Well, I just wrote a post over there, so consider it a placeholder.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Sky
I know, I know, I haven't blogged anything.
Well, I just wrote a post over there, so consider it a placeholder.
Well, I just wrote a post over there, so consider it a placeholder.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Chosen
I took this photo as a quick souvenir of our bookshelf day, but OMG I captured the moment my son fell in love with this utterly daggy Ktel compilation and it hasn't been off the turntable since... THE CHOSEN FEW.
I must have been around his age when I bought it, and I loved the 'free' poster I got with it. It looks so tough and metal, but it's soft and sweet and very mainstream. Wanna see the playlist? Go here.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
snakes and ladders
Gosh, it's been a whirlwind of a fortnight. Sorry, I just looked up and realised that I hadn't even checked my email since Friday night. And working full-time just sucks your life away, doesn't it? Lots of time to do inane Facebook things in the background, no time to do anything meaningful. It just sucks. I remember now why I gave up my full-time office job, there's really no time to be fully-functioning in the world. Mind you, Best Beloved thrives in his job. He loves Serving the Public. Go figure.
Emotionally we've all been thrashing one way and another, with one niece on the brink of death last weekend (conveniently while we were in Sydney so that I could teach a (lovely, if I may say so myself) weekend workshop at Warringah Printmakers, hence we could go and sit by her Intensive Care bedside) and another niece giving birth yesterday to an enormously gorgeous baby, making us all Very Young Great Aunts and Uncles. The Very Young Grandparents are being extremely wise in seeing this as the opportunity to have a Very Long and Happy Relationship with their grandchild. Congratulations to them, and a big sigh of relief that the other niece (from a separate branch of the same family) is recovering. Apologies for all the parentheses, it's all pretty complicated.
This weekend was the big Books-on-Bookshelves moving. Lots of boxes to heave and empty. I worked out a system based on my experience with letterpress. Letterpress takes a long time to set up, with very quick printing. It's always an exercise in patience. So. I emptied all of my boxes (left BB to do his own, always safest) and sorted all the books into A to Z on the floor, and then once that was done, put them on the shelves, sorting further into A-Z within each letter as I shelved, and dissing the ones I just didn't connect with (or had multiples of, having bought them again unwittingly) as I went.
Here's a view of stage 1. This is all the novels, with the bookcase up the back filled with poetry. I had grand plans to enter all the books into LibraryThing as I went (those that aren't on already), having bought a lovely little cat-shaped scanner that works with it, but the scanner is in a box somewhere and I couldn't be bothered working manually and slowly to enter them. Sigh.
Of course, the cats helped.
So at the time of writing MOST of the books are on shelves. There are still lots of boxes of various stuffs that need to be sorted, and a garage sale to be had, and then I can do serious studio prep, like painting and floor coverings. The press move is booked for 22 July, and I'm just about to steel myself to write my official email to ANCA to let them know when I'll be out. Exciting but scary.
Hopefully now I'm going to have more time to write and read blogs. I also want to get some printing done and share it with you, as it's not been a terribly big making year so far. I'll leave you with the brooches that I made for ANCA's PIN WONDERWALL show. it finished today, and was a huge sell-out, red dots everywhere like the plague. There were fabulous pieces, by 70-odd artists.
This lot are called 'Phat Groovers', and they're made from vinyl record shards and rhinestones:
They're an edition of ten, and I think about six are sold. Don't try smashing records at home, kids! Vinyl doesn't smash, it has to be bent & it shatters. I'm still finding little unusable shards around my studio...
And this is a one-off, made from a vintage belt buckle and a piece of video tape (with a single rhinestone around the back). It's called 'Pretty Woman', because that's the movie I used. It sold too! Yay.
Emotionally we've all been thrashing one way and another, with one niece on the brink of death last weekend (conveniently while we were in Sydney so that I could teach a (lovely, if I may say so myself) weekend workshop at Warringah Printmakers, hence we could go and sit by her Intensive Care bedside) and another niece giving birth yesterday to an enormously gorgeous baby, making us all Very Young Great Aunts and Uncles. The Very Young Grandparents are being extremely wise in seeing this as the opportunity to have a Very Long and Happy Relationship with their grandchild. Congratulations to them, and a big sigh of relief that the other niece (from a separate branch of the same family) is recovering. Apologies for all the parentheses, it's all pretty complicated.
This weekend was the big Books-on-Bookshelves moving. Lots of boxes to heave and empty. I worked out a system based on my experience with letterpress. Letterpress takes a long time to set up, with very quick printing. It's always an exercise in patience. So. I emptied all of my boxes (left BB to do his own, always safest) and sorted all the books into A to Z on the floor, and then once that was done, put them on the shelves, sorting further into A-Z within each letter as I shelved, and dissing the ones I just didn't connect with (or had multiples of, having bought them again unwittingly) as I went.
