Ampersand Duck

Sampled

2012-01-28T13:47:00.003+11:00

I finally finished my type sampler.

Open publication - Free publishing - More fonts

(If that doesn't load for you, go here)

I also wrote about it here.

That done, I'm going to head over to Crazybrave Zoe's for an unAustralian hot pot party. Australia Day itself was pretty good; I took Bumblebee to the Aboriginal Tent Embassy shindig but we left before it all got excitingly stoopid. Then there was an afternoon of fine press printing, and then the fireworks I mentioned earlier. Something for everyone, don't you think?

Remembering to breathe

2012-01-26T20:50:00.003+11:00

...as we await the Australia Day fireworks.

When I get that feeling, I need textual healing

2012-01-17T08:49:00.003+11:00

The type sampler continues apace. Well, in slow paces as I predicted, since my darling Bumblebee returned and other things started intruding.

Like the new course I'm teaching this year that I spent the weekend writing. For a few years now I've been teaching a class called 'Book Design' (a title not of my choice. I'd rather 'the book as art' or something), and in an attempt to keep the letterpress equipment used, I've up to now structured the course in two parts: one semester of learning artist book structures and the other semester working with letterpress. Now the art school has come fully in line with the rest of the university and all our courses have been changed to electives to be mixed & matched to make a degree, so I took the opportunity to ask my boss if I could slip in a new course called Typography: text in art. And o yeah, it was approved. Huzzar!

So now, in what can become a Book Minor to complement a printmaking Major, there is a fully book-centred Book Design course and a separate Typography course. It's not just letterpress; I want to look at artists who incorporate text in various forms into their work, whether painters, sculptors, textile artists, glass workers, woodies or whatever. I've been picking the brains of my friends for suggestions and I'd much appreciate your suggestions too.

One of my long-term favorites is Xu Bing and his Sky Book work. A recent favorite is my good friend Nicci Haynes, who treats text as image, and it's not meant to be legible. There's so many ways of creating text: letterpress, inkjet, laser prints, hand-writing, sewing, scratching, engraving, cutting, piercing, typewriters, stickers... and more. That's what this class will be exploring, as well as things like sourcing text, acknowledging and attributing, and writing your own. Fun!

This is one of my pieces, called 'Blue'. It's text from a vintage copy of Little Women collaged on to an old pianola roll, making the lyrics to New Order's 'Blue Monday'. From the 2010 exhibition '3 Chords & the Truth'.

Unfortunately, because it's the first year that it's offered, and no-one at the school knows what it's all about, Typography might not run this semester due to low enrolments. But it will stay on the books, and might get going next semester if I keep talking about it. Book Design, however, has ballooned, and we're going to run two classes this semester! Wow.

We've also had a house full of visitors this week. Not only have I had studio visitors, including wood engraver Tanya Myshkin (who is setting a book), but we've had family and friends staying. I love having a spare room, it keeps the house full of energy.

It's taken me four days to write this post as things keep leaping out at me. Since starting it I've laid out a Henry Lawson short story in a scholarly edition computer setting (lots of intricate fiddly bits); gone to my ukulele group (we don't wear Hawaiian shirts, but I have special Hawaiian sunset undies to get me in the mood) and learned 'Yellow Brick Road' (lots of intricate fiddly bits) and 'Butterfly Ball' (violently hated by some group members, and thus to be only played sporadically); had dinner with Barbara Blackman (ex-wife of Charles, a Best Beloved family friend) and had a meeting about the new course.

I have been reading, too: Cold Light, by Frank Moorhouse (loved the Canberra connection), Un Lon Don by China Mieville (which is a young adult book using a lot of the themes of Kraken, and very enjoyable); Love by Angela Carter, and right now, One of our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper FFFFFFFFforde. A little bit every day is good for the sleeping.

Today I had to find my recipe for beetroot risotto for BB, so I might as well relink to it here. Next on my list is to go roller-skating in the temporary public rink in the city. Fun! I don't know when, but I'll get there. I have to vacuum the studio today, I had a sparkie in yesterday to put in a new light in the dark corner of the studio and a power point near the press, so there's drilled crumbs of stuff everywhere. And then I'll get printing, a whole nother page. I have to get this sampler finished so that I can get on with 'real' stuff, like the new Book Art Object project.

Here's a picture of the kitties to finish, to remind us of what is real in life.

Um, yeah. A vignette.

2012-01-09T16:03:00.003+11:00

Scene: The Northbourne Ave/Antill St traffic intersection. I'm in the right hand turn lane, the only car at the intersection so far, and the full cycle of light changing is ahead of me.

The scraggy window-washer approaches. I have my window down, but the music up (Nirvana was on the radio, playing 'Heart-shaped Box'. I'm singing along). He says something.

I turn the music down. 'Sorry, what was that?'

He waves his squeejee thingy.

'No thanks!' I say.

'Yeah, it looks pretty clean already. Did your husband wash it?'

'Um, no. It rained yesterday. That usually helps.'

'Ohhhh. Yeah. Huh.'

'I guess you don't get many takers when it's been raining. Bad for business and all that.'

'Ohh, yeah, I guess so.'

'Don't worry, everything will get dusty again soon.'

'Ohh, yeaaah. Huh. Hey, I just wanted to show you that I bought this new squeejee, brand new. But the rubber's got a dent in it, so it doesn't work well already. Pretty fucked, eh.'

'You should take it back to the shop.'

'Huh? You reckon? I think I've still got the receipt.'

'Absolutely you should! Tell them it's bad for your business. It's your professional tool, after all.'

'My prof... yeah! Huh! I should do that!'

'You go nuts, mate. Good luck.'

The arrow changed to green, and I took off, leaving him looking thoughtfully at the dent.

Sampling

2012-01-08T19:07:00.004+11:00

Hello! My ears are a bit better after making myself do very little for a while. Then I got really bored, because I'd already given myself a really restful holiday, and I was gagging to get back to work just when the Doctor told me to stop. So I've been pottering around the studio, building up the stamina to really get into things.

This weekend was Summernats weekend, an annual rev-head car festival, and it traditionally makes a lot of noise - plus the dickhead population increases tenfold in our part of town, which is just near the festival venue. It drives BB crazy, so when he mentioned wanting to go to Sydney to catch up with visiting UK-based friends, I jumped at the chance to send him away and really start something solid.

Off he drove, leaving me with two straight days to be in my studio with the music pumped and the ink rolling so as to ignore the sound and smell of tyre burn-outs across the way.

I've been meaning to produce a type sampler for ages, mainly as a tool for my working process and to show people what fonts I can use, and because it's a huge endeavour to get a sample of everything out and arranged usefully, I might as well print a stack of them to give to people over the years.

Here's a few images from the weekend. There's more at my flickr site. I've been printing non-stop, have pulled over 500 prints and I'm just under halfway through! The rest will take a couple of weeks just because I have to juggle it with everything else. BB came home tonight and grumped about the kitchen being filthy, but I made no apologies, because there were better things to be doing all weekend. Voila:

As you can see, Padge helped. I want him to give me a foot massage (they ache to buggery), but he's not very keen.

Stoopid ears

2012-01-03T12:58:00.002+11:00

So apparently I cannot print today because I went to the doctor about feeling dizzy ever since New Year's Eve and lo! I have not partied too hard, I have Labyrinthitis. No, not a morbid fear of minotaurs or of walking into confusing spaces, but a viral ear infection that gives me dizziness and flu-like symptoms. I have to drink lots of fluids and rest and not drive too much, move too fast and according to my husband, this means not operating my press. Even a little bit.

Poo bum.

So I have gone through the pantry and found all the dregs of the Christmas treats: half a box of Roses, some gingerbread, etc, and am lying on the bed snorting at Kate Beaton cartoons. Here are some of my favorites:

Dude watching with the Brontes

Victoria & Albert

Courtly Love

Jane Austen transcends fandom

Yesterday I found a hard copy of her book in Paperchain Bookshop, but I didn't have my Christmas book voucher with me so had to leave it behind *sob*. I hope it's still there when I get the chance to drive over again.

I was in Manuka yesterday to see Albert Nobbs, which is a grand story about women that will be very popular in womanly circles. I certainly enjoyed it. Glenn Close makes a very good man, mainly because her hands aren't pretty. My biggest beef about any movie involving Barbara Streisand (only slightly off-topic) is that she always has a perfect manicure, no matter if she's playing a struggling dish-washing girl or a man or an ordinary woman. Ruins the illusion every time.

*pout*

*more pouting*

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T12:08:00.004+11:00

I couldn't decide. So I've put them all up.

Actually, my biggest new year's resolution is to Reclaim my Brian. Or even my Brain. I am going to cut down on Facebooking, pare down my game-playing, and start blogging and reading and writing again.

So you have full permission to nag me if I don't update at least once a week about something printy or booky. It's been far too long.

Oh, and I'll Remember to Breathe again too.

And a late online happy birthday to Colonel Duck, who was born on New Year's Day, the same day as his grandfather.

Helpful cats

2011-12-29T08:49:00.004+11:00

I thought I'd sort out a few typecases yesterday, since I'm working on a type sampler for myself (and those who like to collect such things). The big triumph was finding a whole drawer of 12pt French accents in Garamond, just as I have a visiting artist who is setting a French poem. Huzzar! We'd been wondering what to do re. accents and now the problem is solved.

Padge came and helped. One minute he was here:

and the next time I turned around to replace a case he was here:

He's a very helpful cat.

Let me show you more ways that he helps in the studio.

Paperweight.

Keeping things upright.

Load tester.

Security.

Stocktaking.

Press operator.

Chair warmer.

Pooter's main job is Padge-washer.

He doesn't like being a printer, mainly because of the silly hats they have to wear.

Happy Birthday, baby Bejeebus

2011-12-25T18:30:00.002+11:00

I'm lying on my bed with Padge, who is trying to sit on top of me so that I can dry the rain off him. We had a lovely sunny morning, and now we're having a lovely rainy afternoon.

I'm lying on my bed to rest off the Xmas Belly that I built up at lunchtime. We had a stray friend (I almost typed 'fiend') come and eat with us, and while we had a humble yet lavish spread of prawns, bbq'd chicken tikka, mushrooms stuffed with feta, potato salad and a couple of leafy green salads, we washed it down with three bottles of bubbly and followd through with Best Beloved's Authentic Christmas Pudding (the secret ingredient is cumquats) with custard and homemade vanilla icecream.

Errggghhhh.

I got a few presents: a single-cup teapot for my new chai addiction (I'm not allowed to use our usual teapot because the flavour lingers, apparently; the latest Frank Moorhouse, Cold Light and Alison Bechdel's graphic novel autobiography, Fun Home, which I inhaled this morning before lunch and thoroughly enjoyed.

So here I lie, feeling bloated and thoroughly spoiled. I've talked to my son on the phone (how I wish he were here!) and my lovely parents (they'll be here in a couple of days, so I'm not so sooky about them).

And so I wish you all a wonderful Christmas. I hope it's fun-o-rama.

Oh oh oh

2011-12-24T16:42:00.002+11:00

I hope you've done as little as I've done this week. Or that you get to do very little over the next week. It's very nice, chilling out.

And that you have a lovely Christmas eve.

I'll be back tomorrow with a Christmas post.

The morning after the night before: a photo essay

2011-12-22T10:43:00.013+11:00

Overindulgence achieved (warning: overuse of brackets ahead)

2011-12-19T06:37:00.007+11:00

I've had Christmas.

Truly I have, but not in the 'I'm so over this capitalist pig-fest' sense; I've actually had my Christmas Day, done and dusted, and now I can just sit back and watch the rest of the western world go crazy for a week. It's a great feeling.

We went down to Colonel & Lady Duck's prickle farm and had our day on Saturday, since on Wednesday this week Bumblebee heads off for three weeks with his father (we take turns having Christmas access; the one who misses out gets the next Easter).

When we do this, the day is so authentic that the 'real' Christmas Day feels wrong. This year we waited until 3pm to start festivities, since my godmother auntie was driving down from Wollongong to join us. At the dot of 3, the bubbly was popped, the presents were doled out, and the yummies began, starting with a hug pile of prawns and oysters and lemon-cooked tuna (as in not cooked, but marinated in lemon juice all day). Scrabble was played, stomachs were rubbed gently in front of a late night screening of Tim Minchin (better than the Queen's speech) and a good time was had by all. Especially Bumblebee, who not only scored an iPod Touch out of us all collectively, but extra stuff as well because everyone secretly (and stoopidly) felt like their portion of a tiny appliance wasn't enough and bought him various other things. DOH.

My present pile included a ukulele (a Tanglewood tenor, for those who care), chocolates, a pair of shoes and some clothes, a Scrabble mug (heh), lots of books (including Best Poems of 2011) and a book voucher (Colonel Duck and I exchange vouchers for most occasions). I also got a beautiful carved wooden illuminated cap C that I should be able to use on my press. Lovely!

I overindulged so much that on the way home yesterday I had to stop at Nimitabel (the small hamlet at the top of Brown Mountain) to hurl my guts at the nearest clump of grass near the car door (I wanted to make it to the portaloo, but I just couldn't get there), much to the interest of a couple of dogs picnicking nearby. I haven't done that for YEARS, must have been the lunchtime bourbon & cola UDL (left over from the office xmas party: see below). :)

Ah yes, we also had Best Beloved's office Christmas party at our house (he told me three days before). I skulked in my studio for most of the time, until the real fun started: Mean Santa. It's a Kris Kringle type of affair, with everyone buying a random present for around $10, but then all the wrapped presents are put in the centre and all the participants pick a number out of a bowl. Number 1 gets to pick and unwrap a present. First choice! But no... number 2 gets to pick & unwrap, and then decide if they prefer their choice or the other opened present, and they can take it if they want. And so forth, with each person getting the choice of all the presents that have already been opened. So the best number to get is the last one, because you then have the full gamut of presents to choose from.

