For Bill

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. 

I love you simply

without problems or pride: I love you in this way

because I do not know any other way of loving but this

in which there is no I or you,

so intimate that your hand

upon my chest is my hand,

so intimate that when I fall asleep

your eyes close"

Pablo Neruda

A beautiful purposeful anarchy

I recently wrote a short story or a little essay which ever way you would like to look at it 

for a beautiful site

called 

THE PLANTHUNTER

www.theplanthunter.com.au

I hadn't done this before and my understanding of ( p r o p e r ) grammar, the technical side to our English language is rather very askew. I can go as far as a verb, adjective or noun, full stop, comma but that's it, as it never really got kickstarted in the beginning for me.

( I've noticed this hiccup glares at you when trying to learn a new language)

It all sprouted from my anxiety as a little totter in the classroom situation, of not fitting in and that, maybe it was repeating kindergarten. Maybe it was coming last in the class each year, or maybe it was when I decided to put my head through the bars on the kindergarten patio which was the first port of call into the school, only to get my head stuck. The bell rang and in desperation of not being found out the front of the school, I almost lost both ears pulling my head back out!

I don't know but what ever it was, school and me were not like a glove 

more like a lost sock worrying about being in the 3rd drawer down.

(You see, I preferred to do watercolours in my English books, all over the top of my writing while occasionally viewing the blackboard repetition, I was really in a world of my own, I just thought if I read a lot in my own time I would eventually catch up and grasp it. I've read a lot but I don't think I ever properly grasped grammar in its technical form.)

but that's ok.
I'm fine with that.
I' m   a  r i s k   t a k e r .

How to spot differences now, well I don't 

I just write.

I was as usual throwing myself fully to the task of writing this little story, but after 3 days of shamelessly believing that I had similar creative articulation as Tolstoy 

 sheer panic came over me, 

( f u c k ) 

this is where being naive is really really helpful, 

sometimes it can keep fear away from the door. 

So I opted for the road of naivety and grandeur of oneself.
.........and kept going

Topic:

SHELTER

Going straight to safety zone of what was

 very personal to me,

 growing up in wilderness gardens, as this is what really has taught me some great life skills and a deeper understanding of myself and how 

I look at the world to what it is and what it may become for me.

I guess I really wanted to express a different class room environment 

that really has stood by me all my life.

I guess I just keep trying new things.

I'm still such a strong believer in your environment that you grow up in, education yes it is very important but I think there's so much more to it, 

than just relying on a school education to

 tick all the boxes, 

because  sometimes

it doesn't.

Not everyone fits in.

Often the inspiration at school is the externals of life not the internals that really make up who we are.

A n y w a y

You can have a peak 

at this very inspiring site called The Planthunter, a must for all the green thumbs
and more of  a m u s t 
 for all the pink thumbs that really do need to feel the soil.

you can find my little story 

here

theplanthunter.com.au/gardens/beautiful-purposeful-anarchy/ 

Hill End Press wilderness garden

Bill Moseley of Hill End Press launches his 8 x 10 tin type exhibition called Nightshade.

Amongst printing our beautiful letterpress stationery, 

very busy Bill has also been working towards his exhibition which is opening 

at the

Dubbo Western Plains Cultural Centre

14th December 2013 at 2.00pm

on till 2nd February 2014

called 

NIGHTSHADE

Tin types and wet plate collodion photography.

(Here's an insight to this extraordinary antiquarian photographic practice)

Discovered by Frederick Archer in 1851, became the most popular technique for capturing an image well into the 20th century. These images are 'tintypes' which is a variation of the wet plate process, where a thin negative is created on a glossy black surface. The image 'reverses' itself on viewing under direct light, the deposited silver reflecting the light and appearing as 'white' in the image.

Quiet Entrance - Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tintype 2013

Also known as 'ambrotype', this process brings back the magic of surface to an image and has attracted many adherents dissatisfied b the ubiquitous inkject imagery that floods exhibition spaces. As well as the rich and unusual tonality, there is a sense of random unpredictability (at least to the practitioner) who must transport his or her portable darkroom to the subject. From the coating of the plate, exposure and development, there is a maximum interval of around 10 minutes. Each plate has it's own signature of how the collodion was poured and sensitised. An historian could discern whether a photographer was right or left handed.

Remembered Fragment - Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tintype 2013

There is a different way of looking at cllodion (tintype) photographs. The familiar tonalities of a black and white image are upturned, red are seen as greens as black, blue disappear, and one is forced to engage in an all-over way with the image. That is to say, that familiar foreground, middle ground and distance tonal values are subverted somewhat, creating an uncanny sense of timelessness.