Here's a view of stage 1. This is all the novels, with the bookcase up the back filled with poetry. I had grand plans to enter all the books into LibraryThing as I went (those that aren't on already), having bought a lovely little cat-shaped scanner that works with it, but the scanner is in a box somewhere and I couldn't be bothered working manually and slowly to enter them. Sigh.
Of course, the cats helped.
So at the time of writing MOST of the books are on shelves. There are still lots of boxes of various stuffs that need to be sorted, and a garage sale to be had, and then I can do serious studio prep, like painting and floor coverings. The press move is booked for 22 July, and I'm just about to steel myself to write my official email to ANCA to let them know when I'll be out. Exciting but scary.
Hopefully now I'm going to have more time to write and read blogs. I also want to get some printing done and share it with you, as it's not been a terribly big making year so far. I'll leave you with the brooches that I made for ANCA's PIN WONDERWALL show. it finished today, and was a huge sell-out, red dots everywhere like the plague. There were fabulous pieces, by 70-odd artists.
This lot are called 'Phat Groovers', and they're made from vinyl record shards and rhinestones:
They're an edition of ten, and I think about six are sold. Don't try smashing records at home, kids! Vinyl doesn't smash, it has to be bent & it shatters. I'm still finding little unusable shards around my studio...
And this is a one-off, made from a vintage belt buckle and a piece of video tape (with a single rhinestone around the back). It's called 'Pretty Woman', because that's the movie I used. It sold too! Yay.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
More mutiny
I got the family up on Sunday and we ran away to the coast for the day. Not downwards, towards the parental Ducks, but across, ignoring the boganity of Batepersons Bay and then slightly up, first to South Durras and then to our favorite place in the known world, Depot Beach, where BB and I were married.
I just needed to walk on a wintery beach. Beaches, in my humble opinion, are best when you can walk along them with a crisp breeze around you. I also badly needed to scour all the sloughing skin from my post-scabies feet and I didn't feel like booking myself into a solvent-smelling nail joint to do it.
There was greasy salty fish-and-chip eating; there was walking,
with and without seaweed;
there was hole-digging
there was stone-skimming
and there was the time when I thoughtfully put down my book to take a photo of all of us
it was a really good book, too, so that was quite a sacrifice.
Did I say stone-skimming?
I've been sitting and reading in the same spot while Bumblebee stood at that same spot and threw stones lots of times now.
Sigh. Time flies.
By the end of the day we were tired and happy and my feet were silky smooth and craving moisturiser. We went home and cooked up a quick Indian storm followed by apple pie from the Braidwood bakery, and we were all in bed by 9:30pm.
I'm working full-time this week at the Art School, and working all weekend in Sydney teaching at the Warringah Printmakers (feel free to join that class if you're in the vicinity) and then full-time all next week, so Monday will be the only day off I have and that will be spent driving home from Sydney... so I made sure to make that day at the beach count.
For all those Canberrites who love to wear brooches, get thee hence to ANCA tomorrow night for the opening of PIN Wonderwall, with around 70 artists making pin work and most of it at very reasonable prices. The show continues for another ten days, but I can't guarantee that there will be much left to buy... tomorrow I reckon the red dots will be faster than chicken pox.
I just needed to walk on a wintery beach. Beaches, in my humble opinion, are best when you can walk along them with a crisp breeze around you. I also badly needed to scour all the sloughing skin from my post-scabies feet and I didn't feel like booking myself into a solvent-smelling nail joint to do it.
There was greasy salty fish-and-chip eating; there was walking,
with and without seaweed;
there was hole-digging
there was stone-skimming
and there was the time when I thoughtfully put down my book to take a photo of all of us
it was a really good book, too, so that was quite a sacrifice.
Did I say stone-skimming?
I've been sitting and reading in the same spot while Bumblebee stood at that same spot and threw stones lots of times now.
Sigh. Time flies.
By the end of the day we were tired and happy and my feet were silky smooth and craving moisturiser. We went home and cooked up a quick Indian storm followed by apple pie from the Braidwood bakery, and we were all in bed by 9:30pm.
I'm working full-time this week at the Art School, and working all weekend in Sydney teaching at the Warringah Printmakers (feel free to join that class if you're in the vicinity) and then full-time all next week, so Monday will be the only day off I have and that will be spent driving home from Sydney... so I made sure to make that day at the beach count.
For all those Canberrites who love to wear brooches, get thee hence to ANCA tomorrow night for the opening of PIN Wonderwall, with around 70 artists making pin work and most of it at very reasonable prices. The show continues for another ten days, but I can't guarantee that there will be much left to buy... tomorrow I reckon the red dots will be faster than chicken pox.
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