I enjoyed the deviousness of some of the presents, bought by people who have played before. One was an ARRRRRR bra (that's the noise we all made when we saw it) which made all the ladies laugh but the men were reluctant to even touch it. Another was a bunch of lottery scratchy tickets -- very smart, because it was indeed such a gamble. Did you take that over a $10 Koko Black chocolate voucher? Would you be left with a bunch of useless bits of paper and a longing for lost chocolate or would you be a millionaire who could buy all the chocolate you wanted? MWAH HA HA HA HA HAAAAAA...

They had a big BBQ (once we ran down to the shops to get a new gas bottle. So hard to tell how much gas is left in them!) and one of Best Beloved's authentic puddings. We had one on Saturday too, and there's one left for next Sunday, that we'll eat with the cats and a few human strays, which will be our only Xmas effort. Oh dear, that sentence makes me sound like a cannibal who has cats for entree. But you all know what I mean.

So hopefully the next week is going to be lovely and relaxed with some quality studio time and a lot of lolling, in the traditional, prone sense.

There's been a little bit of rushing around getting things together for another reason. Two years ago we flirted with the idea of sending Bumblebee to the local private high school and when he didn't get in (they had a bumper waiting list that year) he went happily to the local public school and we just got on with life. The private school is closer than the public school, which is really why we thought we'd apply, plus the fact that we'd been REALLY cranky with his half-arsed primary school (which HAD been one of the best primary schools in the area until the last 2 years of his time there).

Anyhoo, a week ago we were called by the school to say that there were vacancies in the year 9 intake, were we still interested, and if we were we had three days to accept. GAH! Emergency family meeting. As much as B enjoyed the social life at his current school, we've been less than happy with the school and its organisational skillz. Plus the fact that it's headlined the local news twice this year, once for a girl-bully knife fight in the middle of the school yard and once for a Hep-A outbreak in the school canteen that resulted in lots of people needing immediate vaccination.

Also, B had fallen in love with the private school's facilities when he did the tour a few years ago. They cater really well for both kinds of students, the academic sort and the vocational sort, with a full commercial kitchen, mechanics workshop, great library, and a school intranet that actually works (the one for his current school SUCKS, despite it being the 'new, improved' version). When we pointed out that he's not moving cities, that his friends will still live a short bike ride away and that he'll still see them on the bike path every day, Bumblebee became quite interested in giving this new school a chance. Plus we gave him a promise that if he gets to the end of the year and he's miserable and hates the school, he can go back to his old school. We mean it. The other option is he just does year 9 and 10 there, and goes to the public college which is even closer again to our house.

So we said yes, and that means big changes next year for all of us, including budgets and belt-tightening. We went in today to have another look at the school, and I was really pleased to see B bouncing out of the place enthusiastically, so I hope he does enjoy it. The uniform is in his favorite Sith colours: black and red, which sweetens the deal. The official list says 'in winter, you can wear a scarf, but it must be black': BUMMER!

So happy Christmas preparations to you, may it all be sweet and simple.
Don't forget to wrap your cat (thanks Elephant's Child!)

happy heart

2011-12-04T16:37:00.006+11:00

On Friday I went to the ANU School of Art Grad Show opening to present my wee annual studio residencies to the people I'd chosen.

The actual selection was really hard - there are lots of very talented people that graduate every year, and this year is no exception. I had a wide range of choices, especially from Printmedia itself, which is having a very strong year. However, I have a real interest in working with people who are not printmakers by choice, mainly to see how they explore the notion of printing textually, so I always have a look around outside of the printmaking workshop for one of my choices.

It took me a while, but I came up with Louise Upshall, who is a painting graduate whose final work consisted of zines and collage, and who has a confronting (in a really good feminist way) called Cervixosaurus. Click that link if you want to be reassured that there are young women who still believe in feminism.

The second choice was Merryn Sommerville, from Printmedia & Drawing. In the words of Gillian Welsh, 'some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind', and Merryn is one of them. Her work pretends to be pretty, but then grabs you by the throat. We've owned a print by her for a while now, from (I think) her first year of art school, and her final year work is devastating: eerie and creepy pastel drawings of children on dark paper, accompanied by ceiling-strung disembodied vintage childrens' clothes.

Here's Merryn, accompanied by a bevy of equally talented young things:

From left to right: Louisa, Edie, Rachel, Merryn. Merryn is wearing a vintage 1920s flapper dress, complete with sequinned fascinator.

Another reason to go to the opening was to listen to the guest speaker, Robyn Archer, who didn't disappoint. She kicked ass, talking about ambition; the ability, nay the necessity to fail; the fact that art doesn't have to please anyone but yourself, thanks very much; and she started the buzz for the Centenary year (2013) celebrations that she's organising by saying how much she wants the art school to participate because it's full of energy, talent and knows how to put on a good party. And yes, Kerryn, she said good things about Adelaide, mainly the fact that by the time she got to the world stage, she'd learned everything she'd needed to know from her small home city. She rawked.

So I gave out my prizes, and am looking forward to some fabulous conversations over lunch with those two young women...

...and then dashed off to my dinner appointment, around the corner of my neighbourhood, to the home of some friends who are amazing, um, homemakers is the wrong word, but I don't know what else to say. Their garden is magnificent, all interesting and useful and edible plants, with nice nooks to sit in and a big pizza oven setup. I went to eat pizza, and eat pizza I did.

Somehow over dinner we got talking about music, and about ukuleles. I know a lot of people who have taken up ukulele playing, not the least Helen Garner, whose short piece 'The Ukulele Club' was published in The Feel of Steel in 2001. Back then, she could write about a man from Sydney wanting to join the Melbourne Ukulele club:

They stared at me.
'Is there such a thing as a ukulele nerd?' said Sally.

Well, Sally, yes there is, and apparently now, ten years later, there are a lot of them around. Both of my pizza friends, F and M, play ukulele, but M is definitely a ukulele nerd. When I expressed interest in trying one, she brought out a few from her collection, one of which she had made herself.

We sat around the fire in the chilly summer night (!) and played something simple. I am a casual uneducated guitar picker from way back, unable to read music but able to followed chord tabs and with an ear for a tune, so I followed pretty well.

And fell hard.

M let me borrow one of her ukes. I took it home and downloaded too many songs from the internet and played all weekend. Of course I'm crap, and I can't sing, but I'd forgotten the simple pleasure of making one chord move into another in a way that makes your heart sing along.

I went to my first Uke Group on Monday night, and while it was tricky to keep up and sing at the same time, it was fun because it was completely inclusive, and non-competitive. And there were those chord changes, ringing into the heart.

My fingertips hurt. But now I know what I'm getting for Christmas... we're going to the music shop on Saturday.

Entertaining

2011-12-01T12:01:00.006+11:00

I'm sitting in my clean, re-instated lounge room: furniture back into place, floor vacuumed, surfaces uncluttered.

[Quick! Somebody scrape Colonel Duck from the floor & give him a stiff drink...]

Down in the studio, Jon is working on the press for his Broadside residency. He's been on a steep learning curve, having never printed with type before, and as a painter, he's been resisting the hard edges of the task (like working in blocks and straight lines), but today he's decided to commit to one matrix, and is locking wood type up in a chase so that he can concentrate on playing with the inks in a painterly way. He comes on Thursdays, and Helani comes on Wednesdays, and they both bring lunch to share with me, which is lovely and a ritual I enjoy very much, especially for the conversations we have.

I'm sitting here enjoying the clean space, because the last week has been slightly chaotic - in a good way.

First, of course, we had Thanksgiving: the real deal, because of Julia, my American neighbour and her fun-loving landlord/flattie Lisa. As real as we could get it, anyway. I moved my outdoor table into the big loungeroom and moved the couch out to the other room, and we made one big dining area, with masses of spray roses from the back yard and candles.

Lisa prepared an ENORMOUS turkey that was cooked in my oven through the afternoon:

Julia made pumpkin pies, pecan pies, sweet potato with marshmallow topping (meant to be a savoury!) and an amazing gluten-free stuffing involving cranberries & nuts and yummy things.

Mummy Crit, who was invited because her partner is a very homesick American (and also the fact that she's good company), made a mushroom-bean casserole and brussel sprouts cooked with bacon, plus many tins of root beer (yum!).

Bumblebee peeled 4kgs of potatoes, which I then diced and cooked and mashed, but Crit took over the mashing because I slightly undercooked them and they needed her touch to be perfect. He also made a kick-ass salad (he's getting very good at salad!).

Other people, who were mostly friends of Julia's and hence were either ANU linguists or anthropologists, brought fruit, cheeses and such stuffs.

By the end of the evening the turkey was the only thing that wasn't stuffed anymore. Julia was very happy.

More photos here.

The next day I cleaned up, but decided to leave the tables where they were until Best Beloved got home from the US (while we were celebrating Thanksgiving, he was losing that particular day from his life!). He got home at lunchtime, without his bag, which was lost in transit! Noooooooooo! No presents!

Well, almost no presents. He still had the duty-free bag. Two big bottles of Bombay Sapphire gin (at $25 each!) and a heap of maple syrup flavoured things like biscuits and chocolate. And a wee little Day-of-the-Dead present for me of a little guitar-playing skeleton lady in a matchbox that fitted into his checked luggage.

Poor bugger, he had to travel to NZ on Tuesday, and all his work stuff was in the bag. He hassled and hassled and talked to his airport contacts (that's his public servant special subject) but for ages we weren't sure if he'd see the bag again, or if it would be lost in the great mosh of lost luggage that haunts the world.

So we decided that we had a window of opportunity with the giant dining room and his travelling, and we called up a bunch of people he hadn't seen for a while and we had a bring-a-plate curry meal on Sunday night. We didn't get maximum numbers, but we had enough people to have a very fun night. And all the leftovers and cleaning up afterwards. Mind you, I wasn't sick of the chicken biriyani BB cooked after eating it for three days.

On Monday I had a visiting day: I went {shiver} across the lake! And all the way down to Condor! I visited my dear friend Narelle, who manages the ANCA studios. We've had many catch-ups around my turf, I figured it was time to visit her in hers. It was great fun, with lots of yummy food and talking. On the way back (I hate making an 80km round trip without batching a few things) I visited Elephant's Child, and we had a cuppa and swapped good reading books. Then I dropped in on the Aged Poet for a while and read her some of her own poetry (best thing about a failing memory, you like to hear about your own good work), then headed home, completely talked out.

And then on Tuesday the heavens opened, and lo, thunder and lighting was all around. Tuesday night was a bout of incredible weather, and if you were in it too, I hope you were safe and warm. BB went to Wellington, NZ, but while he was sitting at Sydney airport waiting for his flight out, his luggage was sitting there to, waiting for a flight to Canberra. The poor courier delivered it in the middle of a downpour, with lightning flashing overhead. The bag is now sitting patiently in the corner, full of presents and dirty washing, waiting for its master to come back to it on Saturday.

We couldn't sleep for the lightning, so I let Bumblebee come out of bed and we put a couple of comfy chairs facing the window and we watched the show through our wonderful front window. It was awesome, in the true sense of the word: horizontal lightning, vertical lightning, great growls of thunder.

We reminisced about the story I used to tell him when he was little and scared during storms. I made it up after a visit to Vinnies when I found a weird stuffed toy that was a lion in a safari outfit and no tail; it looked like Steve Irwin as a lion. I used to have a little bag of fresh toys in the laundry cupboard as a distraction if we were having a hard day. On this particular evening, it was thundering wildly and we were sitting on the kitchen floor eating popcorn (making and eating popcorn is another great fear distracter) and I told him that the thunder is actually a giant lion that lives in the sky, and every now and again lightning would hit his tail and he would roar. The poor grumpy lion! we exclaimed together as the thunder grumbled again. And you know, I said, there's only so many times a lion can get hit on the tail before his tail falls off and he doesn't want to live in the sky anymore, no matter how beautiful it is. Poor grumpy lion! And I pulled out the lion toy and said that this lion had come down from the storm and wanted a nice place to live where no one would make fun of his having no tail. Poor grumpy lion! I'll be his friend! B exclaimed. He called him 'Funky' and he still has him... out of sight, but not very far from his bed.

We laughed about the story and did that wonderful thing you can do with teenage boys, which is talking sideways while they think they're doing something else. I learned a lot, and then we staggered off to bed, aware that there was school etc in the morning.

The 'etc' turned out to be my annual chance to go to the art school to have a preview of the graduating show and pick out a couple of recipients for next year's Broadside Residency. I'm looking forward to meeting the two that I picked (I can't reveal them until Friday, when I give them their 'award' at the exhibition opening (I'm also going because Robyn Archer is opening the show!). Exciting! It's a good exhibition this year, I recommend a visit. It's a wonderful thing when the whole school becomes an enormous gallery.

And then last night we had my fortnightly Scrabble-dumpling soiree; fortnightly because it coincides with byrd's child-free weeks, and he and his lovely lady are the staple ingredient of the S-D nights, which have been happening in many shapes and forms since he was camping in our back yard when he had a homeless stint. We used to just drink beers in front of Spicks & Specks, but over the last few months it's transformed into something that is so much fun I haven't even missed S&S. Food used to be a bit of potluck until we hit upon the plan of everyone bringing a packet of frozen dumplings to steam with my big double bamboo steamer and we gobble them with chopsticks and various dipping sauces. Much easier.

We started the evening with an impromptu visit from neighbour Lisa's a capella group who gave us a taste of their repertoire before they do their first public gig later in the week: Java Jive, Boogie-woogie Bugle Boy and Love is in the Air. It was fantastic!

Then a few of us played Exquisite Corpse, the Surrealist parlour game where you fold a paper into four strips, and one person draws a head (leaving neck lines into the next section), folds it over, and the next drawing is of the torso to the waist (leaving lines again), then the next is the pelvis to the knees, and then the lower legs and feet. Sometimes we got a bit confused about direction, so things ended up having feety things at both ends! And we also had to add a little bit of text to make it fun.

