Linotype Machines

"Linotype: The Film" is a feature-length documentary centered around the linotype type printing machine. It tells the story of people connected to the Linotype and describes its impact on the world.   My dad was a linotype operator.  He started his apprenticeship at the local regional newspaper and eventually ran his own printing business churning out race books, wedding invitations and commercial stationary in the days before letterpress was fashionable.  

I spent many a Saturday down at the shop decorating the display counter, making note pads and hanging out at the second-hand bookshop across the road.  So I have fond and sentimental memories of the linotype machine.  The smell of ink and the piston-like sound of its movement.  I have my name and address in linotype metal made by my father. Special. 

Fancy that

Peace, quiet and rest is her message,
Tired scenery heeds her call;
This gracious lady of Autumn,
Loveliest season of all.


Pamela Summers

***


My latest online obsession is TheFancy.Com. It's been suggested it will be a strong rival to Pinterest and appeal more to men.  I do prefer its unfussy look. 


My 11 yo thinks it pretty cool too. She shares my love of images although her focus is on photograghs of rad swimming pools, miniature terriers and lego constructions, and the thrill of sharing it with girl friends on the ipod.  She's enjoying a far richer slide-show before her eyes than the black and white world of my childhood.


Didn't Autumn come around quickly? I could do with that stamp.  This year has me flummoxed.  No stable work routine.  Home activities all over the place.  Still no decision on the blinds.


Image: Office Speak Rotating Stamp
Quote: On my desk calendar 2 March 2012

Digitising Children's Art

Art

~Herman Melville 

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create,

What unlike things must meet and mate:

A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;

Sad patience--joyous energies;

Humility--yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

I'm cleaning out the children's art portfolios from school.  Rather than keep everything, I've been taking photos so we can take remember them without having to store them in boxes. 

This way they are more accessible than they would be buried in a plastic tub in the storeroom curling and yellowing under the house.   They actually come up quite well as digitised images, I think.  I plan to scan some smaller pieces of art, home-made cards and stories written on A4 size papers so we also have them retained and well-preserved. It's possible to use these digitised images online and in print for cards and messages.  A lovely way to repurpose children's handiwork.

Some of their pieces are so exquisite, with their bold use of colour and form, that they rival professional works.  This applies to all children's art not just my own brood's!  But it is my duty of course to cherish pieces of my children's artwork - so I can be forgiven for a bit of boasting. 

Hats off to primary school teachers.  We've had fun sorting through the mountain of paper representing a year's worth of classroom labour.

Noiseless Patient Spider (with cough)

A Noiseless Patient Spider

~ Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, 1867.

A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them,
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.

***

Well, we survived the school holidays at home.  The rubbish skip is full of garden waste, a few old pieces of furniture have been sanded back and one side table and stool have been half-heartedly painted Dulux Magnolia to match the walls. I can't bring myself to distress them in order to achieve a 'shabby chic' look and I'm not sure what to do about the rest.  I'm uncertain about following photo tutorials and the briefest of blogger instructions about the use of diluted French Grey paint, walnut stains, polyurethane, sealers and Danish Oil.  How do they know which to choose and what effect will work best?  Ah well, I'll go by trial and error, I s'ppose.  Some other time though.  I've been tentatively rooting about in the Strong Silent One's shed and it's in a diabolical state. I can't find a thing I need (like fine-grade sandpaper for example) but there is no shortage of the most extraordinary pieces of hardware, tools and tins of dangerous-looking fluids and pastes.

I'm also staring at old dining chairs which need recovering and am resisting the temptation to attempt amateur upholstery.  There are some very clever people in Canberra who could do it more professionally than I, armed as I am with only with the old fabric as a pattern and no experience with a staple gun at all.  It would surely end in tears if I tried.  We moved our sticks of furniture around over the Easter break and dragged the hired digital piano upstairs again so lessons could be better supervised. We are still procrasinating over a decision about buying a piano for the children to learn on.  But the more alarming development was that I seriously considered buying a cowhide rug to put in the sitting room where a piano might reside.  Apparently PROIN leathers in the US is the place to go via Ebay and with the Aussie dollar rising high against the greenback, I was tempted until good sense prevailed.  The children were terrified at the prospect of a dead cow on the floor, and some of the hides were a tad confronting, legs and all.  It would have been a brave decorating decision.

While the children have gone back to school for Term Two, I've been at home these past few days with laryngitis and bronchitis curled up watching Pride and Predjudice and Mansfield Park, like a noiseless patient spider.  I recently purchased the DVDs of Persuasian and Sense and Sensibility from a heavily tatoo-ed salesman at JB Hi-Fi which made us both smile.  An early Mothers' Day gift to myself.   Bring on Sunday.

Illustration: IM Lowry, Flickr

Hyperbolic crotchet

Ever since my mother and her crafty cohorts started crocheting lacy borders around hankies about 25 years ago, and then moved on,  to my utter incredulity, to edging face washers and kitchen hand towels, I have been bemused by the items people create in wool and cotton thread.  I do have a thing for granny squares, but otherwise find it difficult to get too enthused about amateur efforts with the crochet hook and knitting needle.  That is, until Kerry crocheted the rock paperweight cover and the dish cloth.  Now I find crocheted items keep popping up and I have quite unintentionally discovered an entire collection of quirky, practical and appealing pieces.  I am noticing that the standards have improved considerably since the Anglican ladies guild members met mid-week in the 1980s.  It is comforting and nostalgic.

Following is a mini exhibition.

Chapstick covers for keychain by Rachel at Crochetspot

 

Coffee cup holder by Rachel at Crochetspot

She also has tutorials for business card holders, soap savers, hats, cushions and shrugs.

The ubiquitous party bunting by Natalie Jost.  A personal favourite.

Mobile phone pouch by PaisleyJade

Then there is guerrilla crochet such as this magical tree in Copenhagen captured by The House That Lars Built.  There seems to be quite a bit of this going on in the northern hemisphere. 

But ... the piece de resistance is...



The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

The exhibition is showing at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington
16 October 2010 to 17 April  2011.

It is a vast and splendiferous coral reef made entirely of crotchet!

The project is the brainshild of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, two sisters who grew up in Queensland and now live in Los Angeles where they are members of the fascinating Institute For Figuring.

"In 1997, Dr Daina Taimina, a mathematician, discovered how to make physical models of the geometry known as "hyperbolic space" using the art of crochet. Until that time many mathematicians believed it was impossible to construct such forms; yet nature had been doing just that for hundreds of millions of years. Many marine organisms embody hyperbolic geometry in their anatomies, including corals. This geometry maximizes surface area in a limited volume, thereby providing greater opportunity for filter feeding by stationary corals."

The exhibition website contains an ocean of information. I could swim around in it for hours. There are are instructions on how to make hyperbolic shapes and members of the public are invited to contribute pieces for the exhibition. Is there no end to the wonder of crotchet and its mathematical genius?