Terrie Reddish and I recorded a talk for 'BIND25 - preserving the past and crafting the future', Association of Book Crafts New Zealand conference. We discuss aspects of bookmaking in all its forms and ways to get involved in the communities of its practices, at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XWo...

Two pink-nosed goodbyes rolled one into the other. The last of our Spring soft releases rolled into the last sighting of our Scott Alley inhabitants, created especially for National Threatened Species Day. Last pair! Last hurrah! www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/la...

Looking up at the night sky, the stars can tell you when to seed, harvest, and fish. The overhead knowledge system heralds seasonal change, and allows you to read the weather forecast. The night sky is infinite: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/il...

Into the night: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/in... (A new post on Marginalia) The little soft release trailer stands empty. On Saturday afternoon, we opened the hatch to the soft release enclosure, and wished the then current occupants, Bug and Helena, safe adventures.

Diana Morgan Postgraduate and Honours Gold & Silversmithing Prize Exhibition and Announcement Thursday 21 August (Opening celebration & prize announcements) 5–7pm SITE EIGHT Gallery Building 2, Level 2, Room 8 Bowen Street (off La Trobe Street) Melbourne gif: @gracialouise.bsky.social

A fleeting sense of: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/fl... (A new post on Marginalia, from Scott Alley to BAT MASSIVE)

Page preening and costume turning: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/pa... (Paper Universe: the book as art slides into Melbourne Rare Book Week 2025. Something new on Marginalia.)

But a peep: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/bu... (Something new to read on Marginalia)

Last night, after the All Stars exhibition closing celebration, and the nocturnal shift commenced, we returned Zeus, a Gould’s wattled bat we’d recently had in care, to his leafy wild home in Camberwell.

RMIT School of Art ALL STARS Until Thursday 24 July Viewing times: Monday 21 July 10am–5pm Tuesday 22 July 10am–5pm Wednesday 23 July 10am–5pm Thursday 24 July 10am–5pm Closing celebration: Thursday 24 July 5pm–7pm

After a month in care, Billy Buttons, is another step closer to returning to the wild. 💚 www.instagram.com/p/DMUmIYqzGLr/

Done and dusted, cut and glued: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/co... (A new post on Marginalia, in the leaf litter with the insects, lands)

Awoken during the middle of the night by some sound, some thought, who knows? I looked out the bedroom window and saw the beautiful, familiar profile of a Brushtail possum on the pitch of our roof. Look closer: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/lo... (A new post to read on Marginalia)

RMIT School of Art ALL STARS Wednesday 16 July – Thursday 24 July (Closing celebration Thursday 24 July, 5–7pm) SITE EIGHT Gallery Building 2, Level 2, Room 8 Bowen Street (off Latrobe Street), Melbourne For lift access enter via Rodda Lane

Restoring Corridors Collage Workshop with Gracia and Louise Ground Level, NGV International 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne​ Tuesday 15 July Wednesday 16 July 12–3pm You can help restore a rich biodiverse landscape, one hopeful leap, one leaf at a time.

Because we learn so much from the trail camera footage we place at each soft release site, here, from the middle of winter, is a look at the three soft release groups earlier this year, for those curious and for the Ringtail fans. Enjoy the arboreal antics! www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/so...

The latest Book Arts Newsletter No 167, July - August 2025 is ready for download at: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/newsletters/ 76 pages of Artists' Books News - Exhibitions, Courses, Workshops, Opps, Book Fairs and Events, New Artists' Publications, Reports & Reviews, Announcements and Stop Press!

A constant state of continual change: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/th... Stephanie Lake’s The Chronicles, presented as part of Rising Drawn up for Fjord Review 🩰

Sporting costumes from the Ballet Russes, Salvaged Relatives, edition I, in the collection of the State Library of New South Wales, will be exhibited as part of Paper Universe: The Book as Art, curated by Maria Savvidis.

May you leap into the weekend with the vim of a ringtail possum. Our trail camera captured some enchanting moments from the soft-release of Oti, Toffee, and Marble at Batesford. Recorded on the 8th of April, earlier this year, watch as the trio find their spring.

Taking the historian’s long view, the message within “Last and First Men,” that “the whole duration of humanity, its evolution, and many successive species, is but a flash in the lifetime of the cosmos,” is, to me, ultimately a comfort.

We are all of us, beings, in a constant state of continual change. We humans are a composition of oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen. Our bodies are full of other chemical elements too, “heavier elements in lesser quantities, folded into our flesh like gold or rubies hidden in the earth".[i]

Now and winged: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/no... Something new on Marginalia.

As my relationship with various social platforms & the community spaces within them keeps changing, the reason for keeping Marginalia as a place that not only archives those behind the scenes moments but assembles them piece by piece strengthens. Continue reading www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/be...