Here are a few examples - the scans do no justice to the colours! Hoon (byrd's lady, and an old friend/housemate of mine) did some colouring-in of the drawings through the rest of the evening, when she wasn't dancing to Jeff Buckley, something I've never seen anyone do, but then she's someone who is always gorgeously different.

If you look closely, you'll see an upside-down portrait of me done by byrd, and Bumblebee's 'love lightning'. It was a lovely evening. I fell off the wagon (only one day early), and we all drank wine and played Scrabble until far too late.

Hence the reason why I'm sitting quietly, having finally put the big table outside, finally done a big vacuum and put the couch back, and put the umpteenth load of dishes in the dishwasher that has been working very very hard this week.

And this is why I'm not entertaining again for a little while. At least until next fortnight, when the Scrabble board starts to rattle in the cupboard in excitement around lunchtime.

So tired

2011-11-24T10:18:00.006+11:00

My cats are gorgeous, granted, and they are great studio companions,

but sometimes I could brain them with a bookbinding hammer.

Mr Pooter (named for the main character of Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith) is living up to the POO part of his name: he has a bad habit of not wanting to poo in his litterbox at night if Mr Padge (named after a minor character in the same novel) has been there first. So he will walk around the house yowling, and if we're too dead asleep to do anything about it, he will either poo in the bath or keep yowling until we do something about it, like cleaning out the box in a zombie-like fashion (a zombie with Tourette's Syndrome) or we kick him outside and he can bloody well take his chances in the dark with Alpha cats and cars.

Last night was one of those nights.

Add that to Padge stomping all over the bed constantly because he'd decided that the snap cold weather means that he needs more food to cope with it, even though he's so fat that he can't fit on our overly-generous window ledges

and you end up with one tired Duckie.

Add to that the fact that it's been a week of homework emergencies (why do teacher make all their assignments due the same week?!!) and flat batteries in cars (OH! IS SHE PREGNANT? lisped the charmingly Hispanic NRMA battery man when he saw Padge) and that teaching and marking has finished, and I guess you can surmise that I've crashed at the end of a big year.

My evergreen and never-ending TO DO list (it's now a book) has been set aside while I have just slumped in a corner and pretended to move piles around while I play Facebook games. It helps that Best Beloved is off in North America running through as many museums as he can fit between meetings, it means that I only have to operate on a teenage level -- and the kitchen reflects that.

In fact, I'm only really writing this post to procrastinate from the mammoth task of cleaning and preparing for tonight's Thanksgiving Dinner, being held for my lovely homesick yankie neighbour Julia. There's a lot of people coming, but there's twice that many dustbunnies dancing across the carpet in front of my bleary eyes, and a big sack of potatoes waiting to be peeled in the kitchen (mashed potato is apparently very important for a successful TG).

And I'm so CRANKY after watching the end of Spicks and Specks last night. I absolutely adore Adam Hills, before last night he could do no wrong, but did he really think he could wind up an iconic Australian music show with a half-arsed band fronted by a talentless loser like the Uncanny X-men and engender any form of nostalgia from the audience? I hated Brian Mannix in the 80s, I hated his every appearance on the show (and I'm sure I'm not alone in that), and to give the UXM a plum tv opportunity like that smacks of something bad smelling: maybe their promoter offered the ABC a lot of money, or maybe Mannix knows something about Hills that he shouldn't... or maybe they just got it horribly, horribly wrong, and it truly is time for them to stop. Whatever it is, I went to bed very grumpy last night, and that five minutes of ending will be the only bit of S&S I will never watch again.

Sorry, peoples. I just needed to vent. I guess it's dustbunny attack time. Tally ho!

Charming.

2011-11-18T09:14:00.004+11:00

Best Beloved has been away this week. He's gone off to northern America, skipping through various parts of the US and Canada for work. Most of it is meetings, but he gets a day here & there to see things, and he's an expert speed tourist, so he'll cram a lot into a day. Last weekend he went to the Getty Museum in LA, and last I heard was looking forward to the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

I took Bumblebee back to Colonel Duck's farm to see Lily the lamb, who is nice and fat these days.

The tree that they are sitting under is very typical of the area, it's an apple gum (I think, from memory) and they cover the slopes here. When the wind blows (and it blows A LOT), limbs come down, so I don't tend to spend a lot of time under them, having been emotionally scarred by poor Judy's death in my childhood.

Back at home again, there's been no real food in the fridge, since I've been away from the markets for two weekends and I don't count Woolworths as a provider of real food. Nearly every night has been a non-cooking night:

Monday I had to assess over 40 students for their complimentary courses of either book, etching or screenprinting (we three teachers combine as a panel and do all of our students together), so I was absolutely buggered and couldn't do anything but buy fish & chips.

Tuesday my lovely Dr Sista Outlaw was in town and staying with me while she attended (for her work) the opening of the National Museum of Australia's heartbreaking Inside exhibition. Her job at the moment is working on the NSW arm of the new Find and Connect website. So at the end of that day we went around to my local yumspot, Wilburs, and had pizza and wine (well, she drank, I'm off grog for the month or so) and caught up with Zoe.

Wednesday was a bit of a lost day, spending most of it with Dr SO and an old friend of hers, and then hosting my regular fortnightly scrabble-dumpling soiree. It's a great night: people bring packets of frozen dumplings and whatever they want to drink, and eventually we play scrabble, or not, or read poems, play chess, watch Spicks&specks, whatever the dynamic of the night wants to do, as the mix of people is always very different, depending who I've talked to that week or who gets brought along. This time we had a couple of fellows at the start, but they had to run off, so we ended up with seven women who all wanted to play scrabble and have a good natter at the same time, so we put two boards out and pooled all the letters and had a big single game. It was very civilised, really. You could choose either board in your turn, and both boards were used quite equally. Lots of dumplings steamed & eaten, lots of good conversation.

Thursday was again a not-studio day. I yearn for the studio, but sometimes it just has to wait its turn. I had to ride my bike into the city to meet up with the other people involved in the ArtsACT Artists-in-Schools Residency this year. I rode because most of the city was pretty chaotic with the visit by POTUS (or Barack Obama to you non-acronyming non-Canberrans) whom I completely missed seeing, because I'm never at the right moment at the right time for anything like that. I was in Bega when the Queen visited too. I did hear all the planes and helicopters yesterday, but that's as close as I got to the action. The meeting was great fun - we all got to tell stories of our early childhood teaching encounters and give feedback about the grant stuff.

After that I went home and did some intensive gardening, pulling out a small tree (I'd noticed the same tree in other people's gardens around the corner and NO WAY was I letting it get that big, ever) and doing lots of weeding.

Oh -- and throughout most of this activity was the ongoing stoooooory (in Muppet tones) of Bumblebee's homework. More like SAGA. He ~~had~~ has two major assignments due, and the first finally got done (it was like pulling teeth), with the second one more enthusiastically tackled when suddenly we discovered a THIRD one that had been forgotten and was a day overdue when remembered. ACTION STATIONS. We (WE) got it done, and now he's back to researching the Samurai era, which is much more fun than creating a travel brochure for Rwanda (DON'T GO THERE, he put on the front, after looking up DFAT's current travel advice for the country :) )

So, Thursday. Oh yes, in the evening I went to Megalo's African Famine Fundraiser night, where lots of very good art was for sale to raise funds for CARE, to be matched dollar-for-dollar by the Aust Govt. The speeches were amazing: Jon Stanhope, looking very well and fit, talking about Human Rights and the Arts; a speaker from CARE, who realised she was banging on a bit by about the 6th page of her talk and cut it down quickly, but I was actually completely engrossed in her statistics and facts... more people then the entire population of Canberra living in one refugee camp, among other shocking things. And then another young woman (I am SO BAD with names) speaking really eloquently about our capacity to engage with these events when they are ignored by mainstream media, and how to incorporate a charitable sensibility into your everyday life without giving in to periodic guilt (in other words, how to help consistently, rather than reacting to emergencies). She was amazingly good. I hope Megalo made a decent amount for the fundraiser. I bought an Alison Alder screenprint, called Drought, which seemed very fitting.

Today... I have to run around some more, but I'm hoping the weekend will be studio-based. The cats keep nagging me to go in there, because they like to watch me work (eyes like whips, the two of them). Actually, poor Pooter hasn't been 100% well this week. On Sunday night he came down with a raging fever, all limp and droopy and off his food, with red-hot paws and ears. I put him on the bed beside me, and slept lightly, checking on him, and by morning the fever had broken and he was bright-eyed and demanded FOOD, and lots of it. Phew! I was all gooey over him until yesterday, when he pooed in the bath. Charming.

All Hallow's Sugar

2011-11-04T10:30:00.006+11:00

That's better... a bit of sleep was all I needed. I've been having weird stomach pains and bloating (sorry, TMI, I know, but I guess if you've been a long-term reader, you'll have read worse) so I'm slowly testing out what might be the cause. I'm off alcohol for a while, and I'm trying to cut down on sugar (I don't think it's the culprit, but now's as good a time as any) so I think I had a low sugar moment last night. Best Beloved is praying I'm not gluten-intolerant, he loves his bread and pasta. I just want the ache to end!

It's been a pretty sugary couple of weeks, drinking with family and friends and then the heady rush of Halloween. I was invited to a couple of Halloween parties, couldn't make one because of visiting family, but I did get to the other, handily situated next door. I've never been into celebrating American traditions like Halloween, Valentine's Day or Thanksgiving, but it's different when you live next door to a lovely American and she's homesick for her fun.

It was a small but faithful party, complete with costumes and activities. My favorite cake-maker, Sam of Amore Cakes (at the Farmers Market), had made a batch of Witch's Fingers, pale shortbread fingers with almond slivers for nails, and I bought some for Julia, which went down a treat.

Here she is as Athena, complete with owl companion and our gift.

This is Lisa, Julia's housemate, originally from Tasmania, dressed as The Bad Apple. Scary!

Here we are, dressed in our Folk-Festival-bought masks, using them to be the Sad Cow and the Zombie Country Mouse.

We carved pumpkins,

ate devils on horseback and bobbed for apples.

The apples, once wetly won, were cut into chunks and dipped into caramel, or 'carmel' as Julia's north-western accent makes it. Yum! That, plus all the 'candy' and the exquisite pumpkin pie with maple cream, shows you how sugar-loaded I've been.

Bumblebee wore a cloak that I'd made for him on the weekend. His old cloak had been given to a smaller body a few months before and he really missed having a black hooded cloak. I seemed to have a 'free' day on Sunday (actually, when you're self-propelled, no day is a free day, but I felt I needed to spend some actual time doing something for him) so I proposed we shop for material and make a cloak.

Blimey, that was a tough day. Note to self: NEVER GO TO SPOTLIGHT ON A SUNDAY. We're both still rolling our eyes at standing in a 4-metre line to buy 6 metres of cheap black poly-cotton. Then my sewing skillz proved to be quite rusty, so I spent much of the afternoon unpicking and resewing, and was still up at midnight and then up at 6am the next day to finish it in time for that evening's party. That made Best Beloved roll his eyes, but I felt great when I saw him wearing it with a variety of masks.

So I had two fails during the week. One was as a sewing queen, and the other was at bobbing for apples. Here's something you probably didn't know about me... I hate putting my face under water. I've battled it for years, and I'm much better these days, can duck down in the pool and stuff, but I tried shoving my head into that wheelbarrow to get an apple in front of a crowd and realised that I was just not very happy about it. I don't have a problem with losing face, so I just stood up and confessed that I couldn't do it, and thankfully it was a nice group of people who didn't call me a wuss etc. Apparently there were people hiding in the house to avoid even having a go, so that made me feel ok. And they even let me eat the carmel-dipped apples :)

I did carve a pumpkin, so I did make some contribution to the evening's festivities!

(and this is what happens when you put pumpkin scrapings near my husbang.)

This weekend I'm attending The Gathering, a local conference for bookbinders from all over Australia and even a few from overseas. Should be fun... but first I'm going to a movie tonight (by myself, because BB will be flying back from business in Cairns): Anonymous! Yum, eye-candy galore. That's the best kind of sweetie.

Checking in

2011-11-03T18:15:00.004+11:00

It was only when Colonel Duck nagged me on the phone tonight that I realised how long it's been since I blogged. I feel light years away from the calm of the farm (say that out loud), pictured above. I have got some more photos, as promised, here.

Since then I've been... hmm, what have I been doing? I've been sucked into my lovely studio space, that's what I've been doing. I've been doing all sorts of interesting things, like helping people print their book pages, and starting my two broadside residents off in their new printing adventure, and teaching a book class at Megalo with an excellent bunch of people, and having lots of people visiting and staying and playing. It's been good fun, and it's actually my work. How lucky am I?

Sorry, I'm keeping this short, mainly because I've had a long day and I can't remember most of the things I wanted to blog. When I can remember them, I'll check back in!

Live to you from Farmville

2011-10-21T07:21:00.007+11:00

This is such a good holiday, although there's a lot to remember. I have a big long list of things to do at particular points of the day, and as I type I realise that I have forgotten to feed the fish for the last couple of days.

*feeds fish, who don't seem very grateful but perhaps they're shy*

So. Here I am, at the Duck prickle farm, with Lily the poddy lamb and all the rest of the sheepy family. Lily comes from another farm, and was adopted because her mother had rejected her (stomping harshly on her in the process and leaving her with a deformed ear) and her owners were going away. She's a dear little thing.

This is Lily, along with her best mate Lucky. Lily is trying to drink her bottle and Lucky is trying to get me to throw the ball for him. Because I'm a woman, I managed to do both things at once.

