Artist Book: Hold Hands Spring Tide (Progress II)

An update on my ongoing artist book, Hold Hands Spring Tide. Much has happened since the last update - I've added pages, layers, stitching, personal artefacts held in pockets and naturally dyed panels. I submitted the artist book, secured with a simple machine-sewn binding, for assessment in early June, though looking back, the work seems physically thin. I've expanded considerably since.

Towards the end of June I was hospitalized. Though I took HHST with me on the ward, I was only able work periodically. Instead, I documented what I could in writing, recording my experiences before and during the month I was there. Impressions, routines, personnel, patients, medications, psychiatric phenomena, progressions and regressions. Much of my memory during this time has shifted or retreated, so these notes are both difficult to process and precious.

Home now, I have been catching up, transcribing the notes to the fabric pages of HHST. It takes a lot of physical effort, and each letter, each stroke or eye takes up little space, so the rate of accumulation is slow. But the gradual development of the work - and the commitment to a dedicated space - is fruitful. Viewing the body of work is witnessing a bold cache of what has become a reflex - observe, note, process, translate. It feels more impactful, this way.

Rested Fibres - Textile Scrap Find July 2024

Along the ridge by the hospital uphill I found this artefact half buried. Though I couldn’t subtly recover it in the company of fellow walkers (textile callings can be difficult to explain) I took a photo, and I dreamed of sandstone and rested fibres that night. On leave the next morning my sister and I traced my steps, using the GPS data from the photo as a rough guide. We found it, joyfully extracted it, bagged it, and my sister kept it to mind – it was a doubtful sell to keep it on the ward. With care, my sister hosed it down, dried it and gave it to me today.

There's a notion of resilience - the reprieve of the treasure hunt, and the stubborn maintenance of composition despite erosion. It holds questions– who left it? Who had it last? How long had it been? In the narrow reserve, prying the cloth away from the dirt, I’ll remember happily and gratefully this time, process and future addition to Hold Hands Spring Tide.

Air China Boeing 747-89L Arrival into Canberra Airport (YSCB)

With a SW wind, we anticipated a landing on runway 17, pulled to the side of Majura Road, roughly aligned with the VOR/DME. The Air China Boeing 747-89L was due in at 3:16 pm, I had time for practice - the sheep from the adjacent paddock firmly unmoved by the arriving jets. As I reviewed exposure, the ATIS declared a runway change, and we relocated to the 35 threshold. When the 747 joined up, six minutes out, we navigated the collapsed rabbit holes and long grass towards the bald patch in the middle of the field. From this position, I can see a clear run north to south. Clear skies. Back to the sun. We saw her bright and slow. More cars pulled in. A few people climbed on car roofs for a view over the barrier. Cameras. Kids. Then it was on us, great and clumsy, slow overhead and late to meet the runway. Pilots joke that if you pay for the use of the runway, you might as well use all of it. Smoke from the brake system curled around and the wind and exhaust carried it away. B-2480 began towards the bay.