Still Waiting (patiently) ...........

Working at the dining table until the studio is built.

All my bits and pieces in storage in the spare room.

A good exercise in economy of work practice :)

Urchin

Another little concertina fold structure I've been playing around with.

This one is only quite small with a diameter

of around 130mm (5") when open.

Continuum

My latest project complete.

Had fun combining book making with paper cutting.

Had a bit of deliberation with the structure.

The final outcome is quite different to what

I first envisaged (not an unusual occurrence for me).

Quite a lot of cutting and stitching with this one.

Am quite pleased the pattern on the cover of the closed book

replicates the pattern of the pages when open.

For some reason the structure reminds me of

an old (pre-digital) b&w film reel.

I'm feeling confident the completion of this project is a 

jumping off point - not a conclusion :)

Continuum n. (pl. continua)

a continuous sequence in which adjacent elements are not

perceptibly different from each other, but the extremes are quite different.

-ORIGIN C17: from L., neut. of continuous

PABLO

I know dogs aren't everybody's thing.

But I just really liked this photo I took of our

kelpie/bluex, Pablo.

A dog is not something I'd ever envisaged

ever having in my life, BUT 

a few years ago this little guy needed help so 

he came to live with us and, thus far,

we have all got along pretty well.

He seems pretty happy here anyway.

Reminiscing

Lillian Gish 1893-1993

When I was a teenager I was besotted with silent films.

My walls were plastered with posters of Charlie Chaplin,

Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino and Lillian Gish.

I spent hours immersed in books with stories and images of these people and their times.

One book in particular "A Pictorial History of the Silent Screen",

a present from my father, gave me access to endless black & white

portraits, which I endlessly sketched in graphite.

Lillian Gish, who lived to the ripe old age of 100, 

was always my favourite silent movie gal.

Jackie Coogan as a child with Charlie Chaplin in "The Kid"

Jackie Coogan as Uncle Fester

Jackie Coogan, who played as a child in

films with Charlie Chaplin, amongst others,

always intrigued me.

For those unfamiliar with him,

he is best remembered as Uncle Fester

in the original tv series of "The Addams Family".

He was married, for a time, to Betty Grable.

The Coogan Law is named after him.

When he was 21 Coogan sued his mother and step-father

for access to the considerable monies he had earned as a child.

Up until this point parents were legally allowed to keep all

monies earned by their children.

I also had a big thing for Fred & Ginger

and Alfred Hitchcock Films.

For Mother's Day this year my elder daughter

gifted me a DVD copy of Alfred Hitchcock's 

silent films (who knew!).

What a great gift!

More paper cutting goodness........

Some shadowy images of a little hand cut

concertina fold book project 

I am currently working on.

Bound to develop RSI with this one!

Enjoying Solitude

Have been enjoying solitude whilst quietly immersing myself in the art of cutting paper.

Renovations continue................

The long process of renovation continues:

The upstairs deck is pretty much complete now

and has made a great difference to how we live in our house.

Downstairs has gone from muddy quagmire to lovely solid concrete

underfoot.  Soon we'll have the new walls and windows up

to utilise some of this space for storage and studio.

Karakuri

Since my order of 

Keisuke Saka's (also info here in English) book "Karakuri" arrived

in the post the other day  

I have been busily making paper automata

from the templates inside, building up an

understanding of how these things work.

I have long been interested in automata 

and this is a great jumping off point for me,

combining paper sculpture and automata
with detailed instructions and templates.

Phalaenopsis

 Beautiful!