gocco swapping and lessons (always lessons)

(charlotte, don't look!)

that sarah is so smart.

i may have mentioned that sarah is the one who directed me to leslie's shop when i let it slip that i might be looking for a gocco (how quickly i went from "looking for" a gocco to owning a gocco!). and sarah is the one who prodded me, gently, encouraging me to open the box and try the thing already, when i was too nervous to unwrap the package. and then sarah devised the gocco swap. just the push i needed to try something new with my little print-gocco.

i had grand visions of multiple screens and a stunning winter print, but the weather was mild here in the weeks leading up to the swap deadline, and i was sorely lacking in the winter inspiration (read: tree branches covered in snow, icicles hanging from the eaves, frost covering anything at all) i had been hoping for, counting on.

but all of my wishing for winter weather (and one miracle snowstorm) led me land on snowflakes as my mid-winter inspiration. i had images of paper-cut snowflakes dancing through my mind, and when it became clear to me that i wouldn't be able to produce the sort of paper-cuts i had imagined, i moved on to doilies. i found some beautiful lace doilies on ebay (one of the items on my birthday list, checked off), knowing that they would make just the snowflakes i had in mind.

the doilies were even more beautiful in my hands than i had imagined when i saw them on the computer, which makes the next part of the story a wee-bit bittersweet.

occasionally, in my exuberance over a particular project, i forget to consider every single detail. and in this case, i hadn't thought about how (of course) the doilies wouldn't photocopy because they're white. yeah. (photocopying is an essential step in the gocco process - the carbonized image is what allows you to burn the screen from which you print.) i did, at one point, photocopy the doilies on a black background, thinking that i'd use the reverse-image, but gave that up because it didn't produce the snowflake effect i was looking for.

and unlike erin (who is brilliant), it didn't occur to me to use photoshop (was it photoshop, erin?) - because i don't use photoshop - to reverse the black and the white in the photocopied image. i can't tell you how hard i smacked myself in the head when i read how she had done that, because it would have solved all of my problems. the gocco problems, and the problems with my husband teasing me incessantly because i - are you ready? - dyed the doilies with grape koolaid in order to give them enough color to photocopy them and burn the screen. yeah. he gave me a hard time that night that i asked him to stop off at the store on the way home from work to pick up some grape koolaid for dyeing doilies. (he wondered why i didn't just spray paint the doilies black. another idea that didn't occur to me.)

so i dyed the doilies purple. (but only two of them, and not my favorite one, because i couldn't bear to ruin it!) which was fun, in itself. when was the last time you opened a jar of koolaid powder!? because that smell, it will take you back (even if your mom never let you drink koolaid like my mom never let me drink koolaid, it will take you back to the neighbor's house where you drank koolaid anyway). and it will give you a sugar rush, too - just the smell of the powder. and it will make you laugh, regardless. especially if you're standing at the kitchen counter at 9pm pouring the grape koolaid into pyrex baking dishes so that you can dye lace doilies in order to photocopy them.

anyhow, after they were dyed, the doilies did appear in the photocopies. but never as well as i would have liked them to. live and learn. the copies were too dark or too light, and the ones that were alright were just that - alright. and the screens that i burned from the alright photocopies were also alright. i would have loved crisp, clean lines like these. and these. but alas, i got a more ethereal effect. which might be just fine for snowflakes. and i learned quite a bit about what to do, and what not-to-do, next time.

there were many lessons along the way. about how much ink gets soaked up by cardboard and linen. about how it is impossible to find the moleskine cahiers with black covers exactly when you want them. about how the white ink and the silver ink do not mix into the lovely pale silver-y color from my imagination. about how much fabric ink it takes to keep a screen well covered.

and then there were these two lessons, my personal favorites: a thing does not have to be perfect in order to be lovely. and, the ideas inside my head are only ideas until i work them out of my head and into reality, at which point they take on a life of their own, and that is an essential part of the process of creating.

of course.

i loved this gocco swap - in the end, and all along the way. i loved the concept, i loved the project, i loved the lessons, and i am loving the bits of joy i am receiving in my mailbox lately. (i'll share those later.) and through it all, the good and the bad and the learning and the making - through it all, i enjoyed the process immensely. thank you, sarah, for all of it.

