Exhibition Opening Speech Part 2

Part 2 of the opening speech by Dr. Raphael Zimmerman. He concluded with a praise and toast to all the exhibitors and guests.

Lastly I would like to thank Dennis Kishere for his innovative thinking of taking this video of the speech. This has given me the opportunity to post a video for the first time on my blog. How much there is for me to learn about this blogging technology! I am enjoying it. It is the best way to share what I create with the world.

Exhibition Opening: We did it!

WE DID IT!!! We had the opening this afternoon and it went very well. It has been a hectic few days getting ready for the opening. I had to make sure that I remembered to take everything for setting up on Firday, but when I actually got there the plan had to be altered slightly. I had to quickly put on my thinking hat while I was cleaning the cabinets, but in the end I came up with the solution. Two of my students Ayako and Dennis came to help set up. I found that the process of setting up was fun and creative. I did need someone else to bounce my ideas off for it to work.

Finally the time had come. Tom and I set off a bit early to make sure that all the arrangements with the gallery were allright. When we arrived, Dennis was already there. It wasn't long before people were arriving. We had enough finger food and drinks for everyone. The MGA had generously provided us with wine and champagne. The speaker, Dr. Raphael Zimmerman and my dear friend Jane arrived and the rest of the event went very smoothly. We had about sixty guests in total. I took quite a few photos and here are some of them.

Dr. Raphael Zimmerman our guest speaker is a Visual Arts graduate from Monash University majoring in print making. He is a practicing artist and is focused on his current painting. In Dr. Zimmerman's speech he mentioned that art and craft are now merging into one. He praised our work as crossing over from one to the other. Dr. Zimmerman attracted a lot of attention from the listeners.

Kumi, Dennis and myself were ready to receive our guests. One of the display cabinets is behind us. It was a nice day for a photo shoot.

A visit from Cathrine Harboe-Ree, the University Librarian. It was a pleasant surprise to see her there. From left, Cathryn Harbo-Ree, Natima Palaskas, Kumi Suzuki, Dennis Kishere, Jane Hammond and Jane Rumbold.

I took this photo of Dennis yesterday after we finished setting up. You can see one of our exhibits in the cabinet. It was a book clock made by Jane Rumbold.

This is Ayako standing by one of the display cabinets. Ayako could not be here today. She is on her way to Japan for her sister's wedding. You might remember the wedding journals she made for her sister? Ayako, I hope you have a safe trip.

The guests were listening to Dr. Zimmerman's speech.

You can see a glimpse of the exhibits. The white looking stuff on the bottom shelf is recycled shredded plastic. We just laid the exhibits on top of them. We have different recycled stuff in all the bottom shelves of every cabinet.

More visitors and friends admiring our handy work.

I think they really liked our work. I think I need a holiday...! I didn't think that it is going to be a lot of work, but you have to put effort into everything if you want it to be successful . To think that this is our second exhibition in a year; we achieved quite a bit.

One Day to go

One day to go before the opening of Rags to Riches II. It is all organized except setting up on Friday and just turning up on the day, Saturday 31 October at 3:00 PM. In the meantime I thought I would post one of the items in the exhibition here for you. It is a new book; not sure I can call it a book. It's more like sculpture than a book...!

Past Life

I've given it a name Past Life because of how everything come together as a book. I re-purposed the book cover and painted it over with artist's paint. Tin cans were crushed by the wheels of cars in the blue parking permit area of Monash University, Clayton Campus. I collected the tin cans over the years. I like the really squashy ones with the rough gravel marks on them. With the help of my friend Lynette I gained the confidence to paint the book cover with layers of artist's paint. It looks great. The photo does not do it justice; I wish you can all see it in person...!

Rags to Riches II Exhibition Catalog

I am pleased to say that the Rags to Riches II exhibition catalog is finally finished! I am so relieved it is ready to go to print. There are a total of fifty-four items in the whole collection. Complete with the photos of us nine in the group, I managed to fit everything into six pages. It will be printed double sided, that is 3 pages per catalog. That will work out very nicely.

It's exactly a week tomorrow before the opening day, Saturday Oct. 31 at 3:00 PM. I only have to make name badges for the exhibitors and myself as a curator, and hopefully my job is done here on the computer. The setup day is on Friday before the opening. I have to go in this Saturday to check the last minute arrangements with gallery officer.

Here is the catalog to share with you. The exhibition is on for the whole of November, so please drop by anytime. You might notice that the logo I used on the catalog is the same as my blog banner. The reason was that I started this blog when we had our first exhibition and I didn't want to keep posting about handmade books on on my craft blog so, I created this blog using the same name.

Members of the group from top, Jocely Bloye, Jane Hammond, Ayako Hatta, Dennis Kishere and Le Tuan.

On this page are Peter Mathews, Natima Palaskas (me), Jane Rumbold and Kumi Suzuki.

Click on the catalog to enlarge the images so that you can read the small print. I wish you could be there in person and share our excitement, but if you can't, please enjoy the catalog and I would love to hear from you. Big thanks for your support and help in lots of ways. If you are visiting this blog for the first time, you can read more about the exhibition here.

