A New Journal
I journaled this morning and last week in a journal that was unbound, is unbound, but day by day, is getting closer to being a finished book. I am daunted by the filming of the making. The step-by-stepping, and the mistakes made from the awkwardness of being under the camera a few inches away from where I’d normally work.
The books I am making are new to me. Each a figuring from old materials. Not habit. Imperfect. Exploratory. My favourite to make, to use. But to show the process is something other. And a thing I am thinking about adding to my Substack: Making books from old stuff. How I started bookbinding.
#the100DayProject
Yesterday a title arrived and the etching of it is Day 19: Little Windows
I love a title. It is a frame or a window around a project. A form less murky. A place to return to. Little Windows, an opening. My etchings are improving and I am obsessing over the practice nearly as much as I am obsessing over ungardening this week, leaving the rest of my life jammed into tinier windows. More frames, structures, things better known sometimes benefit from this smallening, and in the end, most of the boxes are checked. Check.
But the seeing that I started this project for hasn’t improved. Conversely, my attempt to see in the darkness feels more difficult. Maybe it isn’t for me to see this way. I thought I’d find a magical land but instead, a thicker darkness.
Maybe I am looking at this wrong. In the etchings that aren’t numbered, I scrape into the tetrapak the view outside my window without my glasses. I etch an inky drawing of a photograph, and again, with blurry vision, scrape. There are so many ways to see.
Drawing Workout
I signed up for an online drawing class with Cristóbal Schmal, that I am loving already, only one week in. In order to do all of the things I desire, I must tangle them all together. Here is the first exercise. A zoom into things found in nature in a grid. I couldn’t zoom in and kept drawing the things as I saw them. I finally made a little window and there I was! A tiny thing in the big world of a little thing.
I may have gotten carried away with all of these Little Windows. My mind explodes with new ways to see!
now, a way to use old slide holders after removing the film from the frame!
You are incredible! I love your wordings. I wish I coulda figured out Substack. But not the time for patience right now. My now is about relaxing into things. Because my life feels so too big. So I’m making models for future fodder and, gluing them in my handbound book feels right. Pics on my insta HarpsArtBaltimore.