This was taken by Colonel Duck before he went travelling up the coast and left me in charge.

We're trying to persuade Lily that she's a sheep, so she spends most of the day with the mob (apparently a 'flock' is smaller than a 'mob', and since the number of sheep has doubled in the last few weeks, it's now a mob) but once you're a poddy animal you're always yearning to be with the humans, so I've been letting Lily come & play with the dogs every now and again. She loves a good scratch under the chin, and between her horns and down her long Roman nose, and as she feeds she stops to butt me in the same way that the other lambs headbutt their mothers' udder, then once she's finished she jumps on my back joyously. I hope she grows out of that bit; she'll be heavy once she grows up!

She's the middle child of the new generation. There are two rams just about a week older than her, and a pair of new lambs, a boy and a girl, who were born on Monday, and they are the cutest little things. (I will post more photos when I get home, because I'm a bit scared of blowing the teeny web quota this farm possesses). They all have very long tails, and as they feed, the tails spin around like cranked handles, winding up their energy.

I'm completely enamoured of my live animal experience. I'm used to the wonderfulness of cat company, but sheep company is another thing entirely; the warm milk-covered snuffliness of Lily's nose and the soft nibble of her lips on my fingers, the slightly greasy rough yet soft feel of her nubbly short fleece and the pointy poke of her cloven hoofs against my foot and up my spine. She has long white eyelashes and her eyes are too dark to show her sideways pupil clearly, but as I feed her I look over at the other sheep (who stand nearby, comfortable yet disdainful of me as a human) and their bright yellow eyes with a horizontal black pupil remind me that we don't have to look far for a sense of something being alien.

My nana is the most present person I've ever known. She doesn't dwell on the past, never has done, really, and I while I know that much of this sense of being in the moment is due to her dodgy old memory, she's always had the knack of being perfectly comfortable with just being wherever she is, spending all her time with her plants, her animals, her books and the tv. She's not a particularly social person and I've never known her to have a friend outside of her family, but she's content in her own space, not antisocial.

It's been nice having the time & space to talk to her. While my dad's parents used to come and visit us when we were living in various places, including overseas, she & my grandfather (papa) never did. Papa went overseas with WWII but nana never made it, and I asked her if she regretted this.
"No," she said, "I probably would have done if I'd lived in a different time; when I was a child all I wanted to do was travel and see lots of things, but then I met your grandfather & started having babies [4!] and life just kept going. But when I was a child we didn't have tv and movies, and now I feel like I've seen so much in my life through books and movies and magazines that I don't think I really missed anything."

Imagine if she'd got into the internet!

The other thing she's said that sticks with me is when I mentioned that her life here is like being in a nursing home without the people. She said that was fine by her, she couldn't bear having to be part of a group or being made to sit & talk to other people her own age: "It's hard work having to conform." She's said this a lot to me as I grew up, and it always made me feel better about my wariness of groups. I have a lot of friends and acqaintances (hello, all of you) but I don't have a 'group' that I hang with regularly. Apparently, according to my friend Kim, in social networking terms I'm what is called 'a hub'. Heh. I think -- I hope -- I'll end up like nana, happy in my own space, puddling around with books and catching up on a lot of crap tv, but hopefully all my lovely networks will still be swirling around, and we'll all be using our large-button keypads (or whatever the appropriate technology will be) to stay in touch to bitch about our carers and compare notes on our incontinence.

I'm doing a lot of reading while I'm here. I was given a book voucher for the local bookstore for my birthday (keeping the money in the Bega Valley!) in an attempt to lure me down her and lo! it worked.

I've just devoured Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, a lovely sensual fantasy about a black & white circus that operates only at night. It's one of those books that operates like The Arabian Nights, telling multiple stories and leading you back to the beginning so that you want to read it again once you've finished. It reminded me of a much more readable/understandable Jonathon Strange & Mr Norris.

Now I'm juggling AS Byatt's Ragnarok and China Mieville's Kraken, mainly because I couldn't decide which to read first, and I opened up each and read the first page and I was sucked into both.

Ok, time to let out the chooks and feed the dogs. Home on Sunday, not that I really want to leave...

Grrrrr

2011-10-20T18:55:00.001+11:00

I'm sorry, I've been trying to blog today but I can't log in to the blog via my computer for some blood-pressure building reason that only Google knows and I can't fathom. I'm doing this from my iPhone.

Hello from Numbugga, at the prickle farm of Colonel & Lady Duck. I'm lamb, dog-, chook- and Nana-sitting for most of the week.

I'm not doing much besides bottle feeds, animal feeds, human feeds, talking to community carers and reading.

Here's a photo of some of my charges, including Lily the lamb.

I will keep trying to log on, I've got lots of photos, and this keyboard is annoying me. Plus I can hear Lily, nagging for her next feed.

Reading list

2011-10-11T11:09:00.004+11:00

Turns out I *have* read The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, but it was so long ago that I've forgotten the details. Doesn't matter, she's such a pleasure to read every time.

Just finished The Children's Bach by Helen Garner, after everyone telling me for years to read it. I found it at the Federation Square book stalls, started it at Melbourne Airport and read most of it waiting for my delayed plane and during the flight, then lost it unpacking and only finished it yesterday morning. It is wonderful, you were all right. The sheet-folding scene on pp. 56-7 of my 1985 McPhee Gribble Penguin edition is so close to Rosemary Dobson's poem 'Folding the Sheets' that I am at a loss to know which came first, the dates of origin being very close. (They are good friends: I have often read postcards from HG to RD and helped RD to write letters to HG. I've never met HG.) I was quite startled when I found it.

I also finished Sophie Cunningham's Melbourne. I borrowed it from a friend, but I'm going to need my own copy. My copy of Kerryn Goldsworthy's Adelaide should be arriving any day now, requested from my mother-in-law as a birthday gift (she doesn't accept 'don't buy me anything, oh maybe just a voucher' as a response, I have to name a title). I can't wait to read it.

Is that the time? I meant to get out of bed at 9, it's now 11.20. Better do something useful with the day; I printed last night until midnight in my uggboots -- such a luxury to have the house to myself! And the cats, of course. They're all over the bed right now. I slept in my big King-size bed last night squished up between two big furry animals... might as well have had the whole family in there, the amount of room I got.

*happy*

{ahem... I do miss the boys, of course.}

Sorry business

2011-10-09T19:19:00.011+11:00

You know that you're heading into Senior Moment territory when you realise, in a wave of cold sweat, that you've not only double-booked yourself, in a way that you just can't rectify, but the people you've stood up ARE YOUR PARENTS. Mind you, if it was a true SM, my parents would be dead or horribly old, but it was close enough.

I have been holding two separate events happily in my mental calendar, not bothering to write either in my iPhone calendar because I was so confident that I was not going to forget them... and I didn't. I just hadn't realised that they were happening at the same time.

So. I'd made a date with Lady Duck to go to the Fred Williams exhibition at the NGA today, because it was her birthday just before mine, and she's been in love with FW forever and forever. I'd bought her the catalogue, and Colonel Duck was going to do something else for a while as we immersed ourselves.

I also enrolled in a screenprinting class this weekend at Megalo with Minigraff, partly to encourage my friend Jezza to come along & use his awesome design skills in a more physical way, and partly because screenprinting fell through the cracks of my printmaking education, and I've always wanted to try it.

It wasn't until I turned up this morning, bang on time (because Mini runs a TIGHT SHIP AND WOE BETIDE ANYONE WHO COMES LATE (unless they've made a cake)), when I thought to myself 'I'm so loving this. Just think, next Sunday I'll be looking at art with mum... or was it this Sunday? Which means it would be... oh shit... TODAY!'. I dashed outside and rang them, and sure enough, I was between a rock and a hard place.

Bugger. Buggery bugger.

They were in Canberra for another reason, which is good, and to his credit, CD took mum to see the show anyway, because if she'd missed it, she'd always regret it. But I feel like a heel. When I rang up tonight to apologise AGAIN, Colonel Duck answered the phone and said to my meek 'hi', 'Who's that? Our daughter? We don't have a daughter anymore...' and then thankfully burst out laughing.

Phew. If it's any consolation, the class was really, really good. Here's what I made:

Balloon Day, © Ampersand Duck 2011

I thought I might do a run on tea-towels later in the year, along with a few other cat designs. I like how well black cats work with screenprinting!

When I got home, the house was empty. The boys have gone to Kyogle for a week to visit our new {cough} great-nephew. I'm cat-sitting and catching up on various things, including sleep. Best holiday ever!

I started with some gardening. They (the boys) gave me a magnolia tree for my birthday, something I've always wanted to have in the garden. We went down to the nursery and I found a variety called:

STAHWAZ!! How could I resist? I've planted it where it will eventually cast shade on the studio in summer, allow sun in winter, and will look stunning in spring. *happy*

The garden is delightful.

I did a tour of the garden with the cats and took some photos.

Check out my dogwood tree!

I've got the rest of the photos as a flickr set, but here's a couple more:

Time to make a simple dinner and watch Mme Ramostwe do her thang. So nice not to have to get all fancypants with the food, etc.

Daily life begins

2011-10-05T11:43:00.004+11:00

Phew, what a week that was!

I've just written my website account of Impact7, here's where I get to be extra-curricular.

I'm sitting in my studio with the far-side rollerdoor up, waiting for my new (old) wooden map drawers to be delivered. They were supposed to come yesterday, then 10:30 today, then 12:00 today... hopefully soon, anyway. I can't do any print work until they come, because all the flat spaces are covered in the stuff that was in my metal map drawers and they're being taken away for sale at the same time. So I'm catching up on my online writing in the meantime.

It's the first day of my new life, the one where I'm only working at the uni one day a week, and the rest of the week is for my studio. A bit scary, and I'm not sure how it will go financially, but for a short time I have the pay from my recent primary school residency and that should keep me going for a little while once I stop fitting out the studio!

Here's Padge, sitting in the shadows of my new/old double glass doors; they're ready to be installed by my friend Mark in front of the existing rollerdoors so that I can have light and air and not wind and leaves.

AH! Finally, at 1:15, the cabinets come. Dammit, they put the more solid one on top of the wobbly one; I'll have to do some argy-bargy with them once Best Beloved comes back from his business trip (the next 3 weeks in this house are like revolving doors, with each of us coming in & out and always missing each other!).

Here they are, being carried in by the two roughnuts hired by the auction-house. I observed that the guy at the back might lose a toe if he wasn't careful, and he said 'yeah, I've got me Taiwanese Working Boots on'. Ah, yes, well.

So now I have lots of drawers! Huzzar, watch me fill them up.

And lots of photos of my Melbourne jaunt, over at Flickr.

I had a lovely conference, helped by the fact that a friend had let me stay in her empty Melbourne flat for the week, and it was only one tram and one train stop from the venue.

Here's the best thing that happened to me during the week (closely followed by dinners and lunches with other friends):

Isn't he gorgeous? This is the little bundle of joy belonging to Laura (Lucy Tartan) and Dorian (Arty Fufkin), Leonard. I skipped a session so that I could cuddle him and he drooled all over my hand, and I treasured that drool all afternoon when I got back to the grind. He's a dear old soul,.

Here's his more serious side.

After the conference I stayed on for a couple of days.

This is the closest I got to the Grand Final: cupcakes in a show window. The whole day I was in denial about the football, which I figured was my birthday prerogative, it being my birthday that Saturday (all the fours, 44. I think my years are finally outnumbering my chin hairs). I went to a meeting of the Print Council of Australia, and after the meeting we drove around to a few exhibitions and had lunch at the gorgeous Abbotsford Convent. The city was eerily quiet; the last gallery was close by the MCG and I could hear the crowds and the whistles. At one point we were trying to find a taxi for someone to get to the airport. We found what we thought was a taxi rank, but it turned out to be a row of parked empty cabs outside a pub!

After all that I caught a tram up Nicholson Street and went to Gerald's Bar in North Carlton to meet up with a few blogging types.* The blogcall was: Elsewhere, Another Outspoken Female, Will Type for Food and Lexicon Harlot. Also joining us was an old lovey I'd lost from my past until we discovered each other on Facebook, which surprised the hell out of me (the FB bit, not the meet-up) because he's not a computery type. He happens to be a friend of WTFF Tim, and this fact pleases the hell out of me in a very Douglas Adams probability factor way. He brought his children along, and a good time was mostly had by all, I hope. Pol and the kidlings couldn't stay for dinner; AOF took us to a fab little Asian place down the road (it being her locale) and true to a foodie, the food was excellent. (Phew, you passed that test, G :) )

The next morning (Sunday) I was determined to go to the Camberwell Markets. Lucky that I was so detemined, because it was the daylight savings changeover, and I would normally stay in bed. I forced myself up, got out to the road, and lo, the trams weren't running for another hour. Bugger it, I thought, I'll walk. So I did. It was the first rain-free day for ages, and it was only 2 km.

The reason why I wanted to go so much is because of Michelle de Kretser and The Lost Dog. The markets are something Michelle would talk about both in the book and in her phonecalls to me. It's been years since then, but I got talking to Deborah Williams at the conference (one of her dog prints is on the cover) and that got me thinking about the book, and the markets, and I really wanted to go.

I wasn't disappointed. They are great markets, and I found all sorts of things. I came away with little funky hair clips, a magnifying glass, some postcards (of Canberra in the 1960s!)... yes, lots of LITTLE things that will slip easily into an already overstuffed bag for the plane. And then I found these.

OOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH. I loved the one on the left, mainly for the liquid-paper splatters all over the top ribbon cover. Then I saw that the right-hand one had a lovely hard case. I walked past them, and five minutes later came back. How much for the right-hand one?

$35.

I went all wobbly. It didn't seem dodgy, just didn't have a ribbon, but that's easily fixed (scroll down that link). So I bought it, gentle reader, and lugged it back on the tram to the flat. And then proceeded to rearrange EVERYTHING so that I could carry it in on with me on the plane. Hold that thought.

