Dear ,
I’m back from my art residency in Andalusia, where I spent two weeks in what felt like a different century, off-grid and in old farmland. I wrote about finding materials and inspiration on the land in the Caravanserai posts linked below. I brought back with me a completed artist book, also shown below, and a work in progress. Since I’m not able to go home for the holidays, I’ll probably spend them finishing that and enjoying some lighter craft projects until I’m due to fly again. The future looks uncertain and I have some thinking to do, but I’m also contemplating having a small show a few months from now. More in due course…
Till next year, happy Solstice,
Joumana
Lately on Caravanserai:
Dec 6: Art from the Land – Inspired by place
Dec 17: Art from the Land 2 – Further discoveries
(All posts are free to read for 4 weeks before they become reserved for paid subscribers.)
Trees Are Poems, foraged earth pigment and indigo on paper. 15x15cm folded, 120x15cm open.
An artist book that came together spontaneously after a couple of days of walking under the stone oaks and making paint from the earth they grow on. The trees are based on individuals on the finca, and the quote is from my countryman, Gibran Khalil Gibran: “Trees are poems the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper, that we may record our emptiness.”
I’m currently attaching a cover and trying to take some decent photos, and it will then have a home on the website.
January
In-person courses at the School of Calligraphy and Ornamentation, UAE:
8 to 11 January: Making Paints from Pigments: We will learn to extract colour pigments from common earths as well as from minerals, and how to turn them into paint using a range of binders and mediums. Participants will prepare paints and pastel sticks from our class work to take home.
14 January: Black Inks: In this one-day workshop we will learn about the historical ferrotannic black ink that was favoured for writing on parchment, preparing and comparing several recipes made from different sources of tannin.
15-18 January: Making Inks from Plants: We will learn the various methods of extracting dyes from botanical sources and how to prepare these colours for use on paper. This will include learning about assists, modifiers, binders, lakes and preservation techniques.
These courses complement each other but are independent, so you can sign up for any or all of them as you fancy.
Feb/March:
Manuscript Kufi course at the Arab British Centre, London. Zoom introduction in the evening of Feb 29, followed by a weekend in-person on March 2-3.
The shop is briefly open again, until the first week of January. I’ll be away again (visa permitting) from Jan 7 to 19 and then 26 till mid-February. So for orders placed after Jan 3, dispatch will be delayed during that whole period, but patient souls willing to face this will be rewarded with extra savings: 15% off all physical purchases until the end of January with code PAT13NTB1RD. (By using this code you understand and accept your order may not be shipped before late January or late February, depending when it’s placed!)