More than fair, for sure: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/ar... (A new post on Marginalia, rewinds to the Melbourne Art Book Fair)

In John Cranko’s world, “if ballet only consisted of dance steps, it wouldn’t be worth dedicating your whole life to it”, and this sense of devotion is at the heart of Joachim A. Lang’s German-language film, John Cranko (2024). Continue reading on Marginalia: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/jo...

Piece by leaf: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/pi... (A new post on Marginalia)

See you at the Fair! 🌙 NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair 2025 Great Hall, NGV International 
180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne 
Friday 16th of May 10am–5pm 
Saturday 17th of May 10am–5pm
 Sunday 18th of May 10am–5pm

See you at the NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair 2025! mailchi.mp/1b774bfe4240...

Connecting threads: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/co... (Something new to read on Marginalia)

✂️ Saturday 10th May 2025 will be World Collage Day! ✂️ Roelof Bakker and I invite you to join us online for an informal talk about our recent collage | mail art project. 10/05/25 from 12.30 – 1.30 BST on Zoom, email me for the link to join - contact info at: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/news/#WCD25

Tunnel & Peep: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/to... A paper theatre in the making, on the working table (Something new to read on Marginalia)

Our fascination with entomology broadens as a new project continues to bubble in the wings. Something new to read on Marginalia, ‘Marvels, tailed and winged’: www.graciahaby.com/home/2025/ra...

A paper theatre in the making, our very own tunnel book (also referred to as a peep show book, where a series of cut-paper panels are placed one behind the other to create the illusion of depth and perspective) is taking shape, at Arten.

All that awaits, in the fullness of time, Oti, Marble, and Toffee, now that the hatch to the soft release enclosure is officially open. Which branches will they traverse first? We’ll have to wait and see.

World Book Night 2025 - Tell The Trees (Listen to the Trees) is now installed here at Bower Ashton Library until 30th July. 200+ pieces from many countries, a free download zine by @gracialouise.bsky.social and a short by Nancy Campbell can be found on the WBN page: www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/wbn2025/

Wee Oti, Toffee-long, and Miss Marble have moved into the soft release enclosure at Batesford, but not before a sweep of new nesting boxes were installed in the trees and the enclosure given new branches, which will enable them to sit and survey the new world as it has evolved around them.

Weighing Oti, Toffee, and Marble, ahead of their soft release, the last group for this autumn, it is heartening to record their progress. Wee Marble, who had so much trouble with her compromised gut flora when she initially came into our care, is up and going. She may be petite, but she is mighty.

Last night, as we looked at the clouds in the sky, we thought of ‘our’ now wild possums at Staughton Vale. Through the window, one cloud looked like a rabbit on their hind legs, running Alice in Wonderland late. Another, like a tortoise, in profile.

An absolute joy to see Harry and Constance squeezing through the soft release enclosure’s hatch, like Pop Goes The Weasel clockwork.

Though we almost missed it, we’ve fluttered in with a zine, ‘(Imagined) field notes’, created especially for this year’s World Book Night 2025 exhibition and mail art swap, ‘Tell The Trees (Listen to the Trees)’. 💚 @sarahbodman.bsky.social

The spectacular "Zoology of New Holland" (1794) was the earliest publication dedicated to Australian fauna & the first to use of the term "Australia". By George Shaw with hand-coloured engravings by James Sowerby, from Museums Victoria's Rare Book Collection. doi.org/10.5962/bhl....

This is little Pickle, so named for the duration of her overnight stay with us, a young female echidna, who was dropped off to a vet clinic in Footscray (pictured here).

Cold, immovable violence is rooted at the heart of Johan Inger’s “Carmen.” Drawing from Prosper Mérimée’s 1845 novella, Inger’s timeless version of “Carmen” revels, as it was originally written, Carmen’s death, at the hands of Don José, as chillingly intentional.

We test our mockup of our forthcoming artists’ book, ‘Restoring corridors, taken up again’. Looking at the mockup, we can see what we need to fix and what we want to change. We read over the text, again, which was written about an earlier soft release group, and see if it still tallies.

Or if we want non-human ways of perceiving the world, how about this: scientists have learned that caterpillars, having been exposed to painful stimuli, *remember the pain* even after dissolving into goop and transforming themselves into butterflies. The fuck can AI tell me that’s better than that?

🚨 echidna in the garden 🚨 🚨 ECHIDNA IN THE GARDEN 🚨

As night falls, the ringtails, Constance, Rose, and Harry, now have the option of threading out into the beautiful wild beyond. The hatch officially open, the world, their oyster in the form of a tall eucalypt next to another tall eucalypt next to another, until you reach the Brisbane Ranges.

After months of care, a big day for Rose, Constance, and Harry, who are now spending their first night in the soft-release enclosure at Staughton Vale.

The boulevard of London plane trees has been wrapped in Yayoi Kusama’s white-on-pink dots, the only southern hemisphere biodiversity capable of flourishing in these particular northern hemisphere trees.