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October 20, 2007

artist's way guided intent (october) & misc book arts

by gl. at 8:38 pm

update 10.21.07: updated the planisphere link. thanks for catching that, sven!

two (!) tuesdays ago michaelmas & i went to the "vamp & tramp" trunk show at 23 sandy, which is a stunning collection of artist's books travelling around the country. michaelmas was impressed with "true to life" by julie chen. i loved a book called "read" whose pages were initially red but would turn white with exposure to heat, so while holding it and reading the primary story, another story would be revealed beneath it.

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the next day, wednesday, was the october guided intent here at the studio. the rainy season prompts us to turn inward, which is a good excuse to literally try to "find yourself" by creating a lifemap. lifemaps are a way to visually explore relationships between the people, places and events that have been important to you.

in what i think is a studio first, bridget wrote about her lifemap on her blog! i've never known anyone to write about these events on their own sites when they leave, so this delighted me. it's good to know this stuff is actually happening and i'm not just making it all up, right? it's good to share the consensual hallucination. ;) plus, it's really lovely to see more insight about a piece develop over time. in addition to lifemaps, this month birch won a metallic marker to gild the edges of autumn leaves, and everyone went home with a wish token in their pocket.

alliterationcube.jpg
[planisphere: click to see more lifemaps!]

i was obviously hugely influenced by the most recent book i've been reading: dava sobel's the planets. i almost always love astronomy books, but this is beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. i found myself marking almost every page. it's poetry. it's what i want to be when i grow up.

so i created a little planisphere here: since the format is naturally meant to mark change over time, the "constellations" represent variously "ascending" art-parts of my life: theatre, poetry, computers, calligraphy & facilitation. in the center is my "solar system" at the studio. i very much like this concept; there's a lot more to explore here!

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i still want to write about the open studio/collage night we hosted a couple of nights ago, but the next studio event is another guided intent: "possibility," where we'll use a variety of fortune-telling tricks as writing prompts. we'll create poetry using coins, cards, cookies & tea leaves!

then we'll host our first 2-day workshop: not just a pretty face. we hosted this as a 1-day workshop last time and decided there was so much to cover it would be better as a 2-day workshop, so you'll have plenty of time to study the masters and create rough drafts the first day, then come back refreshed and ready to dive into your final painting the next day!

posted by gl. | October 20, 2007 8:38 PM | categories: artist's way, exhibits & events, printing