“Flower Pleasure: Books, Bookmarks, and Watercolors” at the Miller Library

I’ve so neglected the blog for all these months, but now I wonder what I could possibly have said about our ongoing dire straits. Each week brings some new sadness, for humanity, for the environment, or double outrages like last week’s decisions. Maybe I would have given up anyway – turned completely to painting a record of the wonders we have in flowers and plants – as I seem to have done for the Miller Library show!

My show at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library opens on July 5, 2022, and continues until July 28, 2022, with a “Meet the Artist” from 3-5 p.m. on Thursday, July 7, 2022. (Hours and location on their website: https://depts.washington.edu/hortlib/)

Oh, I have enjoyed making this work. The Miller Library inspired much of it – particularly John Gerard’s “The Herball” from 1597. The illustrations provided images to adapt for bookmarks I made specially for the Miller as a fundraiser – 36 bookmarks, each with an illustration redrawing a woodblock image from Gerard and a quote from a gardening book (most available at the Miller).

I also greatly enlarged and painted the images with watercolor for two large paintings.

And for a set of 12 accordion fold books, “A Flower Year: Books I-XII,” I wrote, and digitally printed short essays and printed, then hand-painted, images. Here are Books I and VI:

The exhibition includes a 15-foot long (when extended) accordion book titled, “A Pumpkin Season,” and the series of drawings “Mornings at the V&A,” which first appeared here on the blog, and now will be in the Miller’s wonderful, glassed tabletop display cases.

I’d love to see you at the “Meet the Artist” – if not, I still hope you might have a chance to visit the Miller, such a treasure for those who love plants and gardens. This librarian’s article really describes it well: (https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/236591#page/35/mode/1up).

A visit would make a great day out – a pleasure to ride the light rail to the University of Washington Station, then walk below the UW athletic buildings, through the Union Bay Natural Area to the library in the Center for Urban Horticulture. (Info: https://botanicgardens.uw.edu/center-for-urban-horticulture/visit/maps-trails/)

True summer has arrived now in the Northwest – and I wish you a really enjoyable one!

Postcards for May

     Happy May to all! I hope spring finds you well and enjoying our emergence from winter’s dark tunnel. Perhaps because it stands in stark contrast to Putin’s barbaric behavior, this spring has seemed more delicious than ever before – alive with beauty and birdsong.

     As an escape from things one can do nothing about, my mind has been much occupied with flower images for my solo show at the Elisabeth C. Miller Library in July. So, when the Bainbridge Island of Arts and Crafts recently requested postcards for their first-ever mail art exhibition, I adapted some of the drawings I did for part of the Miller show.

John Gerard published “The Herball” in 1597 – full of errors and appropriations from other authors – the woodblock illustrations are nonetheless charming and a great pleasure to draw from. (For the show in July, I also enlarged some of the woodblock images into big watercolors!)

I’ve heard that hundreds of original postcards have been donated and will be for sale as a fundraiser for the non-profit gallery – it should be fun! (On view from this Friday, May 6 until May 29, 2022.)

Here are my offerings, along with all best wishes for spring to you!

January Thoughts

In spite of early snow and torrential rain (no exaggeration), the frost on Sunday felt decisively January.

On a sunny walk, my mind buzzed with thoughts of my commonplace book idea. I’d imagined 24 small books about flowers for the beautiful glass cases at the Miller, but lately, I’ve questioned that plan.

     Now I think about taller books, still about flowers, the year in flowers. Just a sampler, and, of course, Washington flowers this time. Some of the months will require revisiting past notes and blogs. And because the books’ size will better allow stems, I can begin with the branches of January.

     In these early months I get to check memory against reality – and observe new things – like this beginning to bud Ribes sanguineum decorated for some unknown reason with a teeny, tiny knitted hat!  

The Spring March

Everyone, everywhere seems to be glad to see the last of February this year – moving happily on to the promise of March!

And the booksellers Vamp and Tramp just leapfrogged over spring and feature my foldbooks “Summer Into Fall” with their offerings this month. (It’s a privilege to be included and always a pleasure to look at the artists’ books on their site (here).

Seeing those images reminds me of that best time of year here – hot days and harvest food. But, though chilly weather will linger before real warmth arrives in July, I am also grateful for the long Washington spring, with bare soft earth and emerging plants.

And light! Unlike a winter day when the lamp on my desk stays on, now, on a good day, sun shines into my little workroom from early to late. Outdoors, buds triggered by lengthening daylight begin to change the view.

And the soundtrack changes, too. In winter months only the muffled scuffle of boots on fallen cedar fronds and fir needles, and raindrops through the canopy break the morning silence on the woods walk. Now faint notes of the spring morning chorus begin – little bird twitterings and the haunting songs of winter wrens.

Winter blossoms – snowdrops, crocus, and hellebore bloom in the garden. But daffodils hold the most promise. Their beginnings lead the parade of flowers to come. Nosing through the compost in early February, March finds them six inches up and stretching, green buds brushed yellow.

I’m ready to begin “spring into summer!”

Foldbooks and Winter Cards

“A Bird Foldbook” and “A Foldbook for Spring,” foldbooks you’ve seen here, and one you haven’t seen (unless you were a Workroom participant) are now available in the shop on my website (www.katygilmoreartist.com).

Digitally reproduced from my original drawings and text using archival printing on lovely Moab Entrada paper, foldbooks, with their accordion shape, display well on bookshelf, desk, or table. They are 34 inches long fully extended, but fold into a five by four-inch cello envelope.

They’d make a good gift! And I’ve also added a selection of seasonal cards to the shop.

Please order by December 12, 2013 for delivery before the holiday.

A Bird Foldbook – Bewick’s Wren

Spring Foldbook – Back Cover

Spring Foldbook – Changeover

Spring Foldbook – Flowerpiece

Spring Foldbook – Bracken

Spring Foldbook – New Green Leaves

Spring Foldbook – Daffodils

Spring Foldbook – Tulipa

 

The Sketchbook Project – Beginning

The Sketchbook Project

Clearing the decks in the first week of January, I found the envelope I’d received from “The Sketchbook Project,” a project encouraging people from around the world – some 22,000 so far – to register, pay a fee, and receive a sketchbook. When filled and returned, the sketchbook will be archived at the Brooklyn Art Library. (They also organize exhibitions to travel across the continent.)

The little brown envelope contained a tan, stiff-covered, five-by-seven-inch, stapled booklet with 32 pages of white paper. It had a January 15 deadline for return.

This blank book in the emptyness of early January presented all the dilemmas of a bigger project – what to do, how to start, media, rules, motivation. It brought to mind a quote from the poet May Sarton about “keeping gear in order for that never-ending journey.” I found the whole quote and it seemed to fit: “If there is motivation here, it is always self-ordering, self-exploratory, a perpetual keeping gear in order for that never-ending journey.”

I think of that journey as work, creative work, and that’s what sketchbooks are good for, like writer’s notebooks – a place to practice, to gather ideas, to keep the hand in. And in this case to think about my own workroom. Because I hope to make a little book with the ideas and encouragements from The Workroom for participants, it’s good to focus.

A set of rules for The Sketchbook Project proclaims: “…dive in – there’s no better feeling than tackling that first blank page.”

Not. In spite of my short timeline, I dithered (doing dance steps of avoidance and distraction), and finally let the little book become my space for working all that out. I allowed just one page at the beginning to fill in later, stamped the cover with The Workroom – and started.

For the next bit I’ll post the pages of “The Workroom: A Sketchbook Project” – though the book itself is gone to Brooklyn – it did its job and got me going, Maybe, if you are not already well-begun, it will help you start your 2013 creative project!