Textile courses - Spiddal, Galway

Saturday October 1^st – Introduction to Fabric Design

Participants will learn the basic techniques of leaf printing, stencil printing and potato printing.

We will experiment with fabric paints on cotton material to design your own textiles to bring home.

Sunday October 2^nd – Introduction to Feltmaking

Workshop participants will experiment together in making sample felt textiles that can then be used for Brooch making & Card making , which they can take home.

Date: 1^st & 2^nd October from 11am - 4.30pm.
All materials will be provided &Free Tea & Coffee
Adult €50, Under 16 or Unemployed €40

Phone / Txt Sinead – 087 995 2637

Email – folksongdesigns@gmail.com

Its been so long since I've posted anything here, thought it was about time! Here's a new illustration I've been working on. Hopefully there'll be more to come soon...

God or Monster? - by Deborah Coffey

Hi,

All the way from Boston, a short story by Deborah Coffey for our project...
I love how each writer approached the theme from a different angle. It is going to be a great book. I can't wait to see the illustrations!
If anybody is up for it, please, let us know and illustrate this story...
:]
elida.
___

God or Monster?

Edward was a smart boy. As the third child of six he knew how to keep his head down and stay out of the spotlight. He did his homework without incident and even kept his youngest brother out from underfoot. Yes, Edward was a clever boy. He knew how not to get caught in the act of whatever neighborhood scheme he had arranged for the gang. This talent he had inherited from his father.

Edward was tall for his age, with light brown hair. Nerdy glasses slid down his unpresuming nose. There wasn’t much to do in his small town and so he passed the summer in the same way boys have always done in small towns everywhere. He wrestled with his brothers. He came up with elaborate plans designed to make his sisters cry. He caught insects and removed their wings. He set as many things as possible on fire. And he waited for the school year to begin.

Deborah Coffey

________

dublin zine fair was fantastic in SO many ways

Dublin Zine Fair was organized by the brilliant and talented Sarah Bracken of Baby Beef Press .

Thank you Sarah :)
elidas brilliantly clever zine tea matters that she specially made to make funds for the upcoming gods and monsters publication as seen on her blog today
tinderbox members jane o sullivan* samuel carroll maiques *elida maiques *and eoghan carroll*at the zine fair on saturday.

part of the tinderbox stall at the zine fair

above photo from here

© kate horgan

a big thank you to everyone who called by to say hi at the tinderbox stall last saturday .

It was lovely to meet marianne ,a new member and thanks emma rowe ,whose cheese stall duties came second on saturday as she made time to get down to see us in her lunch break ! xx

Also thank you to coilin of the dublin story tellers for dropping by and buying one of the last of the heartstrings song drawing zines.

There is only one left of the limited edish of 20 ....never to be repeated zine (will you be the lucky owner ?)

You can rest assured that the whole tinderbox collectives best interests were well looked after by the stall holders (see above photo) who stayed all day from 12-5pm !!

Samuel Carroll Maiques made the most money , in fact he couldnt keep up with the sales of his talented mothers exclusive zine tea matters.....it was a sell out .

As I mentioned , I had my own little space beside the mothership and I have to say it was definately worth it .....there is a very good chance that the brilliant anto dillon of loserdom zine+ a good few others will organize the independants day shindig again for this november...............

*watch this space

*get your work ready

*lets make a really big effort to attend in the style we are so capable of

*add your voice to the blog now this minute :)

Do Not Ask for Gods and Monsters

More fantastic writing from Fighting Words this time from Clodagh O'Brien, if you wish to illustrate please let us know, come on you artists, illustrator, designers et al we have had some great written submissions lets get the art work going

Do Not Ask

Camouflaged by layers
the weight of soil and snow,
guilt and expectation.
Built to last
the promise of decades;
our alibi of power,
an irradiated legacy.

Time wields a sickle,
hacks a crack, a pore,
turns earth’s heartbeat sluggish,
strangles with poisoned hands.

Generations tainted,
misshapen twisted strands
missing letters, switching sides,
exchanging C for T,
replacing G with A.

Atomic static
the deafening crackle,
leaches life and its colours.

All that’s left is white.

Second Hand

Second Hand from Isaac King on Vimeo.

Missed Connections

Missed Connections by Sarah Blackall

"Our poor hearts are delicate little things, consumed, more often than not, by hope. Proof lies in Craigslist Missed Connections pages – digital message boards heaving with missed opportunity and consequential longing. New York-based illustrator Sarah Blackall has spent the last few years delicately rendering these fleeting love stories in Chinese ink and watercolour, and the results now exist in book form – proof that love, or at least the hope it provides, still exists."

zine fair news ...

above image are live feed of my zine/book making...live as in I ought to be doing it now !

guys did you see the article about the zine fair in the irish times on tuesday ?

also its great to see the new header and the call for gods and monsters...I have such a strong feeling about this work , the curators of the project miss emma rowe and miss elida maiques will be at the tinderbox stall on saturday ,if you want to jam the theme or just leave some submissions etc.......