Comments

[Sarah Jackson]

They're just lovely. You are so right about what you learned - not the technical lessons - about the creative process. I can vouch for the fact that they're beautiful and ethereal in person - they're just perfect. Now if only I can stop hiding the notebook from my son so I can put it to use.

[amy]

they are beautiful!! and i've already popped over to leslie's shop to see if she can get me one too!

[joetta maue]

I actually love the dyed doily it is so lovely!!!
And the product looks great, Gocco can be a ...uhm, learning experience of moving through frustration. Glad you made it.
I wish I had been able to be a part of the swap, maybe next time.

[Bluebirdbaby]

Grape Kool-aid or not, they look pretty spectacular!! I am so jealous of all this gocco madness I'm seeing everywhere! I think I may have to get me one...

[Mama Urchin]

I am laughing about the purple doily. Maybe you could bleach it back? The moleskins look really pretty.

[cloth.paper.string]

emily, these are gorgeous. amazing. the mail hasn't yet arrived, but i know i'll actually welcome the dog's bark at the postal carrier today. even if the little one is sleeping. i so can't wait to hold this goodness in my hands!

and thanks to you for telling me the gocco swap idea wasn't crazy in the first place, for helping me wrestle through the logistics, for being my sounding board throughout.

thanks too for sharing so much of your process. it's really fun to learn more about the mysteries of gocco from each other don't you think?

[molly]

Well I for one think you are brilliant for dying the doilies to get the print! Now you just have to find someone who loves purple to give the doilies to. The cards are beautiful. I wasn't allowed Kool-Aid as a kid either, but I remember my neighbor always had a Kool-Aid mustache - I found it rather unappealing. Now I let my kids pick out Kool-Aid packets to make play-dough with, and sometimes we make a pitcher to drink too.

[erin]

oh, emily! i love your prints - the fabric and the notebook both! they came today and i had to hide them from jane (she liked them too!). the kool-aid part had me laughing - there is nothing like that smell. it does take you right back. and of course, the doilies....we were on the same track! leya too! but we all came up with such different things...that is the amazing part. thanks for sharing your process...i did use photoshop (but i think i am far from brilliant, probably just lucky). it took me a long time to figure out how to do that. i don't photoshop much at all. ok - now that i have filled up your comment space, i think we need to petition for a mid-summer gocco swap. sarah, are you reading? i have loads of ideas for that. some of which actually include kool-aid.

[leslie]

えみるり。that's your name in japanese. fun.
your creations turned out lovely. absolutely. i love your personal favorite lessons. lessons i am constantly relearning.

[Tracy]

It is so, so good to hear about your process, challenges and lessons. Some are lessons that I am continuously learning also. I struggle between the desire for perfection and the lovliness of imperfection. All the time. I love your snowflakes though, I always like a good moleskine, and linen. Thank you. It is such a lovely interpretation. And your process is - hysterical. I'm sorry you had to ruin (?) two doilies to dye them into submission, but your problem solving is so creative. And we are always learning. And that is good. Challenge is good, too.

[mj]

I love love love the doilies printed onto linen in the bottom picture. Worth the process, I'd say.

[cloth.paper.string]

i got them! and they're so good, emily. so good.

i was knitting with my kool-aid dyed yarn last night thinking of your description of dying the doilies, realizing that it might be hard to take myself seriously wearing a sweater knit from kool-aid dyed yarn. it does have such the giddy factor!

[alice]

I got mine today! Thank you so much, I love it. I am going to have to do something fantastic with the fabric also.

[hrsj]

"a thing does not have to be perfect in order to be lovely" - I love that. I should hang that in my studio for every time something turns out differently than I desired.
I giggled throughout your post and I think your printing and your moleskines look beautiful!

[Stefani]

Such a fun post, and such GORGEOUS goodies!

[julia]

so beautiful emily. i loved the description of the process and the finished products do truly look lovely. right now is when i'm so wishing i too had a gocco and had participated in this awesome sounding project.

[Victoria]

I have toyed with the idea of a gocco for a while, but find it intimidating. Someone referred me to a tutorial website and the fact I couldn't make head nor tail of it just made it worse! I think maybe it's something I'd need to figure out with someone else helping.