Papermakers of Victoria

I am a member of Papermakers of Victoria and in this month newsletter The Deckle Edge I was featured in the member profile column and I would like to share it with you. For easy reading you can enlarge the image just by clicking on it.

You Are Invited

October is here and it is time for me to put a thinking cap on and get ready for The Rags to Riches II Exhibition. It will open on Saturday October 31 at 3:00 PM. I posted about this a couple of months ago on Exhibition Announcement. The exhibition will be at the Monash Gallery of Art, Wheelers Hill, VIC 3150. Everyone is welcome, but please RSVP by leaving a comment on this post so, we have a rough idea of the numbers for catering purposes.

This is the invitation to be published in the Library Bulletin next week. I've also sent some off to colleagues and friends that might be interested in coming. The exhibition will be on until Dec. 5th. if you can't make it for the opening. I hope you will drop by to have a look at the later date.

Ayako Hatta's Works

I am so proud, Ayako Hatta is one of my bookmaking students. We meet once a week for only an hour during our lunch break. The three of them Ayako, Kumi and Dennis started handmade books from scratch. Being a quilter and stitcher I can't help but incorporate embroidery and quilting into my books. Dennis was the first to ask if I could show him how to do embroidery. I showed them the basic stitches such as blanket stitch, cross stitch, stem stitch and French knots.

We have been together for over a year and to see what they can make now is amazing. They are all creative in their own way. Ayako created these two wedding journals for her sister's wedding. She embroided their initials on each of the journals and surrounded the initials with embroidery designs. After that, she bound them both into journals using stab stitch technique.

Here is Ayako adminring her own creative work. She is so pleased of how they turned out.

The closed up view of both journals. The cloth she used came from Reverse Art Truck in Ringwood, Melbourne.

Ayako's intention is to get each of the Bride and Groom's family and friends to sign each journal. Ayako thanked everyone in the group who had given both verbal and physical help such as stitching the leather corners and drilling the holes. She said that these journals were really a group effort, but of course it was totally Ayako's original idea. Congratulations Ayako, you made me proud...!

Combo Book

I like giving my students challenges to work on. Challenges are great to get them thinking outside of the square. I give them a brief outline of the projects and get them to think of what to do and what materials to use. It was quite a while ago that we were all making combo books. I gave each of them printed cardboard to use as covers, and we used all types of recycled materials that we have on hand as the signatures (pages). The results were very amazing.

This is my combo book. I fished out the printed cardboard from a recycled paper bin. You might have read somewhere on here that I like printed cardboard, so naturally I always spot it in the recycled bin. This one is very colourful and not damaged. I added a few bits of hand torn paper onto the cover as decoration.

You can see what I used for the signatures. I used some recycled envelopes, office mail envelopes, handmade paper, pages from old magazines, bubble wrap plastic and the pink paper that was an office folder. Of course everyone else's books look totally different from mine. I hope you enjoy looking at my one-of-a-kind combo book.

Birthday Giveaway: IS NOW CLOSED!!!

I have been planning this giveaways for quite sometime now. I thought the best time to do this would be on my birthday month which is August. Because we will be taking a mini vacation from August 15 - 23, it is a good time for me to post my giveaways before I leave.

I will draw the lucky number when I return on 23 August. I will have giveaways on my other blog Notjustnat as well, so please go over and enter there too.

I wish everyone whose birthday is in August a Happy Birthday, and I hope that someone will remember and bake you a birthday cake. If not, have one from me HAPPY BIRTHDAY...!

And here are my giveaways:

1 - A handmade Coptic stitch book made by me using a discarded dust jacket for the cover. The pages have been left blank for you to fill in with your activities. Animal lovers would love this book.

2 - A CD book with handmade a Japanese paper cover. The pages in this book are black. You need to use a silver pen to write on it.

All you need to do to enter is:

a) Leave a comment on this post; b) post this link on your blog; c) Sign-in as my follower and please mention on your comment that you have done so.

Please include a blog or email address so that I can contact you.

The Giveaways end on Sunday August 23rd EST at 6:00 pm. The winner will be drawn by random generator system and be notified asap.

It has been fun planning and making the giveaways, and I hope the winner will enjoy using them too. Don't forget to go over and enter for the giveaways on my other blog: Notjustnat

as well. Please pass on the word to any of your blogger friends.

Good luck everyone and thanks for visiting...!

Exhibition Announcement

I have good news to tell you. Rags to Riches's second exhibition is going to be at Monash Gallery of Art from 31 October 2009 - 6 December 2009. The first Rags to Riches exhibition was held at Monash University Library, Clayton Campus in March of this year. The exhibion was very well recieved by both the staff and students from the university. Now we are fortunate to get accepted into one of the great community Art Galleries in the area. We are very excited and looking forward to it.

Monash Gallery of Art is located at 860 Ferntree Gully Road, in Wheelers Hill, Melbourne. I am so excited to have our work exhibited in such great venue.

This is one of the exhibition areas. It is called the Community Exhibition Space. It is situated between the main gallery and the public library. Our exhibition will be viewed by not only the gallery visitors, but the visitors that use the library as well. We will have five show cabinets to use for our exhibits. How exciting is that going to be?