Me and my dear friend Julia Ogden just made something together. Me and Julia have worked alongside each other as studio buddies and have supported each others projects and ideas for years but we have never made any work together before. I'm not sure what took us so long! I invited her to take part in one of my open studios (this Saturday 11th May) and she suggested making something together especially for the occasion. We were always going to have a meadowy theme on the day, given that it's May and the meadow grasses are growing but it was her idea to make a screen printed and laser cut concertina book.
Julia made drawings and I added them to some of my grass motifs to create the kind of tangle of plants that we both love.
We planned the folds and Domenique figured out how to make the perfect score line with the laser cutter so we could fold the pages cleanly.
This morning I accompanied Julia to make the screen print. I've not done any screen printing for at least 25 years so it was good to revisit the process again.
It's always satisfying to see your design on screen for the first time.
We were a good team. I lined 'em up and Julia printed them. You can see us in action here.
Pretty soon they were covering every surface.
Then we came back to my studio to score the folds and cut out the tiny floating dandelion seeds on the laser cutter.
It's been super sunny in the studio today and I thought it make make too much contrast for a photo but I discovered that as the sun shone through the dandelion seeds it made floating seeds of light.
We're calling it a 'book' because it has a front page
and it has a back page
and you can open it up and see the design printed on six pages
but you can display it like an artwork -on a shelf, in a window to let the light shine through, wherever you like.
They are available on my website now and on Julia's soon.
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