Marking Time
Marking Time 2025 - mini artist book - cyanotype & ink on paper
Some artwork titles write themselves. Some artworks you have to sit with for awhile before what they are about becomes apparent. Then the title jumps out at you and it seems obvious, yet initially you were unable to see what your artwork wanted to say.
I’ve been focusing on making artist books over the past month. Context is everything with artist books. There are many components which make up a book, from the type of folded or stitched technique, to the materials used which are often the key to what the narrative is about.
My newest artist book Marking Time is a strip of cyanotype printed paper with ink drawings and blackberry fruit stains I made during my micro artist residency at Oak Hill Gallery, Mornington in January this year. I knew there was not a lot of time at the residency to make big works, so cyanotype prints were the solution.
In the gardens surrounding the gallery were beautiful old sculptures including one made of stones. I started drawing the shapes of the sculptures in ink onto paper then coating it with cyanotype swirls to see if these two techniques were compatible. They were! I continued experimenting with mark making techniques and rubbed blackberry fruits found growing outside onto the back of the papers.
Double sided papers are perfect for artist books. The two sides bring interrelated or juxtaposing narratives together. When I made this mini artist book, I didn’t know what story it had to tell. I knew it was about mark making, but looked for a title that could unlock its secret.
Place was important as blackberries grow wild in Victoria but not so in the subtropics of NSW. The ink marks were about the sculptures but also about creative ways of interpreting place. When and where I made them during that one week in Victoria was a ‘mark in time’ for me.
When I looked at the dictionary meaning for the phrase ‘marking time’ it referred to military terms as in “marching on the spot” as if “moving forward but staying one place” in other words a period of inactivity or a pause, waiting.
Looking back at that period it was indeed a pause as I recovered from my knee surgery waiting for the next longer term project to come along. I am surprised at what this unassuming tiny book had to tell me about my life.
Now that I am literally ‘on a roll’ becoming more involved in forests, trees and protection of the environment; this mini scroll book perfectly encapsulates a week of time unspooled to show where I had come from and where I am going next.