ALSO guys ....this is a little delicate , but , why oh why is there no more support from the 130 ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY members of tinderbox for the upcoming tinderbox stall ??, this saturday in the ranelagh arts centre.....12-5pm

collaboration , it needs collaborants , not just cormorants.

Work can be mailed , emailed , discussed here on the blog .

As it is , we will be fine, just about, (the stall will show our existing work + the remaining 5 heartstrings song drawings zines) that I made with elida last year in an edition of 20.

The stall will be an honest picture of tinderbox till now, its just a shame as there will be a lot of people coming who really like the whole scene of original artists books and zines and want to buy them.

Please message if you are able to contribute , we have to meet at 11am ,to get set up .

zines*artists books*cards*small postcard size work.......

really hope there is going to be more support . no worries esther and those who are unable due to distance etc ....

see you saturday

Hello, I'm new to Tinderbox...

I'm Yvonne, love pen and ink, but also work in vector. The above illustration is unpublished. I was exploring textures and tones in black and white. I had just come back from a holiday in Bali, where they are chess mad so perhaps was inspired by this. I work in old style dip pen and indian ink as much as possible, its much more tactile than the computer. I produce prints and greeting cards using both techniques. I love the Tinderbox blog and ethos, its refreshing and inspiring and I'm delighted to be on board.

www.yvonnekennedy.com

a banner!

"Half-Life" by Niall O'Connor for Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow

Half-Life

Once upon a time, a young man asked his King for a spoonful of good earth on the first square of the King’s chess board, and two spoonfuls on the second, and double again on the third, and so on until the chessboard was completed. The King laughed at this foolishness, but eventually agreed. He ordered that it be so. After a day, his fearful overseer returned, and reported that it could not be done, and the King realised he had been fooled. He called the young man back into his presence, and apologised for his arrogance, while requesting that the young man stay in the palace, as his advisor. Their wisdom became famous, far and near, and it was with great sadness, after many years, his subjects learned that the King had passed away. In his place, his young son, was now to reign.

Some time later, the young King’s advisors were called together, so they could help decide on a great opportunity, that was being offered the Kingdom. They were to become the storehouse of the world’s nuclear waste, and would grow wealthy from the proceeds. The people would never be short of work, and never be hungry again.

The advisors told the young King that it was too dangerous, because this waste had a half life of 24,400 years or 12,000 human generations. As it decayed, uranium-235 would be generated. This had a half-life of 710,000 years. And so the young king became angry, because he thought he knew the rule of halves, and that all these advisors were trying to make him look stupid.

Finally, he dismissed them all, and had a great hole dug, where he put all the nuclear waste he could find. Then, he and his people waited for it to turn to gold. It never did, and all the people died, and the land also, in dying, was forever cursed.

Niall O'Connor

_________

Wanna illustrate this one?

A short story for Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow- who wants to illustrate this one?

Hi again,

The great Jane Burns, one of the writers volunteering at Fighting Words has written this story especially for us. Who wants to illustrate it? Please comment!

elida.

PS Emma, please, do post this on Facebook too... Thank you!

PS A few more stories to come. Pick your story, sharpen your pencils.
___________

A Song for William:

A message to my Great Grandson

Once upon a time in the very place where you now leave your footprints was a world with green trees and blue skies. Fresh water was everywhere and the world was safe haven. I barely knew this world for my arrival on this planet took place after man had discovered the atom bomb, the petrol driven car and nuclear energy.

Oh William, my distanced child I am afraid I made things worse. I was arrogant, I did not care for the earth beyond my time, I was too involved in the present, and at most only considered the near future. I did not truly believe the earth was dying. How could anyone have understood that, it would be like your mother dying while you grew in her womb, it does happen William but people do not dare to believe it.

We were too frightened to spend our money, the world was in economic crises, we were too frightened to plan for a future that in a second could be taken away by the callous acts of a terrorist. Oh William, we were too selfish to think of your tomorrow.

I hope for you, dear William that all the damage I have inflicted upon the earth, the disregard I had for nature that I left you something. Something so valuable that you alone can lift your heart, that you alone can achieve salvation. Oh William, dear William do you hear my song? My song of hope for a better world that belongs to you?

Take care of the earth, the life left within it, it is your turn now dear William to right the wrongs, to look to the future. Oh William, dear William dear you hear my song, my song of hope for a better world that belongs to you?

Jane Burns

_____________

A poem for Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow- who will illustrate it?

Hello!