On the way out of the market, I stopped and talked to one of the stallkeepers about something and noticed his dog, who is obviously a seasoned vet at these markets:

When I found out his name is Gus, I went all wobbly again. You see, Michelle's dog, who was the inspiration for the story, and who is featured on the cover of the book, was called Gus. And that's why I was at the market. Man, some days are just like novels.

I need to stop, only because I've spent most of the day on this computer and my new drawers are calling out to me... but I just wanted to bring you back to my typewriter. I now have 5 typewriters, all with their own charms. This newest one gave me a big surprise when I got home. I opened the lovely hard case, and in the little pocket inside the top lid, was the ribbon, nicely wrapped in a freezer bag, and THE MANUAL AND THE 1984 RECEIPT OF PURCHASE. I am very fond of 1984, it was a year to remember, not always for good reasons. But I do find that most of my significant objects were made or marked for years that have personal significance for me, and I guess this one joins the club. And was a bargain to boot. I haven't seen a working typewriter under $100 for a couple of years now. Yay! Must have been the birthday germs.

*I have to apologise formally to anyone I didn't contact while I was in Melbourne. It was a very intense week, and energy levels fluctuated. I knew it would be so, which is why I issued such a lame blogmeet callout. I also meant to ring people, that didn't happen. I'm back in February, so let's do something then!

Bushed & booked

2011-09-27T20:33:00.001+10:00

On a tram again, this time up Glenferrie Rd, away from Monash Caulfield, having just shared a scrummy Sri Lankan meal with a combination of Canberran and Book Art Object mates.

Actually, all the blogging action will really be at BAO this week until the conference is over and I'm just being me again. The link for BAO is http://bookartobject.blogspot.com (can't see how to imbed it from my iPhone!).

At flat now. Crashing.

Melbourne 1

2011-09-26T20:00:00.002+10:00

I'm on a tram heading to my digs at Hawthorn; I've already been to a talk by Sarah Bodman at the State Library and eaten a nice curry at Flora. Now I'm going to chill out in prep for tomorrow's excitement.

The photo is of my three travelling printmaker companions: Alison Alder (head of Megalo), Nicci Haynes and Jan Hogan. We're all grimly desperate for a beer, and it makes us look like a movie still. We found a nice pub, had a pot of something nice, and went our separate ways.

Until tomorrow, anyway.

Transition

2011-09-25T08:53:00.006+10:00

I finished my residency on Friday; it hasn't hit home yet, but I guess it will when Tuesday comes and I'm in Melbourne rather than at the school. I've written two more progress posts on my work blog: one on printing and one on posting. I had such a good time. What you see above is three-quarters of the school, gathered in front of the 'bounceback wall' in the playground after we'd posted our cards. It's a small, close and warm community of children, teachers and parents, and I'll miss them, although I will be returning in October for a visit to deliver their single-coptic-bound book of postcards and I'll also visit regularly, since it's on my flight path to uni.

Next stop is Melbourne, for the Impact7 conference that seems to be competing with the AFL Grand Final for space and attention when you look at the list of associated exhibitions. I've written my paper and sent down my portfolio for presentation; the biggest stress is how to see and do everything in the short time we have, including catching up with people. There's a blogmeet planned for Saturday late arvo/evening but we haven't settled upon a meeting place yet. I will tweet it when I know, so if you're interested, watch my tweet listings in the ride sidebar there --->

I'll also be tweeting during the conference and liveblogging with the Book Art Object group, as part of our project.

In other news, every year before my birthday my mother-in-law rings me to ask what book I'd like for my birthday. This year I asked for Kerryn Goldworthy's Adelaide book, knowing that it's being released soon... and discovered that it's being released on my actual birthday, 1 October! Yay, onya Kerryn. I'm over halfway through Sophie Cunningham's Melbourne right now, which is a great lead up to my trip.

Dammit, I've been thinking of things I want to blog, but now that I'm sitting here (having just polished off a wonderful breakfast made by Best Beloved: Eggs Benedict on a poppyseed bagel) my mind is blank.

It's the Lifeline Bookfair this weekend, but I'm not getting too excited, having only just resolved all our bookshelves and also having rediscovered the local library. I popped in yesterday and got all cranky about their demarcations. There's a General Fiction section, which I think should be EVERYTHING that's not 'genre' fiction like thrillers, horror, sci fi and fantasy. But no, any book written by someone with a funny name, or written by a woman or written by an Australian is shunted onto a different table (in order: World Literature; Romance/Chicklit; OR Gender Fiction; Australian Fiction). I inwardly cheer when I see an Australian in the General Fiction, or laugh when I see Bury's 'History of the Later Roman Empire' (both volumes) in the Historical Fiction section.

I'm going back today because they're having a 'Bookbinder's' table, with what they call 'treasures' with broken bindings, all under $10. I'll be interested to see what is a treasure.

The wind is horrendous today, it's the worst thing about Spring. It makes being in the studio very unpleasant, because there's a gap at the top of each rollerdoor, and the wind slips over and brings dust. I've just found 2 sets of secondhand glass sliding doors, complete with screen security doors, at the local builder's trading post and a building friend (the same one who built the kitchen in our last house) is going to install them over the next couple of weeks in front of the roller doors so that I can open them and get light without wind... huzzar! That will foil you, cursed wind.

My other great find is also a pair. There's a little auction house near the farmers markets at EPIC and I wandered in the other day and asked if they ever get mapping cabinets (no artist ever has enough). He had two coming in that week -- timber ones! I gave him an absentee bidding form (I had a guest at the auction time) and I won them! They are being delivered when I get back. Out with the sticky-drawered crappy metal cabinet that I have now and in with the timber stack! Happy, happy happy.

So much to look forward to when I return from conference hobnobbing... time to get up and pack!

Sirens, blasts, chemical tang: Canberra's having a party

2011-09-16T07:59:00.004+10:00

We are stuck at home this morning thanks to a huge chemical fire in the industrial zone near our suburb. We are within the ten kilometre zone and have been repeatedly told to stay indoors, keep all windows closed, and to turn off any air-conditioners and heaters.

It's very exciting.

I was woken this morning about 3:20 by an emergency text message that said

The ACT Fire Brigade responding to chemical insadent in Mitchell. Resadents of Franklin, Crace, Harrison, Watson, Downer, Kaleen, Lyneham, Hackett, stay indoors

All the spelling mistakes are theirs, and apparently lots of people thought it was a spam or scam because 'spelling mistakes are an indicator', but I know that no one but emergency services would have a number like 444 444 444, and everyone knows fireys can't spell (but they are fabulous) so I took it seriously.

About 4:15am we got an automatic recorded message on our phone from the SES, saying something similar.

At 5am there was a huge blast that I heard through our double brick walls, and the sirens started up again (everything before that was pretty faint).

Between all of that, Best Beloved snored like an engine, so I think I got a snatch of sleep between 5 and 6, when he awoke and turned on the ABC for updates.

Like I said, it's very exciting. Here's my favorite photo of the smoke plume, taken by my friend Fiona from her penthouse in Civic:

The red dot is roughly where we are.

Oh, the ABC just announced we're now clear to leave our house. All the dogs in the neighbourhood just started up, so obviously we're all listening.

Bumblebee is ecstatic because all the local schools are closed, which means I can't go to my residency school either. Woo hoo, studio day! Bonus. And now that we've got the all clear, I can get to my haircut appointment this afternoon too. I've decided to banish the Snape look for a while (my hair always reverts to it eventually).

I hope the toxic plume doesn't land anywhere awful. It's headed north and eastish, which means coastward. Watch your water supplies, peoples. The local radio, the tv, facebook and twitter are all a-twitter. I can't get over the masses of people who walked over to the fire to have a look despite all warnings.

I might have a nana nap soon, all this excitement is a bit draining. I spent my waking hours playing games on my iPhone and thinking about how helpless we'd be if this turned out to be something really serious. The first thing I said to BB when he woke (resisting the urge to say something snarky about snoring) was 'let's get some emergency water supplies stored up'. I think he just grunted, but I'm determined to do something about it when the traffic calms down.

Excitement!

Communing with nature

2011-09-07T07:59:00.004+10:00

Where does the time go? Out the window, it seems.

When I started my residency at the primary school, I asked all the kids to ask the weather to only rain on Mondays (that's the day I work indoors, at the art skool) but so far it seems to rain every Tuesday. Yesterday was abysmal, cold and wet, and I have to work outside, under a shelter thankfully, because there's just no indoor space for me.

I've updated my work blog, to talk about my pen & ink week with the kids. Unfortunately the latest upgrade of Wordpress has borked a few things, like spaces after punctuation are gone and the titles repeat themselves so that they sound like that goose from Charlotte's Web. I'm trying to fix them, but there's no time! No time! Have to keep moving along, so much to do.

I found a wee crack of time last week to drive across town and meet Elephant's Child. Canberra is an incredible city; in most cities you spend 25 minutes in your car and move about 2 kilometres. In Canberra, if you spend that much time driving, you've gone 40 kilometres. Apparently we drive more kms per capita than Northern Territorians. I find that shocking, but I digress. I drove what seems to be a long way because I rarely venture outside of my suburb cluster, but it's a journey most people take every day to work and back.

Anyhoo, Elephant's Child is, of course, delightful, and we managed to whittle away a hour or so talking about important things like books, cats and community service after we'd done a plant swap (which was the motivation for the visit). I would have liked to have talked more about books, but I came away with a borrowed copy of Tove Jansson's The Summer Book, so that should be a good conversation starter for next time. And there's always on-line.

I have managed to cross a few things from my bloody To Do list... I finished my latest Book Art Object offering (I'm just waiting for the recipients to get them before I show it; the wait and then reveal seems to be the funnest part of the process), I'm on the last stage of the residency process, and now the next big hurdle is getting the Impact conference done and dusted. October, month of rest, is on the horizon!

Oh crap, look at the time. Have to ~~wing~~ pedal* my way to school and set up my printshop again. Yesterday, despite the weather, I had an amazing exploratory day working out a system of printing with the children. I love the way their creativity is boundless. I came home exhausted, of course, but I learned more in a day than I ever did at art school :)

*Did I ever mention that I recently read Claire Corbett's When We Have Wings? OMG, if you've ever dreamed about flying... read the book. Do yourself a favour!

Glorious day

2011-08-28T21:44:00.004+10:00

Gosh, you can really feel the sap rising in Canberra at the moment. It's days like today when you never want to leave the place: blue sky, fluffy clouds scudding by in the warm air, blossoms on trees everywhere, bulbs breaking out wildly in gardens.

I had a lovely day today, helped by having a great sleep on one of our pillows that until now I'd overlooked. I'd bought it for Bumblebee, recommended by a mattress shop as being good for young growing things. He used it for a couple of years until I bought him a memory-foam pillow and he discarded this other one instantly. It has a sliver of rubbery stuff through the centre of it, and I've been using it to prop myself up when I read, but only last night tried it as a sleeping pillow. Oh! The rubbery bit allows your head to move easily without any effort from the neck muscles; it's like floating on water all night. I'm hooked. Mind you, I did have a vivid dream about travelling around Greece and Turkey with Pavlov's Cat and Zoe: eating, drinking and laughing through some very odd scenes. But the sleep itself was FABULOUS.

So the rest of the day was spent lolling in bed for half the morning and then hoiking up the roller doors and pottering around my studio in the sun getting small but important jobs done, occasionally just stopping in the sun to sit with a cat for a while. I love those days.

Yesterday was spent being nice to strangers while I worked in the Book Studio for the ANU Open Day. So today had to be my whole weekend, and it did very nicely as such.

My residency is swinging along; I wrote another report about it here, including a photo of myself as Professor Snape. To make myself even more authentic, I wore contact lenses for the day for the first time in ages, something that makes me squint and scowl a bit, so I had that Snapey look down pat. I took them out when I got home with a huge sigh of relief... sure, I can see boundlessly, and colours look great without dust and scratches on them, but I can't see close up comfortably, and my eyes just feel nakedly naked. Glasses just feel RIGHT.

I would like to put on record here that I am very angry with Officeworks Online. I have been struggling with my inkjet printer for weeks (sorry, Book Art Object peoples, this is the big hold-up story) and finally, after endless cleaning of printheads and stoopid wastings of paper and ink, I got online and purchased a new printer. I thought that, since it said that the printer in question was in stock and I could pick it up from my local branch, that it would be quicker and more line-jumpingly easy to order and pay for it that way.

But NOOOOOOOOOOOOO. I went in, and was informed (nicely and regretfully by my now-familiar nice man in the Braddon store) that despite their having a FULL SHELF of the sodding things, he was not allowed to give me one because the order had to be processed by gnomes and stamped by fairies and the printer had to be delivered to the store from a 'central' warehouse and the whole process would take 'at least' two working days. This being Friday, that means, EVEN THOUGH THEY HAD A BIG SHELF OF THE BUGGERS, Monday or more likely Tuesday before it would magically happen.

PREHISTORIC FRIGGING DINOSAURS. I am imagining the order being couriered by a unicorn ridden by puss-in-boots rather than instantly transmitted through the ether and hitting someone's computer within seconds.

I gave written them a very nasty letter and promised that I would whinge to anyone who would care, so this is that moment. I am CRANKY, and I will use my local people happily, but after this and the fact that I couldn't use their sodding upload file button a few weeks ago for their print service, I am abandoning any part of their online facilities. And so should you, unless you live in a regional area and can't get to a real redblooded sales person in a store. GAH.

{think of the clouds scudding today... breathe}

Bah, I think I'll go and resume my newfound relationship with this pillow. I wonder what dreams I'll have tonight?

... and another thing

2011-08-16T07:49:00.003+10:00

I forgot to grumble about the 'school reunion' I went to on Sunday.