Not unexpectedly, the art of wetplate photography has been greatly revived not just by artists, but by history enthusiasts concerned with the American civil war. Civil war reenactment photographs (even aerial ones!) have been deliberately staged to create a suspension of disbelief.

Early tintypes had no such artistic pretension, they were the cheap polaroids (remember them?) of the day. They could be produced quickly and cheaply on blackened iron, the fixing image could be trimmed with scissors and placed in a cheap folded card frame.

Owl - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

For all that, it's a difficult technique to master and the chemicals are harder to obtain now than in the 19th century, (they're all 'dangerous goods'). But there are some modern refinements, the plates no longer have to be laboriously 'black japanned', as gloss black 'trophy' aluminium is available, as is acrylic sheet.

The exhibition has been inspired by the landscape at Hill End where Bill lives and Oberon.

By the bridge - By Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

A closed room - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Early birds - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin types 2013

As it is - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Momento - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Lost jetty - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Remembered fragment 2 - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Wanderer - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Waterhole - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Visitor - by Bill Moseley 8 x 10 tin type 2013

Tin types are for sale, please contact for further information www.hillendpress.com.au

33 images in the series

Bill Moseley 2013



What is letterpress printmaking?

Ummm... to explain the  e v o c a t i v e   w o r l d   o f   l e t t e r p r e s s   printmaking in a nutshell. 

It's a metamorphis of highly trained skills, then and now, trying and failing, patience and determination, 

a crisp and luxurious impression,

within slow cook printmaking.

H e r e' s  a   q u i c k   l i t t l e   h i s t o r y   l e s s o n..

Moveable type was first developed by Bi Sheng in 1040  in the Song Dynasty in China. Although Sheng was progressive with getting the word out it involved a lot of labour in their extensive alphabet system so on the other side of the world a Johannes Gutenburg invented the printing press and independent movable type system...and a smaller anglo saxon alphabet.

A different cleverness Johanne knew that it would create a renaissance in spreading the thoughts and intellectual ideas to the world, rather than time consuming hand writing.

It meant the monks in monasteries could have 

more time to tend their medicinal gardens.

W h a t' s    m o v e a b l e   t y p e   y o u   a s k?

Well it's the individual letters and numbers that are either made up in wood or metal and assembled to create your dialogue and held in place by gadgets called coins and popped into a metal chase, then popped again into the press.

It all has to line up elegantly, be spaced beautifully and be enticing to the eye. 

It takes time and a whole lot of practice and patience.

Nowadays letterpress printers combine this with photopolymer plates, which means we can use our drawings and artwork, simply by making the plates in our darkroom.

You can see our tutorial on how we make our own plates

because we believe in thoroughly understanding our artisan industry as a whole.

T h a t' s   h o w   d i s c o v e r i e s   a r e   m a d e.

How to make a photopolymer plate by Bill and Genevieve 

Our Gordon Platen Press is then set up with ink, all portions of the printing surface will strike the paper with the proper pressure, which gives a crisp, luxurious impression embedded into the paper 

on our 100% eco sustainable cotton german 600gm board.

This is where the patience and determination comes in, because no matter how

many times you have this experience of printing and your skills are honed in, there more than

often is troubleshooting, which ask any letterpress printer and they will nod 

their head in an agreeable smile.

The alignment of plates and equal pressure of the ink placement can try and undo you some days and it can be like a disagreeable teenager, only you can't send the press off to the bedroom, it's having the years of experience behind you to sort it out.

After inking up...

Paper is then hand fed one invitation at a time through the press and at the same time pedaling the foot up and down, concentrating while the large flywheel spins 

until the desired number of printed copies are obtained 

with crisp lines, patterns and typography.

One has to watch their fingers and it's all in the  r y t h m n.

 To bring out the best attributes of letterpress printmaking one has to have a full understanding of the capabilities and advantages of what can be a very unforgiving medium at times.

But  w e   a r e   i n   l o v e  with the process,

(custodians of the authentic)

both its cranky, frustrating and the seamless happy days of printing.

SLOW COOK PRINTMAKING

HILL END PRESS

There's a toffee moon in the night sky

I'm sitting here looking out the window

and the moon is the colour of toffee.

The bushfires in NSW, all up and down the coast

have been horrific. Many people have lost

their homes. 

My brother at Mt Tomah is ready to go,

the fires are hovering a few kilometres at the

back of their land.

He has cleared as much as he can the land

around his very special property

where he has developed and bred rare

 irises, camelias and many

very rare plants from China.

Craig has the patience of a saint, sometimes waiting

years to see his achievements in

developing new varieties of plants.

Fingers crossed they and others will be safe.

For myself today,

I got stuck into painting my still lifes.

It helped to distract myself from

the fires.

It's the perfect meditation.

And ate broad beans on toast.