It hadn't occurred to me that I would need to come up with a title for the artwork I submitted to the Biblio Art Prize being held by Blarney Books & Art in Port Fairy, Victoria, Australia, until I was filling out the online submission form.
Ordinarily as I'm working on any piece it will have a 'working' title & the 'public' title usually becomes evident somewhere along the creative journey.
I really did not think about this until I saw TITLE on the submission form & thought oops didn't see that coming. 

My book is Inheritance of Secrets by Sonya Bates.
It is a superb book, well researched & well written. It's a compelling read & very hard to put down. 

It is time to confess - I am an unapologetic book alterer and the book is my artwork !

​When I received my book title I was really thrilled to have been given a murder mystery set in parts of Adelaide I was familiar with and which also has a post WWII immigration story underpinning it. 

I discovered our local library had the book so I took it out to read it while I waited for the one I’d ordered online to arrive. 

At one stage I had 2 copies of the book, the library’s & my own, which made me think about how much fun it would be to discover an altered library book. 
Not dramatically altered so that it’s immediately obvious that it’s been tampered with but strategically embellished - so that’s what I did. 

The staff at the library gave me the stickers for the spine & offered to stamp the edges with their NEW PLYMOUTH LIBRARY stamp but I thought that might be going too far ! 

I chose my 12 favourite scenes & have interpreted them on the relevant pages.
Interestingly, as I read the book, all the historic scenes came to me in black & white - like an old war movie, so that’s what I’ve done in the book. 
My favourite parts are the Lancaster bomber silhouettes pg 20, the niche, which hides a key & a pawn ticket, cut into pg 116 and the letter to Grete written in German, as it would have been, on pg 403. 

Must admit this whole book torturing thing is so.much.fun ;)

Sal xx

ps I played around with that saying about 'not judging a book by the cover' for the title but that just sounded derogatory to this wonderful book.

pps I really think it would make a great movie . . . just putting that out to the universe.

ppss the other fabulous thing that has happened as a result of entering this competition is that I've discovered a selection of books written in the last 12 months by Australian & New Zealand authors AND most of the ones I'm drawn to are in our local library. which is fabulous. 2020 has been a good read @)(@

All heavy seriousness aside, this month's personal map making class on Creativebug is colourful, light, thought provoking & fun - OMG, so.much.fun. 

e bonds’ daily mixed media Creativebug class celebrates maps in all forms, most importantly, the abstract concepts of map making. 

e’s teaching style is amazing. She ever so gently guides you through a method or technique that is then yours to play with. The most wonderful thing for me is that each day presents a completely new aspect of ‘mapping’ about which I have never thought. It’s brilliant. 

Here in NZ we’re a day ahead & kind of a day behind at the same time.
​Every night, at about 9pm, Hugh & I sit on the couch together & watch the next day’s class which means I go to sleep thinking about it & usually by the morning I’m pretty excited to get my morning routine shizzle out of the way so I can scoot over to the studio & play. ​

I cleared my table deliberately the week before the class started & ironically the work I’ve put to the side is a map of sorts. It’s an extension of our ‘Listening to the Land’ series, it speaks of connection to place, also my leaf litter project & laments the loss of wetlands from the NZ landscape. 
There’s an aspect of this new work, well several aspects actually, which i believe are incredibly significant for us as kaitiaki of this whenua . . . & that’s a story for another day. 

A real positive of this class for me is that it's given me with an idea that is likely to be the basis of my next muka artwork and that for me is the most exciting thing of all !

I’ll keep you posted 
 
Sal xx

a gift of basalt waited for a year
under his tree
after his passing

now formed into a beautiful vessel
a place for water to swirl
or to contain fire as Lou himself would have done

para planted in the gully to the west
kahikatea planted in the gully to the east

kōwhai in a row
one for each of us
signifying home

pūriri timber
rescued from the firewood pile
shaped & sanded into a landform

remembering a time past
layers below where we now walk
​
sawdust
a strong & pungent signature of the tree
unexpectedly a soft yellow
​strangely unlike it's own flowers
or leaves
or bark

mixed with water & gently heated
immersing a few fibres
exploring the possibility of colour

a fortuitous find of an historic article
with scant reference to altering the pH
by rolling in ash

hesitantly adding the ash water
& immediately falling in love

celebrating a new found knowledge
heart heavy with the absence of our friend
unable to share in person the joy & the triumph

forever grateful
despite the brevity
for a truely magical friendship

waiata of farewell
floating languidly on the wind