Evelyn Walsh, one of the great writers volunteering at Fighting Words has offered us this poem to be illustrated by you, Tinderboxers, and published in our upcoming Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow.

If any of you is interested in illustrating it, please say so here!

Emma, please, would you post this over in facebook?

____________

His Ladder                                              

 

He always asked for a ladder

Year after year

A

six-

stepped

sturdy wooden

one,  if he had a ladder

he could look over the wall

to see the horses

Silly boy, they laughed

And gave him

A hurl

A ball

A gun

And once

An apple and an orange and

a thrupenny bit to buy a fistful

of gobstoppers.

He never got the ladder.

He never looked over the wall.

He never saw the horses.

He grew and grew

Sank and got stuck

At the bottom of a great big hole

He didn’t know

You don’t always need a ladder.

Evelyn Walsh

________

Fundraising for Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow

Meet Mr. Richie Smith,
proud sponsor of our upcoming publication Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow.
He asked me to do a portrait/caricature of him. In exchange, he will contribute with 5% of our printing budget of 500EUR. Mr. Richie Smith, thank you!

gather your thoughts for the zine fair ....WE have a table ...whaddya gonna bring to it ?

may you realise that which is in your heart...

pencil gouache ink on paper

2011

super chuffed that my drawing was selected for the upcoming edish of carpaccio magazine.

Check the site for submission guidelines etc.

Hi guys , hope ye are all well (enough)

as emma mentioned a while back we that is the tinderbox community have secured a stall at the dublin zine and artists book fair to be held in the ranelagh arts centre 12-5 saturday 27th august.

more info

I have a seperate stall with a friend and it is next to the tinderbox stall.....but I do hope there will be lots of tinderbox people able to be there too.

please add a comment if you can make it.

Any ideas folks as what to display on our collective stall, other than the already made tinderbox zines , YOU are totally encouraged to bring your zine\book based art along .....can you ? will you ?.....do do do do.

Damo larging it up papercutting in a canadian bed !

As you may know mr d.martin is at present gadding about over in the land of the maple leaf......but for those of you missing him (lots are, believe me)

here is a super image of him.

Only thing is I think he has aged an awful lot and his work seems to be going down hill....I mean Damo , where exactly is your x-acto knife, cutting board etc....it all seems a little too casual ?

on the other hand this image could possible be some upstart artiste name of h.matisse , presently to be seen , his work , not him here.

Midsummer Fete - NUIG Galway Sunday 24th From 1pm

Hi all,

Me and my scissor happy girl Caitriona Chesser are making clothes & accessories for a stall this Sunday at Cope & NUIG Midsummer fete.

There will be lots of reconstructed t-shirts, funky hoods and jewellery!

Lots of fringing and embellishment!!!!!!!!

Prices will range from 3e to 30e

Come along for music, food, stalls, bargains and a chilled out atmosphere in aid of COPE.

ARTWORK WANTED!

ARTISTS! SUBMIT YOUR WORK!

Merrion School of Music in Dublin 2 is opening it's doors for the first time this September. The school is calling for artwork in all styles with the themes "I love music" or "animals playing instruments". Submitted artworks will be mounted on the school walls and will be up for sale to visitors. The very final closing date for submissions is September 10th. Artists submitting work for sale are encouraged to submit in good time before the closing date. For more information contact info@merrionschoolofmusic.com

Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow - DEADLINE EXTENSION!

Very brief update on the zine 6,
Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow:

Deadline extension for all slow things, including editors.
Keep drawing and watch this space.

And many, many thanks to all those who already submitted! Great work.
More, soon.
:] elida (one of two slow editors)

Photography stall at Blackrock market, our zines will be there!

Hi guys! Going to do a stall at Blackrock market with my photographs this coming Saturday (16th). Here are some of the prints I'll have on display. Will be there from 11 to 5.30, so if any of you are around I'd love you to pay me a visit! Elida is bringing me some of the old zines, so I'll have them on display also and any money from them will go towards the 'Gods and Monsters' project.

Cy Twombly - RIP

Famed American painter Cy Twombly, who first found the limelight with his calligraphic paintings in the late 1950s, has died in Rome aged 83.

The US artist was widely known for abstract works that used oil paint, pencil and crayon to create repetitive lines and scribbles on canvas.

‘It Does Not Illustrate’

In the only written statement Mr. Twombly ever made about his work, a short essay in an Italian art journal in 1957, he tried to make clear that his intentions were not subversive but elementally human. Each line he made, he said, was “the actual experience” of making the line, adding: “It does not illustrate. It is the sensation of its own realization.” Years later, he described this more plainly. “It’s more like I’m having an experience than making a picture,” he said. The process stood in stark contrast to the detached, effete image that often clung to Mr. Twombly. After completing a work, in a kind of ecstatic state, it was as if the painting existed but he himself barely did anymore: “I usually have to go to bed for a couple of days,” he said.

