and just about every art supply and color of paint you could possibly want at your fingertips.
My plan is to have several of these workshops throughout the coming year. In warm weather there will be handmade paper workshops out on the deck!

So let me know if you’re interested in coming to Jacksonville and playing in the color with me. It just takes three people to make a workshop. albiepapersmith@gmail.com

I will be posting my 2011 teaching schedule for the events I travel to soon. There will be some new venues along with some tried and true.

THE SKETCHBOOK PROJECT 2011

The first person to alert me to The Sketchbook Project was Diane Oswald, who I met in my workshops in Hampton, Virginia both years I taught there. Her blog entry on the work she did in my classes is worth checking out for sure.

http://mylittlecraftyworld.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-06-17T07:00:00-04:00&max-results=10

So anyway, I looked at the Sketchbook Project on line and was very interested. But at the time was so immersed in the remodeling project here at the house I couldn’t imagine taking on anything else. Well, The Sketchbook Project 2011 http://arthousecoop.com/ kept being suggested to me and I guess it was like the hundred monkey thing and I found myself emailing people and suggesting they do it and suddenly I had to also. Last time I checked there were over 16,000 people participating. So I signed up and even signed up a friend for her birthday present. My hidden agenda is that when the sketchbooks go on tour and appear in San Francisco my friends and I will have the perfect reason to spend some together there.

I have moved into the house. And on Friday we initiated the studio space doing paste paper. It was a magical day for me. Ignoring the many boxes that need unpacking, the piles of stuff I have accumulated that I have no space for in this little house I dove into the color and played for hours. It was one of those days that just flowed. No struggle.

There is still work to do on the house, especially on the exterior but it is quite livable. And Stella the incredible cat and I love it here. We have lots of trees and space outside, a beautiful new deck and much less traffic in this neck of the woods. At some point I will post some photos. Promise. But now I must concentrate on getting ready for teaching and vending at Art & Soul in Portland in October.

It's going to be a fabulous year 2011

Wow! Thanks to everyone who signed up for my workshops at Art & Soul Hampton 2011 and An Artful Journey 2011. There are only 4 spaces left in my Artful Journey class! And the Hampton workshops made a good showing for the first day of sign ups too. It's good feedback to see what grabs people right away. It's the paste paper and surface design on paper that folks go for first. It's what grabs me too with it's endless possibilities.

I remember the first time I made paste paper. It was at California College of Arts and Crafts in maybe 1990 at a week long workshop with Nance O'Banion assisted by Chris Rolick. Nance asked me what I wanted help with and I said, just don't let me keep doing the same thing over and over. So there I am blissed out working with metallic colors on black paper and doing the same thing over and over until she caught me and made me do something else. (I still have some of them, I made that much.) Nance is also the one who showed me "blowouts", the patterned handmade paper I make. Of course that week was what turned out to be an introduction to many of the techniques that I have gone on to explore and develop for the past couple of decades.

Every so often I wind up having a cup of tea in Berkeley at Nance's to see what she is up to. It's always something wonderful. One time my friend Bonnie and I contracted with Nance to have a private workshop in her home studio for several days. We work very differently, Bonnie and I. Where anything goes with me, Bonnie is precise and neat and has a very, very, very, refined aesthetic. So there we were, each doing our thing and not collaborating at all. I am envious of these cool gold papers Bonnie is making so they show me how to do it but it's painstaking and I don't have the patience so I won't play. Besides, I probably knew eventually I would get Bonnie to give me some. (She did.) In those days we had a thing where we would make paper and at the end of the day give some of our favorites to the other. So Nance is gently guiding, assisting, midwifing us both and I am thinking how different our work and in fact how different Bonnie and I are.

On the last day Nance had us display our work as if it were a show in a gallery. It was amazing. Our work was all of a piece. It all went together and it was beautiful. We were having a conversation through our art.

That is happiness and love.

You just don't know, do you, what's going to happen. You take a workshop and you may just change your life.

An Artful Journey February 2011

It's registration time for An Artful Journey 2011. If you are thinking of an in-depth workshop in a fabulous setting this might be the venue for you. Of course I am curious to see if my offerings are as tempting to others as they are to me. Some of the other workshops would interest me if I were not working. Check out the website, it might be just the thing to brighten your winter next year. http://www.anartfuljourney.com/retreats/feb2011/index.html

There is a lot going on in my life, it feels as layered and colorful as the paste paper I make.

But out of chaos some things come together, kind of like a book. So I have been getting the teaching jobs lined up for next year, designing new workshops, and working on my house. I will be moving in at the end of the month. YAY for team Albie, who are working like crazy people.

Oh, and the guest book I complained about in the previous blog entry that I made for my niece's wedding was a hit, as was the event itself. We had so much fun for three glorious days. The families really played together and got to know each other. My niece, her parents and her friends did an amazing job creating the most romantic wedding I have ever attended. Life is full, rich and fun. Oh, and it's work and that is fun too.

