Weekend Read: Collect, Print, Collage: Printing with Nature by Sue Brown
There is a Japanese word, yutori, meaning an intentional slowing down and a savouring of the world around us, that sets the tone for artist Sue Brown's latest book. Collect, Print, Collage: Printing with Nature embodies that spirit: it is as much a philosophy of making as it is a practical guide.
Book cover for Collect, print, Collage: Printing with Nature by Sue Brown
Brown is a printmaker whose practice is rooted in place and season. From her studio in Cheltenham, she tends an allotment, watches birds, and works with whatever the garden offers. Leaves pressed in autumn, passion flowers gathered on a summer afternoon, Sambuca branches taken before their autumn prune — nothing is wasted, and everything has potential. Her wrok is governed by the rhythms of the natural world, and this book encourages readers to enjoy the same unhurried pace.
A selection of printed textures and natural objects from Sue Brown's collection
The techniques Brown shares are beguilingly varied, and the book's structure follows the wheel of the year with observance. Botanical contact printing — one of the oldest and most meditative of textile and paper arts — opens the book as a spring and summer pursuit, using heat and moisture to transfer the pigments of leaves and flowers directly onto surfaces, yielding prints that carry the ghostly imprint of a specific plant, from a specific place, on a specific afternoon. Cyanotype, that beautiful Victorian photographic process, captures shadow and light in prussian blue, requiring little more than summer sun and patience.
Artists books in the making by Sue Brown
Joomchi, the Korean art of felting hanji paper through wet manipulation, arrives in the autumn and winter section, offering a tactile counterpoint to the sun-dependent processes of summer. Later chapters on monoprinting with nature and on building natural compositions extend the possibilities further still, while a closing section on sketchbooks, journals and artist's books offers ways to bind it all together into an enduring creative practice.
A handmade jacket by Sue Brown, featuring hand-stitched, collaged and printed fabrics and papers.
What makes this book special is how Brown frames the passing of the seasons as a creative collaborator. Rather than imposing a project onto nature, she invites readers to let the natural calendar determine what is possible. Cyanotype in winter sun yields different results than in July; spring plants carry different pigments than their autumn counterparts. No two seasons, and no two prints, will ever be quite the same.
Interspersed throughout are personal essays from artists Tara Axford, Louise Richardson and Jill Walker, each offering a distinct perspective on working closely with the natural world. Their voices add texture and community to what might otherwise be a solitary practice. Collect, Print, Collage will appeal to textile artists, printmakers, journalers and anyone who has ever felt the urge to press a leaf into paper or fabric and couldn't quite say why.
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Further Information:
Collect, Print, Collage: Printing with Nature by Sue Brown is now available from Quickthorn Books.
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Image Credits:
Lead: Printed samples by Sue Brown.
All images courtesy of Sue Brown and Quickthorn Books.