New York Times

On yer bike!

A nice little comp with a great Dutch bike up for grabs, lets hope the sun keeps shinin'...

http://www.bear-bicycles.com/content/21-summer

Craft course July 17th galway

http://www.craftinireland.com/events/details/beginners-creative-textile-course/

An article in the Irish Times, about new publishing formats

Read the article about flipback books in the Irish Times.
It is interesting how book formats are adapting to the way people are used to read now.

Zine Fair poster

Here is the lovely poster Sarah Bracken sent me for the Zine Fair, I have a larger jpeg of this image if you want a copy, to post, blog, share or steal it here...just pass it on Tinderboxers

Photography possibilities for the Gods and Monsters zine

                                            Trapped monster

                                               Sealing the monsters

                                             Upside down world

                                           Tortured nature

Hi guys. Here are somo possibles for the new zine, wanted your opinion. I found it a bit difficult to come up with something that would be related to the subject by taking a photograph but I hope I achieved it a bit with  these. The third photo 'Upside down world' is an old one and my other version of it that I posted here before is in black and white. I've tried adding colour to it to give it a kind nuclear doom type of feel but I've just started using Photoshop Elements, don't know much about how to use it and it could probably be improved. What do you think? The other three photos I took during a walk into town last week and I had the Gods and Monsters theme in mind. The first one might be a bit silly actually. I was in a Butlers cafe having my latte and I spotted this stain on a light on the floor that looked like a kind of cutish monster (at least to me) so I took a photo of it. I got some funny looks, ha, ha, people must have thought I was a bit potty (and they wouldn't be far off...) The second one is manhole cover with the symbols that indicate that's been sealed so that nobody can get out of it from below. I've noticed a lot of these around the time of Obama and the Queen's visit and they fascinate me. I had a better photo than this but it was portrait format so I took this one and brought up the colours to make it more interesting (hopefully) for the zine. The 'tortured wood' one I took in the Iveagh gardens. There's some dead wood there with great shapes. I changed the colours to bring out some red and I think it looks pretty shocking!
Well, give me your opinions. May be two or three could be selected for the zine, although I could still try to do something better... Would each image take up a page with some text underneath, or would the writers you were talking about write a text about it on the page next to the image?
About the funding, thanks for that sheet Elida! I've printed it out and will try to do something with it. I was actually thinking of offering to take portraits of my friends in exchange for whatever money they want to give towards it. I've just emailed Blackrock Market and hopefully I'll get a spot on Saturday the 16th of July. I could bring some of the old zines there. And finally, remember I have a little cash from the last market available...

Ponoko - you design they build it

I've been looking about for where one might get laser cuts done and came across this website, you design it and they'll source a maker to bring it to life, from a one off piece to a hundred, just click on the link its a pretty neat site!  http://www.ponoko.com/

Gods and Monsters of Tomorrow - sponsorship sheet

Hello!

Here you have a sponsorship sheet I made with Eoghan's help (thank you!). In it, a few ideas to shake your friends, family and dogs for a bit of funding for the next Tinderbox publication!

You can download it, print it and use it to get funding ideas, to track the money you collect and to show your friends you are not going to drink the money they give you but it is actually going towards printing a book!


Good luck and oh! it would be fantastic to see pictures and hear stories of those fun-ding events.
:]elida.

A new work

A new work with flowers from my paper garden.
  I hope you like!

ZINE COSTS

Hi Tinderboxers

1.Elida and myself had a meeting yesterday about the quotes we got from printers. 500euro seems to be the benchmark for a 32 page, double sided colour printed booklet for 100 copies, thats 5 euro a book. Paper stock, as we are printing digitally seems to be a stumbling block but we have sourced printers that can give us something that is not on bloody god awful glossy stock.  So each page could work out quite costly for a person, 500 divided by 32 is 15.65. The number of pages maybe come in under that but realistically it will be around that amount. This is just printing cost. We wanted you guys to be aware of want costs we are encountering. 

2. So costs of course led to..... 

Funding. We looked at a web site called Fund-it, which has a very interesting premise, you set a taggert amount and pitch your idea for your art project in a video on line to get funds. It sounds perfect but when I went through the red tape it just sounded a bit of a quagmire. For one thing they asked for credit card details and will debit said credit card of the funds for 22 days, IF, you reach your target,  at which point they refund you. So forget that, we can have our own Fund It type project. The premise of a pitch is a good one, so pitch it too your friends, family and patrons. A Tinderbox event or mini events will be needed. Maybe Mini events can help in your own funding our help the group. Myself and Elida made a list yesterday of things, within reason and the law you can do. Elida will post on this. Please!!! throw out ideas for funding. Ok thats enough for now.