I used quotes there (I used my fingers when I reported back to the family) because I was sorely disappointed by the whole thing, and being my father's daughter, I knew exactly how the event could have been better without spending any money.

I used to go to Campbell Primary School in Canberra in the 1970s, right in the thick of the Whitlam era, the epicentre of weird craft and red wine dinner parties. My main memories of the school are:

- The library. When you finished having both sides of your card stamped they would staple on a new one. By the end of the year my card was more like a thick book, and certainly didn't fit inside the little pockets at the back of the books.

- Being able to walk from the library to my open-plan classroom (the first in Canberra!) without looking up from my book.

- Playing on the oval that was shared by our school and the Catholic school on the other side. Most of the time we shared amicably. When the wind was up we'd have spats. Most of the play involved 'catch and kiss'. I was never one of the catchers or kissers, I had new glasses and wasn't very desirable so I either played 'photographer' or just went back to my book.

- Being given a week's worth of homework in the open plan set-up and either finishing it straight away & reading the rest of the week, or leaving it all to the last minute (reading the rest of the time) and finishing it all in a panic, a habit that has lasted a lifetime.

Halfway through Year 6 we moved to England, so I didn't get to 'graduate' or whatever primary school kids did then.

When I saw that the school was having a 50th reunion, I got a little bit excited, because I've bumped into old classmates here & there and liked them, and one whom I really, really like, but every time we see each other she gives me her card, which I promptly lose, and we lose touch again. (See sidebar for statement that I'm a hopeless friend.)

Meh. I got to the school on Sunday and it was just a glorified big fete. One small table of memorabilia, which was nice but... there was absolutely no attempt to make old students or teachers welcome (apart from a few general speeches outside) or even to distinguish them from current parents, so there was a big outside mosh, lots of stall to spend money on, and only one short tour of the school for the whole afternoon. I only ran into the old headmistress by accident, and she, in her 80s, was amazing.* I learned more about my old teachers from her in a ten minute conversation than anything else I saw that afternoon, and I was sad to find that my favorite teacher had not only been there briefly, but had left just before I talked to her.

I did go on the tour, and retraced my old steps from the library (which is now the staffroom) to the open plan classroom (which of course looks smaller than I remember!). They had a stall where you could buy a new book and donate it to the library, and it would have your name inside it. I bought Ruth Park's My Sister Sif, which is the least I could do for all the pleasure that place gave me.

But honestly, would it have been so hard to give any visitor a red dot to wear, or to section off places in the quadrangle for different decades so that people could stand there and meet each other? I came away feeling quite frustrated.

*Miss Dorothy Brown moved to Canberra in the 1960s to be near the snow. She skiied until she was 81, when she had to stop because she had a sore foot, but now she still goes up and walks with snow shoes! She must be about 87 now, and was very agile and alert.

Remember to breathe

2011-08-15T21:40:00.003+10:00

I can't begin to remember the last time I did one of these... which shows you how shallow my breathing has been.

Today has been an odd day... I cut my bad finger AGAIN, from the side this time, just after teaching my class. I don't deserve having fingers, I'm so clumsy with them. Mind you, these are the first bad cuts I've had for ages, and now I'm nervous, because knowing me I will have another one to make up the three.

I had a last minute request from an old friend to be a pallbearer at his mum's funeral. I couldn't make the service because of my class, so it was the least I could do. She was so old, and he'd been away in the US for ages, that there were only a handful of us at the cemetery, so it was a bit surreal. I didn't know his mum, but I knew of her from the stories he'd told; I felt quite disconnected until the coffin started going down into the (very deep) hole accompanied by Simon & Garfunkel's 'Bridge over Troubled Water' -- who couldn't be moved to tears in a situation like that? Afterwards we went to the pub briefly and had a beer and talked about old times and how we wanted to be seen off when our time comes.

I felt ok this afternoon afterwards, but around dinner time my sinuses started exploding and I've gone to bed to loll about and try to stem the snotflow. If I'm sick tomorrow, I can't go to play with the children, and that would be sad.

Here's some more nice breathing pics:

The top one was a dusk from my loungeroom window. This one is early on a Saturday morning, walking from the car to the farmers markets.

Here's my first ever successful bulb planting, nothing like Elephant's Child's garden, but I'm all inspired now for next year.

I'm only mouth-breathing, but it's nice, nonetheless.

Catch chasies

2011-08-11T22:01:00.008+10:00

Honestly, I always think I'm being busy and complaining about it too much, but then it all ramps up and I feel like the last phase was a bit of a holiday, really. I'm sorry about not blogging... I've left you with my press up in the air being held by a nice Samoan man, and then being hoiked into place in my new studio, but that's it.

Well. Since then I had a rollerskate in the old studio, and was joined by Bumblebee who thought it all looked pretty easy and decided, since he could just fit into my skates, to have a go himself.

Sorry about the giggle, I couldn't help myself. He did alright for his first time once he'd warmed up and fallen over a bit. Me? I had fun:

The wobbly bit is B being scared that I'd 'clip his feet' so he got up on the table. As if I would! Complete control. I was looking particularly Snape-like that day; it had been a long week of moving endless typetrays and boxes.

I haven't had time to unbox completely; the studio is now functional, I've done some printing and binding, but every time I need something, I have to remember where it was packed. I'll have to get it all sorted in the next few weeks, because I've promised my residency school that I will have an open studio one weekend!

Padge, of the two cats, is enjoying the studio. He's an excellent studio cat, but with a bad habit of flopping right in the path of my press walking as I print things. Will have to break that habit! Here's a few studio cat shots:

The 'ramping up' bit is that I've started my stint as an artist in residence at a local early learning primary school. I've written about it at the Ampersand Duck website, but I'll give you all the really fun bits here...

Like meeting Constable Kenny!

I thought CK was Australia-wide, but it turns out that he's a peculiarly Canberran institution, and has been operated by the one man for over 20 years! CK is great fun, a growly koala who dishes out the knowledge about policing in the ACT, complete with his personal cop-car:

Best Beloved is miffed because I didn't know about the CK visit beforehand; he has a copy of 'Constable Kenny and the Drugrats' that he wanted to get signed...

I did get a Constable Kenny stamp on my hand and a pen.

It says
WHAT DO WE WANT?
NO TROUBLE

I think we should send Constable Kenny over to London, he'd sort those boys out.

Having that stamp made up for the fact that earlier that day, while setting up my printshop, I'd sliced off the tip of my nose-picking finger with a stanley knife.

Just the tip and a bit of fingernail, luckily no kids were around because it bled like nothing on earth, and when I came back from getting first aid, there was my little fingertip, waiting for me. I thought about giving it a decent funeral, or maybe flinging it to the chooks, but chucked it in the bin instead. At least it's the left hand, and it will grow back. The bandage was very good for warning the children about using the press without my supervision; I didn't tell them how I hurt my finger, but I didn't dissuade them from the notion that the press had done it :)

In any case, the project is going nicely, and I'm loving the fun and energy of the children and their young teachers. I come home without any energy at all, but I'm usually recharged by the next day. I haven't worked full-time for years... bring on the weekend!

Moving Studio Duck, the photoessay

2011-07-30T19:12:00.004+10:00

Before:

Packing:

Now:

During:

At the other end:

(none of this shows the chaos of boxes in the third part of the garage space)

And that's about all the energy I have at the moment, apart from saying that I won't be able to resist the chance to go in to the old space and have a skate tomorrow, before I give it back... look at all that lovely clean concrete!

Getting my skates on

2011-07-20T07:30:00.005+10:00

Action stations here! I've been cleaning and painting and shifting and whatever else it takes to clear one space and shift another.

I finally got the home studio (which is a triple garage space) cleared and the walls painted before I went to Sydney for a Print Council of Australia meeting. It was in conjunction with the Sydney Printmakers 50th Anniversary, so I met a lot of very interesting and talented people, and also, on the way home, managed to sneak in a quick catch-up with a couple of blog-friends and have a look at Lawrence Finn's fab home studio.

When I got back I painted the central pole and the connecting door from the garage to the house a nice browny-red colour, and then swept the floor and...

got out my skates.

I haven't used my skates for over 14 years, or certainly haven't had them on since Bumblebee was born. I did do a little bit of roller hockey about 15 years ago, with everyone else on the (casual) team wearing rollerblades. I don't like iceskating, too wet, too cold; I can't do rollerblades, they lock my ankles in a funny position and do my knees in. But rollerskates! Aahhhh...

When we lived in Townsville in 1980-81, pretty much the only recreation was the local Kirwan skating rink (and of course, it isn't there anymore). I almost lived there, and it was a fantastic place to hang out with my friends, meet boys, hone my skating skillz etc. I never wanted those wussy white girl-skates, always wanted the soccer-boot style, and once I got them, always wanted to be in the speed skating sessions.

One of the 'happy places' in my head is zooming around the rink, trying to be faster than everyone else, accompanied by 'I See Red' by Split Enz.

I practiced for a while, feeling pretty wobbly at first, but the more I went round my little personal rink, the more confident I got. I asked my cousin-in-law, Vince, when he came by last night, to take some photos of me having a skate in my studio. He thought it was pretty funny. He also took a video, but when I looked at it, I thought I could do better; I taped one for myself, and here it is, with a classic 'me' moment at the end, when I tried to be cocky and almost ended arse-up.

I will say that at NO POINT in the afternoon did I fall over!

I would love to skate more regularly, but the only option these days seems to be to join a roller derby team, and I value my limbs and neck too much to do anything even mildly contacting. I'm going to get some street wheels, and skate around the neighbourhood, I think.

Today I'm laying down recycled-tyre rubber flooring and on Friday the heavy machinery comes in. Goodbye, private rink!

OW, MY EYES

2011-07-12T21:15:00.002+10:00

The spotlight of attention has spun around and glared in my eyes (in the nicest way).

I have been written up in Carolyn Fraser's guest spot on The Design Files. Carolyn, having trained in the US and earned her stripes of excellence, is probably Australia's most experienced letterpress practitioner under the age of 50. She produces wonderful work and I hope she gets to feature some of it this week in the blog. I can't wait to read her other posts... she's already covered the wedding invite industry and me, what lovely things will she fill the rest of the week with? My heart is pitter-patting.

I also overlooked a post written by Meliors, a lovely NZ artist who does a bit of letterpress alongside her main practice, which is, at the moment, making fabulous icebergs from wool and felt. She made a book called 'Response', which was sent all around the world to various interested people who contributed pages, including myself. That link will take you to my page.

So there you go. Nice things being said while I beaver away cleaning out my garage and panic about having enough time to get things right before I move the press.

I'll leave you with the most personally astonishing cat video... I keep watching it, gobsmacked. Amazing cat!

Sturt: the summation

2011-07-10T13:50:00.004+10:00

OK, so it's still really windy and cold; this is not a complaint, because I love winter. This particular windy and cold seems to be not fading away, so I'm taking the weekend to recover from teaching rather than launching into clearing and painting my garage in preparation for the studio move, which is mostly next on my To Do list, along with a trip to Sydney next weekend and preparing for my rapidly approaching residency.

My week at the Sturt Winter School in Mittagong was wonderful. We had the best class you can have (this is not competing with my past fab classes, just an observation): engaged, creative, and generous with each other. I make sure that everyone knows that it's not a competition, and that we are all learning together, because everyone has hidden skills that come out through the week.

Take Jennie, who introduced herself on the first day as being 'just a retail worker, not arty at all' and then proceeded to demonstrate a fabulous personal aesthetic and amazing sewing skills. Later in the week she brought in this:

It's a brooch that she'd made of a christmas beetle, sewn using stumpwork and leather... and the wings open up! Clever lady.

And Kim, a maths teacher and calligrapher, who invented her own versions of everything I taught and wowed the rest of the class.

I took them on a book-making journey from simple concertina structures through Asian stab binding, a basic coptic and culminated in a longstitch sewing onto kangaroo leather. They built up their skills and options, so that by the end of the week they could transform a good idea into an interesting book, rather than only knowing one way to make a book.

They worked really hard, often arriving early and staying late to play, and I did have a heavy emphasis on play, because play is what makes ideas progress into objects. They also, as you can see above, organised the space/s we were given to maximise both room and warmth and light.

Along the way we had scary winds outside the window, and we all worked out how to walk from our little Agriculture Studies Cottage to the dining room without walking under big trees, not an easy feat in a tree-heavy campus like Frensham School.

One night a few of us went out to dinner and gorged ourselves on yummy Indian food as a break from the (actually quite nice) food at the school.

At the end, as usual, every class out on a display of their work, and I think our class really shone, mainly because they produced such an interesting array of pieces.

If you'd like to see more images, I've made a flickr set here.

Big thanks to all my students, and to everyone else who I had interesting conversations with over breakfasts, lunches and dinners, and to everyone who sat through my talk about my time in NZ :) Also big thanks to Dale and Mark, who pulled off another great school, and I highly encourage anyone who is interested to check out the website for the Summer School, and eventually the next Winter School.

Sturt Winter School: the end

2011-07-08T07:31:00.002+10:00

Heh, so much for being able to blog more while I'm here... on Tuesday we had a swelling of enormous winds that felled trees and disabled all sorts of amenities, including Optus, although Telstra survived, and so too did the electricity here at Frensham, but not in the rest of the town.

Suffice to say that access has since been patchy, so it's been tricky to get to emails, let alone blog.

We have be making some beautiful things, and making nice connections, and I have been taking photos. So all going well, I will share on the weekend.

Breakfast time, not that I need any more food in my life! Have been eating more than I need to, and moving not enough.

Sturt Winter School, arriving

2011-07-03T21:51:00.005+10:00

So here I am, sitting cross-legged on a single bed in a two-girl dorm in a boarding house. Flip back -- bejeesus -- TWENTY-SEVEN years, and you'd find me doing the same thing. Except that at 9:52pm it would have been lights out ages ago, and I wouldn't have had a small quantity of alcohol to make the boarding experience that much fuzzier. Or maybe I would have, I can't remember minute details of that time, but I do know that I had a very naughty roommate, so smuggled alcohol wouldn't have been out of the question.