All's Well That Ends Well

So much has been going on around here. Well, not right now as I am being held captive by my worried cat Stella. She knows I am going away. It started when I unearthed a pile of clothes looking for something to wear to my niece’s wedding at the beach this weekend. Stella has come to associate clothing piled on the bed as preparation for my departure. So she climbed up on my lap a half hour ago and has me just where she wants me. So finishing the guest book I am making for the bride and groom will have to wait until my companion gets her fill and moves on to whatever pulls at her next. In theory I am very happy to make a book for the wedding. In practice I find it hard to do. There weren’t many requests about how the book should look so why do I feel so restricted? It reminds me why I do not do custom orders. I really get twisted up inside. If I just make what I want to make and people like it and maybe even buy it, well, isn’t that every artist’s dream? YES. So I am lying in bed last night feeling unsure about what I had created so far and realized I just need to play more, paint more paper with Anna and Blake in my heart and see if this thing can evolve and stop feeling so stilted. What I have makes a perfectly nice book. For someone. But for my wonderful niece and her beloved, nice is not enough. They deserve special. If Stella ever gets off my lap I will go and see what wants to happen.
But she isn’t moving so I will tell you that last week I finished my proposals for Art and Soul in Hampton, Virginia and An Artful Journey in Los Gatos, California in 2011.

The Artful Journey is a sure thing as only 5 instructors are invited and do not have to be juried in. I will be teaching a three day workshop at the Presentation Center, which is a lovely place. Cindy Woods O’Leary produces this retreat and she does a magnificent job. It is simply wonderful. And I think my workshop will be too. Look at what we will be up to at http://www.anartfuljourney.com/retreats/feb2011/albiesmith.html

I have to wait to see about the Art and Soul event. That is a juried process and you throw your hat in the ring with many, many instructors and Glenny Densem- Moir and her fellow jurists put together a fabulous mix. I love working for Art & Soul. I’ve been doing it for so long it feels like a family reunion when I get there. It’s exciting to be in a place where there are hundreds of folks doing art projects and building community. What a privilege it is to be a part of Art & Soul and I do appreciate the opportunity to share what I love. However, the writing up of the proposals is agony for me, as is most of the businessy stuff one has to do in life. It’s a huge relief when the photos and proposals are sent off. On the bright side of the business aspect is my dear friend Elliott Night to. She helps with all things written, official and computer related. Yay, Elliott!

Okay, it’s later and I am moving along on what was once that wretched guest book for Anna’s wedding. I wouldn’t say I was “cookin’ with gas” as Elliott likes to say when she hits the groove, but it’s freeing up now and I can feel a stream pulling me onward. It helped when I abandoned those dinky stamps Anna left me to use and pulled out my hand carved stamp of a heart surrounded by flames.
I can get into that.

My Old House

June 20, 2010
I thought I would never do this again, but here I am remodeling an old house. This is a cottage I bought 17 years ago and it was pretty much a wreck back then. The work put into it in the early 90’s has been used up by time and the lives of some lovely people who tenanted the house over the years. So it’s time to fix it up and move into it myself later this summer. It’s a modest little house built in 1950 on a piece of land that is at the edge of the town of Jacksonville, Oregon. I have almost an acre of land and, praise be, neighbors on only one side so far and open land wherever else I look. Of course, as these things go there is always more work that needs to be done than time and money to do it. I am looking at a multi stage project and have decided to tackle those jobs that are most important to me in this first phase. Energy efficient windows are the top priority along with replacing all the doors with solid wood ones. And air conditioning, which led to needing a new furnace. (That put a dent in the budget.) And I need a nice bedroom with a wood floor and a glass door out to the deck we are going to build in the back. That will be where the handmade paper will happen. The indoor studio will be in the larger of the two bedrooms. The walls and ceilings need to be resurfaced throughout the house. The bathroom and kitchen are boring, but functional, and so they will just get a new coat of paint for now and I will dream about their upgrades in the cold of next winter.
July 2, 2010
Yikes, the project has grown! Surprise, surprise. Jay, my friend and building remodeler, has come up with lots of ideas to make this house work for me. So that sheet rock that needed resurfacing, well, now there are new holes, new walls, and I guess those guys will be around here working a bit longer than I had anticipated. But all that is still in the future as we are waiting for the doors and windows to be delivered. There is still lots to do to in the meantime. Just finding the right color paint for the exterior was a challenge. First I had to get over the fact that the building code in Jacksonville dictates color. There are a lot of choices but it was the principle of there being a rule that got to me. Oh, you didn’t know I have a thing about authority? After buying a couple of colors and sampling and rejecting them, I just went and knocked on the door of a house I like a couple of blocks away. They were happy to share the information on the paint they used. Should have done that in the first place; I had been admiring that house for the past year. Speaking of which, I have to get into town this morning to get some of that paint. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.