Project Updates

Dollhouse - On hold, temporarily. I need a stand for the house, so that I can build a yard, primarily a side yard, and a greenhouse. This all falls under *“long term projects”, of which I can really only focus on one at a time.

Sea Holly Impasto Painting - the textures are built up, so progress.

Furbinator - Untouched*, see above note about “long term projects”

the writing project - Untouched*

the shrimp - Untouched*

the window book - Untouched*

Temperature Quilt - Untouched*, sort of. I’m tracking the temperatures still, and now that Annatar is complete I have emotional space for this other sewing project.

my Voynich Manuscript - 15% complete. I’ve also created a digital layout with the intention of creating a print version of my manuscript once it’s completed - with 7 foldout tipins it will probably require a Kickstarter to fund, which works out anyway because what else will I do with all of those copies?

With Annatar finished and PCCKC over, I have a lot more time to work on things, and clean up after myself, and go to the gym. Speaking of which…

With the “Witch-Queen” of Angmar, aka the Witch Kings wife

…and the Witch King, who needs to go find his wife.

I had a great time giving out rings, seeing my friends, and going to panels. Of course now I want to grab my favorite local photographer, Russ Matthews, and get some foresty glamour shots of all of that hard work.

my Voynich Manuscript

Like a lot of people, at some point in my life I came across the Voynich Manuscript, and it now lives in my head, rent free. I have a bad copy of it I had printed at my job - because they needed something to train the sewers on, and someone asked me for page files - but it’s not great, and also the wrong size.

I love books. I make books for a living. I sometimes recover old beat up books as a hobby. And I have long wanted to make a book, sewn and bound, completely from scratch. And now I am - completely recopying and reillustrating the Voynich Manuscript. I’m neck deep in other peoples research into what all the plants might actually be. I found a calfskin vellum analogue (Pergamenata) to use as the paper, practiced writing the text with different types of dip nibs until I found one with a similar look, found a truly black black waterproof ink, made a plan for all of the signatures of the book including all of the foldouts to avoid any tipins - and now I've completed 30 pages of transcription, including 20 illustrations.

Generally my goal it so finish a page a day, and four each day of the weekend - and this has been pretty achievable as each page is taking approximately an hour and a half. Obviously the foldout pages will take longer, being larger - with the giant star map in the center of the book taking the longest. Still, if I can keep the schedule up, I should be able to finish the entire inside of the book by the end of July - and the end of August on the outside range. Then it will be on to sewing the signatures and casing the cover, which may end up being plain leather. With PlanetComicon this weekend, I’m not going to get anything done, and possibly not anything finished the rest of this week as I fell into a cleaning spree of the ADHD variety and have a lot more to do until my brain settles out and I can work again. Fortunately I finished Annatar two weeks ago so I have one less project hanging over my head.

Current Project Plan

  • Transcribe 204 pages - currently 15% complete

  • Scan all pages for potential print version

  • Sew Signatures

  • Case Cover

  • Bind Book

There are definitely errors in my text - it’s entirely too easy to loose your plages when copying out a wall of indecipherable text. My husband would like for me eventually to make a printed copy of this book - and I’d ideally like to fix any transcription errors digitally if I did that. The thing that have struck me the most so far are the repetition of “words” - there are a lot of them, and I’ve written out enough of them that I’m starting to recognize character patterns. And in regard to the plants - there are plants that are definitely real plants, completely recognizable in original drawings - and others that look to me like drawing made from verbal descriptions rather than referenced from anything visual or real.

Page Plant
fv1
fv2 Deadly Nightshade
f2r Diffuse Nightweed (Centaurea diffusa)
f2v Nymphoides
f3r Feathery Amaranth (Celosia argentea)
f3v Aconite
f4r Linum catharticum (fairy flax)
f4v Rampion (Campanula rapunculus)
f5r Paris Polyphylla
f5v Mallow (Malva sylvestris)
f6r Bear Breeches (acanthus mollis)
f6v Sea Holly (eryngium maritimum)
f7r starflower (trientalis europaea)
f7v Bog Myrtle (Myrica gale)
f8r Petasites radiatus
f8v comfrey (symphytum offcinale L.)

Original Voynich page F1V

My Voynich - plant reinterpreted, text copied more or less accurately.

There was a plan, now there's a new plan.

I stumbled into this year with a plan - a plan I made back in November. Read too many books, learn silversmithing. It has been just over three weeks and already that plan has been flung out the window.

I had an idea. I mulled on the idea, I plotted what the idea could look like.

I bought paper.

I came home yesterday and shared my idea with Husband, who got so excited for my idea, immediately declared it my thesis, and encouraged me to push back my “plan” for the year and Do This Thing.

And I am. I’m doing this thing. It will be a while before the paper arrives in the mail - assuming it’s even the correct paper (I might need the heavier stock). And there will be other things I need to explore before I start - what paint works best, what pens and ink work best: it’s all very particular and I’ll probably need to wear gloves as well. And while all of that is going on I’m going to Finish Annatar.

And then…

House Cleaning

In terms of getting my “house” in order, I have a lot to do, digitally and physically. I’ve not been the best digital archiver of my own work, partially through lack of follow through, but also through technological catastrophes - the external hard drive I was using at one point for a back up of my entire computer just… died, and a lot was lost. I also have too many mediums, and finding the tools and supplies I need for each one would be more efficient if those items were stored together instead of haphazardly here and there.

One of the roles I’ve taken on in the last two years at my job at the Yearbook Place has been Digital Asset Manager for our department, and I’ve learned a lot about the importance of a good archive, how to keep it, and how to reference it, which has also got me in a mind to put together a proper archive for my won work - not only so I can find files when i need to , say, upload hi-res versions to print sites so I can have a shop; but also in the eventually that I want to dive back into the gallery world - it’s important to have an easy to reference database with images to the work, the size, the medium, descriptions, etc. for faster response time should someone have questions about something, or if i want to submit a piece to a show. Do I think any of my current pieces qualify for such - not necessarily, but the point it to get into a good practice of file management and data archiving.

Today while running errands I made sure to pick up two extra storage containers - one for silversmithing, and another for leather working, because apparently these are both things I’m dabbling in now. And another to host my piles of gel pens, assuming I can manage to put them back when I’m done with them, but at least they have a box. And plastic totes are easier to store in closets than what’s going on in my studio closet right now.

I used to get so frustrated with “Art Totes” because they never fit the things that I was being told to store in them, and they inevitably ended up empty or filled with junk. Now, finally in middle age, I’ve figured out what does go in them, and what would be better to store elsewhere. My markers are in a bin. My ink pens are in a lunch box. My pencils are in an old Star Wars tin. The Art Totes are full of my watercolor tubes. The beautiful old water color wood box will be used for something else, possibly all of my exactos and whetstones. My acrylics are in a milk crate. We don’t have to accept the containers things come in, sometimes they fit better elsewhere. How a thing is organized is less important than the system working for the individual using it.

And now I need to start working on my reading list…

Oh, Canada!

I spent the last 6 days in Canada with my family for the holiday - specifically Old Quebec City, primarily because my parents wanted to visit the Maison Jean-Demers, which was built by my 9th Great Grandfather. Currently the building hosts a sweet shop and a jewelry store.

We stayed in Old Quebec City, visited the Christmas markets, the Basilica (with it’s very dirty paintings), the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and were delighted by the Krampus Parade which my mother kept as a surprise until about an hour before it happened.

The view across the river from the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac

My journal entry after the Krampus Parade.

Very cold. Very beautiful. Highly recommend.