There's fresh white linen on the bed, and besides me and the bed, and the other bed, there's also two of the following: desk, chair and wardrobe, but only one bedside table, which is actually next to the door. It's not a big room, so there's not more floor space. The girls must have to climb over each other to get around. The radiator was on full-bore when I first came into the room (which I bet never happens when the girls are here), but now that I've turned it off and opened the window, the room is quite a good temperature.

I'm in Hartfield House at Frensham School in Mittagong, NSW, and I'm here to teach a class at the Sturt Winter School fulltime for the week. I've unpacked, had my induction and my dinner of butter chicken curry followed by pancakes & icecream (I made a joke to the guy in the kitchen that I was here to gain weight, and he replied that it was his job to make sure I gained weight, so I'm doomed), and even watched a movie in the drama theatre (Up in the Air, with the delectable George Clooney and the even more gorgeous Vera Farmiga).

Speaking of films, Bumblebee and I had a date this morning to see Super 8, which I highly recommend. What a ride of a movie! We laughed, we jumped, we cried (well, I did), we laughed again. Like E.T., mixed with something a touch scarier and funnier. Suitable for 10+, probably not any younger.

Yesterday Colonel and Lady Duck visited, with my lovely little nana, who has moved in with them after a couple of those age-defining health incidents that leave you unable to live alone anymore. They brought her up to see our new house, and to visit a plaque that's been put in the war section of the local cemetary for my grandfather. I tell you, if I could be half the jolly little old lady my nana is when I'm that old, I'll be happy. She's inspirational. She was touched to see a few of her Precious Things around my house: a set of mugs she'd passed on to me years ago, a lovely wooden standing lamp, a painting my grandfather painted. We always think of inheriting things when people die, but it can be nice know while you're still alive that your descendants treasure the things you love.

Anyhoo, here I am, loving the Sturt experience, but wishing I didn't have to feel so bloody prefect-ish, sitting on my school blanket on my school bed. I've got a full class tomorrow, and one of my students is a fellow ANCA artist, who always said she wanted to do one of my classes... I never think those statements are real, but she meant it! She's a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow even more.

As you can tell, I've got internet access with my trusty dongle, so I'll try to blog a bit this week, and share some photos of the class's progress. Right now though, it's lights-out, otherwise I'll be a grumpy tutor.

Sky

2011-06-28T22:15:00.001+10:00

I know, I know, I haven't blogged anything.

Well, I just wrote a post over there, so consider it a placeholder.

Chosen

2011-06-20T15:41:00.005+10:00

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.

snakes and ladders

2011-06-19T17:40:00.008+10:00

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.

More mutiny

2011-06-07T21:19:00.003+10:00

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.

Mutiny

2011-05-30T20:42:00.007+10:00

I've had a crappy half a day. Once I realised it was going to be craptacular and I was going to be miserable, I decided to put a stop to the normal day's plan and sook at home with a fire and the cats. I didn't feel well, and then I got a couple of bad news emails. So, as I have already stated on Facebook, I took Paul or John's advice: I lit a fire. It wasn't good Norwegian wood, it was quite hard-to-burn farm wood, but it cheered me up and in the end I got quite a lot done, between marshmallows. The cats had never seen open flames before, and were quite backwards in coming forwards to lie with me on the floor. They snuggled up behind me on a chair, and I rejoiced in the joy of portable laptops and cushions.

In honour of cheering up and stumbling upon it again in my archives, I am revisiting one of my all-time favorite personal posts. Here it is, titled Pride and Piracy, from waaay back in 2005:

It's been an entertaining day, but only on-line. Laura posted her excellent critique of the P&P movie, Pirates of Pemberley which has sparked all sorts of conversations. I thought I'd add another element to the fun: a visual one. Here then, are my P&P vignettes, whipped up with a dash of photoshoppery. All credit for the original images goes to the wonderful pirate image archive.

Oh la!

Initiation rights

2011-05-27T11:38:00.005+10:00

I'm having a weirdness with Blogger, so apologies if I post even less frequently than I have been. It's something to do with the login, they're playing hard to get. But I can get in from the art skool, so I'm taking a break to slip this in.

Two days ago Bumblebee went on a camp to Wee Jasper with his Outdoor Ed class. They'd split into groups of three, worked out a menu (sausages, steak and BBQ chicken for their dinner!) and equipment, were given a list of clothes & things to pack, and I spent most of Tuesday night wrangling him to follow the lists and argued for something besides meat to go into the food bag. I pressed a tin of baked beans into his hands, saying that if the stove didn't work, if an animal broke in & ate their supplies, if they lost their utensils, this one perfect can would save him, since it could be opened by hand & eaten cold with his fingers if necessary.

He took the can, and it came back intact, as did most of the sausages. None of the clothes were touched, as he slept in his clothes overnight (including boots!) and just got up & kept going in the same clothes. He drank the 600ml carton of milk with his dinner, which was lucky because everyone else's milk froze overnight and one person's was completely off, they discovered as they swigged and spat a mouthful. B awoke the next morning with his braces frozen to his lips, and had to get a sympathetic friend to swish some unfreezing water onto his mouth to free them. That's how cold it had been.

But this is by the by. They had a marvellous time caving, abseiling and other fun things, and came home sore and desperate for a hot bath. The main reason I brought this all up is the shock I got when I dropped him off at the school early on Wed morning for the camp.

As we parked, I could see two groups: girls, standing together with their mothers, and boys, standing around without parents. I helped B carry his bags and tent up to the Boyz group, cheerily said hello into the air and felt my greeting hit a sullen wall of WTF. B, to my utter surprise, had curled downwards from the head into a similarly surly slouch and he muttered 'see you later, Mum', almost under his breath. I pretended I didn't hear him, and gazed around at the group, only to find myself being glared at by males of various heights who didn't seem to want to utter another word until the female had left them to their Business.

It was quite powerful; I didn't want to submit to this Wall of Testoterone, but I could see Bumblebee was getting more curled with every second. OK, have fun, I chirped, stopping myself from leaning in to give him a hug, and walked with a very forced air of jauntiness past the smug mothers of girls (who may have been holding a sweep to see how long I'd last) and back to the car. I decided to sit in the car until the bus arrived & they were safely loaded, and then it dawned on me that most of the cars around me also had what I presume were parents of sons, sitting and watching wistfully, like exiles, like people sent to Coventry.

I walked like a ghost for a few hours until my soul warmed up. Of course, when I picked him up yesterday afternoon, he was really happy to see me, and we nattered on for ages, but it really brought home to me that I am now a guilty pleasure for him; he is not allowed to show affection for me in public anymore, according to the conventions of his peers. One part of me wants to shout POPPYCOCK to the world, but the other part acknowledges that this is part of him becoming a separate individual in the world.

The one thing that really pleased me is that instead of sitting around the campfire with his mates all night, he was so engrossed with the book he's reading that he lay in his tent with a torch and kept reading. The book? Up to now, he's been obsessed with Alex Rider teen fiction books. When I went dumpster diving at the Lifeline Book Fair depot recently, I found a Matthew Reilly book (Contest) and gave it to him. He's completely obsessed with it. I console myself that it *is* reading, and that I'm constructing a slow and careful pathway for him, up through various genres, the same way I've been guiding him, Beatrice-like, through music and movies. The true test of his broadening knowledge is that he can now watch things like The Simpsons and South Park and actually get lots of the cultural references.

So, sigh. Many more milestones to go, and most of them in the face of these stony young men who don't want to look adults in the eye. At least we have fun at home, where, to quote B's latest friend, things are really Ninja.

Books.

2011-05-20T17:36:00.003+10:00

I've been thinking a lot about books lately. I know you all think that I think about books all the time, and maybe I do, but as I keep telling anyone who will listen, the world of books is a very large one, with a lot of various crinkly little islands to explore.

I realise at this point that I've been WELL this week, which is why I'm thinking about something besides feeling unwell. You only feel well in hindsight, don't you? Takes something like a beach or a sunset or a smile to make you realise, but there you are, caught out, feeling well.

Anyhoo, books. I've been thinking about artist's books, but that's another post in draft form because I've been looking at the Megalo BOOK members' show.

I've also been thinking about 'real' books, the books people have in their houses, only 'real' in the disrespectful sense that 'normal' works in most circumstances. What the hell does 'real' mean? What the hell is 'normal'? Why do people always want simple answers from me about books? What the hell is 'simple'?

Rick Gekoski (I keep spelling his name wrong, but that's ok because today he spelled mine wrong) is one of those people who can seemingly pull out simple statements about books and book-buying and reading and his distaste for the internet, but often simple (or trite) statements come from unshared deeper thinking. I saw him this afternoon at the National Library, in 'conversation' with Colin Steele, and the most lasting impression I got is that he entertains the masses with the tritely amusing, and saves all the best bits for over a glass of something in front of a fire, maybe with a cat on his lap. He'd be a much more entertaining person one-on-one, unlike myself, as I'm vastly entertaining en masse and quite dull in person.

I love the National Library as an institution, and am a Friend of it, but when I go to events there I get quite smothered by the thick fug of Smug in the air. You know the stuff: an entire theatre of people who Know They Read The Right Stuff. It's probably gathering about Sydney Harbour as I type, as the various venues prepare for the writers festival. I'm not complaining about ALL readers, or even people at festivals, but of people who don't like Genre Writers (although a thriller/murder mystery every now and again is perfectly fine, darling).

There were two moments of audible crowd reaction this afternoon. The first was when RG -- no, three! three moments of audible crowd reaction. ~~Nobody expects the Spanish~~ -- was giving us the red hot dirt on the International Booker Prize judging: "Carmen said she would ferret out some Chinese writers, came back with twenty novels. A ferret on speed, more like it." {{Titter}} went the happily scandalised audience. ("Bet someone's going to tweet that, damn them." No, just blog it, Rick.)

The second moment was when he said that reading good books didn't make you a better person, it just made you a better reader. That got a shockwave of disapproval; he obviously says that at every gig to get a reaction. He rationalised it beautifully, spoke of Leavis and the canon, but for me it was a DUH moment. I always mix my oats with some fruit. Last week I was reading Jackie Collins, this week Ruth Park, next week, who knows?

The third was when he stated that the internet had killed the antiquarian book industry, and got a sympathetic tutting and nodding of heads. Well, yes, because it meant a sharing of information that killed the inflated prices that suppressed information allows. But, as I pointed out in question time and afterwards in private, you won't totally lose secondhand booksellers and dealers because people need to see and feel what they're buying, and while people are buying more new books online, or secondhand books for basic reading, the need to inspect and feel will always be there for collectors.

Now that you can easily buy e-books for reading, publishers are falling over themselves to make collectable editions of both new and reprint books. They are setting up the future book collecting industry, where you will be able to collect all the various chicklit editions of Jane Austen, or only books with 'American' bindings (the ones that keep or manufacture a deckled edge on the pages). Books are shifting in the same way that all obsolete technologies go: to the scrapheap, or to the collections. Some survive, many don't. If they all survived, how boring! The hunt, the thrill of the chase, continues, and will continue on into the so-called paperless society everyone keeps banging on about. When/if there is no more paper, paper products will be fetishized, even more than they are now.

So there. That's another two cents from me.

Later I also asked RG, as he signed my sketchbook (my copy of his book is in the garage waiting for the bookshelves. He signed it 'For Karen, and Karen's book in the garage. Liberate the Books!') about the difference between the Fine Press book trade and the Rare Book trade, and we nattered on happily while the person in line behind me scowled and sent hate waves into the back of my neck. RG said, 'I always know when I meet someone who prints fine press books that I'm going to dislike them; they're always softly spoken with weird little beards, sandals, and fishy handshakes.' I laughed and shook his hand firmly and said goodbye, resolving to make fewer absolute statements in the future.

I've failed already, haven't I? Oh well.

One thing I do know -- I'm painting our bookshelves this weekend, and by the end of it, I'll be wishing I could never see a bloody book again.

Shaky

2011-05-14T10:43:00.005+10:00

Ergh. Am emotionally exhausted.

We finally got to have a Friday-night-movie date night last night, to see Source Code (which I highly recommend, am in now officially in lerv with Duncan Jones), and then when we got home we had a big fight about something stupid, so that bedtime was late and terse until we snuggled up against the cold and said sorry. Fights don't last long, but the shockwaves linger a while. We're not fighting types, and certainly don't find them invigorating like some couples do.

Then I woke up and went to the local farmers' market and bought nice things, including two big yummy slabs of Amore cakes (Autumn Spice and Lemon Buttermilk & Raspberry, for enquiring minds). I ran into a family friend and was told a distressing thing about the health of ff's spouse, even closer family friend, then walked around in a daze for a while. When I got home I discovered that I'd left the cake box somewhere at the markets, Ceiling Cat knows where. Tracking the memory of what my hands were holding, I think I put the box down either at the fish stall or the herb stall. In either case, no-one yelled or ran after me to pass on the box. I hope whoever finds it enjoys the excellence of Sam's cooking.

So breakfast was still nice, but cake-free, which left me feeling not only wobbly but bereft. Now I'm going to the studio for a while to distract myself, and Colonel Duck is kindly coming up from Bega to do some chainsaw gardening for me. By the end of the weekend I'm hoping to have finished bookshelves to paint, and new bits of the garden to work over. That will solve the shakies, fingers crossed.

Oh, forgot to say that Bernice is back in town. Go and say hello. Play nice, childrens.
PS: Her post seems to have disappeared. I will hassle her. Maybe it's Blogger's fault, they've been half-arsed all week.

