Aberdour Festival Workshop

I'm running an artist book workshop this Sunday with Susie Wilson, as part of the Aberdour festival.  Check out the programme, there's loads of great stuff going on, and if you fancy making an artist book based on Aberdour pop along to the Church Hall on the Main Street.  The workshop runs from 10-5pm but we're happy for people to come and go if they want to see other things.  This link takes you to the programme:   http://www.aberdourfestival.org.uk

Susie and I will also have work on display in the exhibition space.

Aberdour beach

Coffee cake

I'm very proud of my cake creation, low gi sponge made with agave nectar, so no sugar at all, made up for by tons of sugar in the icing! (I'm sure that could be done with agave too, but I didn't have enough.)  Can't wait to eat it now...

paper page process exhibition

I was involved in an exhibition at the beginning of the year,  paper  page  process,  as part of the Artist Book Group at Patriothall Gallery at Wasps in Stockbridge.  We ran book making workshops, poetry readings and had a great sound installation as well as plenty of artist books and wall work.  The theme was the relationship between our artist books and our wall work which included drawing, painting, concrete poetry and photography.  The Sax Coburg Trio played at our opening, an AMAZING way to start the exhibition.  We got a good 4 star write up in the Scotsman, and my most recent book The Only Way Out is Through was described as an 'intricately cut and folded paper sculpture'.  

my space, plenty of mandalas!

The Only Way Out is Through

this is more of a box containing metal 'pages', is it a book?

the gallery space is fantastic and our work hung really well together

the sun shining through the window created gorgeous illuminated books

random beautiful things

There's a painting in here.

Wow!  This is really worth having a peek at, BEAUTIFUL! http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html

I'm going to add some photos from Paint.Print.Page soon, the exhibition was a huge success, with lots of sales and Edinburgh College of Art buying several books from each artist for their collection.  One being my Two Weeks of Mandalas, my most recent book.

Paint.Print.Page: An Artist Book Group Exhibition

As part of the Artist Book Group I am showing handmade books and drawings at our exhibition at McNaughtan's Bookshop (Haddington Place, top of Leith Walk by Gayfield Square), starting on Tues 22nd November till Saturday 3rd December.  There will be a range of different book structures, from concertinas to round books to magic money books...also painting, prints and photography.  There are eight of us in the group, all from a range of disciplines, and we all make artist books alongside other work.

I'm also running a workshop on Sat 3rd December from 1130-1230pm at the bookshop, so you can learn how to make a japanese binding and a round flower book structure.  Only £5 including all materials, book via email:  jennifer.rose.bruce@gmail.com.

The recent work I've been doing follows on from my ideas about energy, spirituality and relationships.  In one book I drew a mandala every day representing my thoughts and feelings, in layers and I experimented with making those things that are pretty much invisible into marks on the page.  Whether or not they mean the same thing to me as they do to another doesn't necessarily matter.  What do you think?  And despite the difficult nature of some of the emotions I think the mandalas are quite beautiful.


I'm also making a drawing for Concert For Trees, at the Usher Hall on 26th November.  This is to tie in with the UN Year of Forests 2011, celebrating all that forests mean to us, and looking at sustainability, forest management and conservation.  There will be music, dance and poetry alongside a little art - my drawing along with prints by another artist will be on display as you go in.  The Conan Doyle Quartet, made from a sycamore tree in Arthur Conan Doyle's childhood garden, will be premiering.

My drawing will be on BFK Rives paper, which is gorgeous and made from 100% cotton rag in France, so no trees were sacrificed.  I'm considering the relationship between us and trees, our interdependence (they give out oxygen for us to breathe, and we give out carbon dioxide for them to breathe) and our emotional and spiritual connection.  I'm considering tree and human mandalas interlaced.

Fresh new books!

I wanted to make a book about the garden.  It's a shared garden and at some point someone has planted loads of beautiful plants, so when summer comes it's full of flowers.  It's also really quiet and looks onto the Churchill Theatre, and I feel like many tenement gardens it has an element of secrecy to it as you can't see it from the street.
I had stumbled upon a technique of monoprinting directly from plants a while ago and wanted to use that and keep it really simple.
I also wanted to experiment with editioning so made about 8 books, all slightly different.  It's a good process to use for editioning as you can print several at the same time.
These will be on sale at MacNaughtan's bookshop in November when we have our Artist Book Group exhibition.

Garden Book

Garden Book (detail)

Garden Book (detail)

Holy Corner Mandala Book

Holy Corner Mandala Book (detail)

I'm currently exploring mandalas as a way of making drawings and books.  Mandalas are traditionally circles with often complex patterns within them and are used in spiritual practices such as meditation as tools for raising consciousness.  In Tibetan Buddhism they are considered sacred.  I want to use the format of a mandala to make interesting and experimental drawings that may also have a spiritual aspect to them and may contain reiki or deeksha energy.