SOLAR

2011-05-09T18:35:00.004+10:00

Having not been in any exhibitions yet this year, I'm now in two in the same week.

1. SOLAR

The first is a group show of ANCA tenants celebrating the kickass fact that we now have a wonderful roof of solar panels powering our gallery and office and feeding back into the ACT grid in a way that will pay them off within five years and then will generate a lovely bit of income for us, so that hopefully we can keep having hired help to run the gallery etc instead of having to do it ourselves.

I've been helping to hang the show after work and I must say that it's a really, really cool show, full of strong, diverse and engaging work.

The opening is on Wednesday at 6pm, 1 Rosevear Place, Dickson, and we're having some interesting people speaking: Dr Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute, Anne Clark from local organisation See-Change, plus there will be lots of information available for anyone interested in knowing more about solar installation and rebates. To add a bit of zing, we have wine and food sponsors (Casella Win, the ANU Food Co-Op, Homeleigh Olives and Choku Bai Jo) to help you relax and enjoy the art, darlings.

We're also having a few open studios at ANCA Dickson and Mitchell from 12 to 5 on Saturday (14 May) if you want to have peeks at working artists and see the show.

2. MEGALO BOOK SHOW

This is one of Megalo's excellent Members' Shows, and the theme is artist's books, so of course I had to make sure I was in it, it would have been shameful to let it slip. There are a few things happening within the show, besides books made by the members -- there's also the first leg of one of my side-projects, a group rolling show called Flipping Books (able to be entered by anyone, contact me for details!), and a big group concertina Exquisite Corpse book. Lots to see!

The opening of BOOK is Thursday at 6pm, at Megalo, Canberra Technology Park
49 Phillip Ave, Watson.

So, that's Wednesday and Thursday nights sorted! Hope you can make it.

Waftings

2011-05-06T07:58:00.007+10:00

Yes, still itching and peeling, which makes it tricky when I work with PVA glue like all day yesterday, because at the end of the session I don't know if I'm rubbing off dry glue or skin... but getting much better, no doubt. Skin-wise, anyway.

I discovered that if you do a boring repetitive task (like glueing 50 pieces of paper to other pieces of paper, putting them in the nipping press then out and under light boards) you should listen to Mike Oldfield. His formula of making music is to start slow and gentle and then gradually build up momentum until you get to a Big Ending. It makes each small task seem very exciting, like you're working towards something that will eventually sit up and yell EUREKA! When, of course, the music finishes and you're still beavering away with the gluepot, it's a bit of an anti-climax, but it was fun while it lasted.

I was listening to Mike Oldfield because the CD laser in my studio stereo is borked, and when we were moving I found a few boxes of old cassettes, so I'm working my way through them, falling in love again with my weird music loves of twenty-odd years ago, like Mike Oldfield, Robert Cray, early Billy Joel (before Christie Brinkley messed with his brain) and Ruby among other strange mixes.

Mr Mark, who built the bookshelves and kitchen in our last house, is building us bookshelves as I type - big tall beasties, because the ceiling is very high in this house. They're quite imposing, and I can't wait to see if we have room left over once I unpack the books. Mind you, as much as I'd love to spend this weekend getting the books out, I have to wait. We have to paint the bookshelves and let them cure before the books get to them. Mr M says to leave them a month. A MONTH! Others say at least three weeks. I think last time I waited a week until I lost patience & shelved them, but I will try my best for the sake of the books themselves. The problem is that I can't start preparing and moving my studio until the books are out & up. Sigh.

Happy birthday to Best Beloved, who turned 40 yesterday. We decided that he would do something big for his birthday in the fullness of time (Conversation ranged from buying a piece of art he liked to getting some panniers for his bike. I think he's finally decided upon doing a pizza oven workshop later in the year.) so in the meantime I bought him a few little token presents... and then forgot where they all were! Dammit, senior brain already. So I contented myself with cooking him a nice meal and then bringing out a homemade self-saucing chocolate pudding with a candle in it, only to have (of course!) the candle melt from the pudding end and subside into the pudding as I was putting it in front of him. Sigh. Oh, how we roared.

Bumblebee is mumbling and cranky because on Tuesday he had braces plonked (carefully) on his teeth. Here's the photoessay:

Before.

During.

After. Poor lovey, look at his eyes. He'd just been through an hour of hell.

Natty dentist, sorry, orthodontist who wears funny bow ties and vests to amuse teh childrens and then gives you huge heart-stopping bills.

This is the weird bit about the experience. It was like an episode of a reality tv show, with foundation-caked bottle-blonde chickybabes at the Ortho's beck & call. It's the only time I've ever felt that 'Reality' in tv terms merged with 'real life' as I know it. He obviously like to feel that he's in that universe, with these women at his beck & call. Mind you, all the people who actually did the work prepping B's teeth were very nice middle-aged women whom I'm sure would have fixed Mr O with a withering gaze if he'd dared to suggest that they went a bit blonder. Heh.

So, it's been a week of sore teeth and lips and lots of cool Greek yoghurt and soups. Poor thing, the pain will subside, and two years down the track he'll hopefully look even more gorgeous.

byrd and I have been hanging out together a bit lately, with us feeding him and his lovely new ladylove on Monday night and then him helping me to move a letterpress cabinet on Wednesday. Jolly times, except that he has a raging headcold and now I have it. Ta, luv. While we were bringing the cabinet in from Hume, we dropped into the tipshop at the Mugga Lane Tip. It's the most revolting tip shop I've ever been to, no organisation, everything exposed to the weather, and most things completely trashed. I bought a dead remote with a thought for making it into something else, and they charged me $3 for it! Cranky-making.

I'm ignoring the world at large. There's many things to say but I don't want to say them while my braincells are being suffocated by snot.

I'd like to welcome Leonard Elvis Jones into the world, the new resident at Sorrow at Sills Bend. Great name, great parents, most excellent cat uncle, all a child needs for a good start in the world.

Bugger it, I have to get out of bed to go to work. I'm going to skulk in a corner and write my new typography course and try not to snot on anyone. Then hopefully I can come home and paint bookshelves while I can't smell the fumes.

Quickie

2011-04-29T08:04:00.003+10:00

I think I've killed all the mites, and the antihistamine is working most of the time, so hey ho, it's off to work today, after two weeks of uni break and no pay. I love the way I usually get ill when there's time to be ill. This is why I rarely take holidays.

The cats are going to the vet today for annual injections and their first major teeth-scraping, so have had nil by mouth since last night's dinner and no toilet outing this morning... I have very naggy, angry, yowly cats wrestling each other all over the house as I type. Hilarious for now, but in a few moments I have to wrestle them into their cat box, and in the process I'm pretty sure I'll gain a few more skin problems :)

The rest of Easter

2011-04-27T19:30:00.005+10:00

Firstly, may I just say how DISGUSTED I am about the BBC's decision to press the ABC to axe The Chaser's coverage of the impending royal wedding. Since Channel 7 is still allowed to air its wedding drivel and Dame Edna isn't being stopped, obviously the Palace is targetting this edict at REAL satire. Bugger, that was the only thing to look forward to about the event. I won't be watching any of it now, out of protest; actually not a hard task. I'm sure there will be much rehashing in print and other media.

I've been sulking today. My skin complaint is turning out to be much harder to treat than my doctor predicted... I've got scabies, you see. Horrible flesh-eating mites that have been burrowing under my skin for weeks without my knowing about it, and over the last week, since a proper diagnosis, have been itching like billy-o and have NOT been succumbing to the supposedly easy treatment prescribed to me.

All of you who have been in contact with me, don't panic. They're not as easy to catch as popular tales tell. We'd have to have been rubbing up & down each other nakedly at length to really transmit the buggers. Luckily Best Beloved and I have been so tired & cranky while moving house that he's going to have to be very unlucky to get them from me (although I am going to treat him tonight just in case).

And how did I get them? Best bet is from the possum that broke into the house just before we moved in, and I was unlucky enough to pick up a fresh mite in the move. It takes a few weeks for everything to reach an itching frenzy.

So EEEEERRRGGGGGGGGG. I was misdiagnosed for a while: told it was Athlete's Foot, then Dermatitis. The creams prescribed for both of those made my skin tough and brown, and then the scabies oil that I had to paint ALL OVER me (twice) just made everything go wild. So now I'm utterly miserable and about to try a new cream, as well as taking strong antihistamines to help with the itching. The soles of my feet are ragged and bloody. My hands are flaky slabs of ouch. It's not too publicly ugly, most of the yuck is under my clothes, but it's really painful.

Sorry, that was probably too much detail.

When I went to the Folk Festival I rugged up and wore gloves and didn't touch anyone. I got a few odd looks for picking up cups and plates with latex gloves on, but it was better than having things spilled on the ouchies.

I'm hoping this next treatment works tonight. If it does work, I'll be a happy duckie tomorrow. Tonight I'm grumpy. I've just reached the end of my capacity to be philosophical about it. All day I've been teary. I cried on the phone to the doctor, who was amazed that the first treatment didn't work. I almost lost it in the chemist when the girl behind the counter looked at what I was buying and said sympathetically, 'oh, they're really hard to get rid of'. And I tried not to cry when I ran into byrd and his little boys, but he could see I was trying really hard to hold it together. It's the itching, you see. Even when I've killed the greeblies, the itching will continue for a few weeks until everything sloughs off. It's driving me crazy and it's very hard to stay positive.

Sigh.

Anyhoo, I hear you say, shut up about the itchy shit and tell us what happened at the rest of the Folk Festival.

Well... I went back only for the evenings of the next two days, because I discovered that when I was moving around the studio fully occupied and happily making, I didn't itch. So I did lots of printing and playing with paper.

When I did get there, I watched these people play:

They were fantastic. They did a cover of 'Sweet Transvestite' from the Rocky Horror Picture Show that was FABULOUS, all slide guitar and sexiness. Noriko was in fishnets and a mini-kimono and moved like one of the women in Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love' video. Combined with George's accent, I haven't enjoyed Japanese-flavoured music so much since Shonen Knife.

I also, as you may see over on the right in my Twitter stream (I only twitter about five times a year, most of those during music concerts), went to see Don Walker's late show. He was doing one at a morning session, but I knew he'd do a better night show than day. He was introduced as 'Don Walker and the SF', and he started the gig all Jimmy Webb-ish, singing Khe Sanh accompanied only by his ~~organ~~ keyboard.

That was a clever move, getting the Cold Chisel fans off his back before launching into 45 minutes of NickCavesque grungy delta blues with a kick-ass band that he declared to be named, 'now that it's late and we're all adults', Don Walker and the Suave Fucks. Yee haw! It was a very male, very wry, very Aussie session.

That, and the divine mulled wine that is made by Troubadour Bar, and a group called the Sweet Lowdown that I only caught the last ten minutes of, and the company of Mummy Crit and her lovely little boy Eric who was so utterly obsessed with a 'Big Monster Raaaabbbbiit' that it's now firmly entered the lexicon of my extended family, was all for the Festival for 2011. I rode my bike home (past, bizarrely, a big dead rabbit on the road) and moodily sat in front of the telly with a huge chocolate rabbit to eat and itched.

I hope to report back tomorrow or the next day much more happily. Hopefully Bumblebee will get back after ten days with his father and will have missed all the boring itchiness.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter in your own beautiful ways.

Oh! And a big hello to Roslyn, who is too shy to delurk online, but had the courage to approach me in the bike lock-up of the festival and say lovely, lovely things to me. It was such a buzz, thank you.

Easter, day 2

2011-04-23T22:02:00.003+10:00

I went to the festival quite late today. I didn't get to the studio. My health is a bit erratic, funny skin things happening. I will go tomorrow, by hook or by crook.

Today's festival highlights (I forgot to take my phone, so couldn't twitter my fun):

A duo called Bygone Errors, who played innuendo-stuffed music hall era songs and told very bad jokes (Why does a bike not stand up by itself? It's too tired (two-tyred). Boom boom!) They were very funny, and there were a lot of older people in the audience who knew the songs, so much jolly singalonging ensued. BB's parents arrive tomorrow, we're going to take Grandpa to see them, he'll love it.

Watching the Fiddle Chicks play a superb rendition of Frankenfurter's song 'I'm Going Home' in the Infinite Rocky Horror tribute heat. It had deep shades of Ultravox's 'Vienna'. The Rocky Horror theme isn't working very well this year. It's hard to camp up something already so campy, and straight or soulful renditions don't work that well either. Most of the acts are playing 'There's a Light (Over at the Frankenfurt place)', which, I've worked out, is because it has the most life-affirming hippy lyrics (There's a light // in the darkness // of everybody's life). Blech.

But the Fiddle Chicks made it work.

And then, the piece of resistance for me (although I've come home to bed way before the night is over) was Shane Howard (from Goanna), his lovely daughter and his guest vocalist, Amy Saunders from Tiddas (not Martha, Crit!). It was a superb session of original new material, finishing with a fabulous rendition of Solid Rock with a guest didge player, William Barton. I must have heard that song endless times on the radio, but it brought tears to my eyes tonight... whether with joy or nostalgia, I don't know. Barton's didgeridoo playing was spine-tingling.

OK, time to go to bed in anticipation of Easter Eggs! As I said on Facebook, I did the wife-of-a-busy-man thing this year and bought my own egg. But I made damn sure that it's bigger than his. :)

Easter, day 1 (post 1300!!!)

2011-04-22T22:04:00.007+10:00

I rang the RSPCA about the white kitty. They got me to ring Domestic Services, who came & picked up the body and took it away to be scanned to try to notify the owners.

Anyway, my regime this Easter is to go to the studio in the mornings and to the National Folk Festival in the afternoons. Today the plan went well, except that instead of waking up early and bouncing off to the studio then going to the NFF at lunchtime, I lolled about in bed drinking tea and eating homemade hot Om buns (like hot cross buns but with an Om symbol drawn on them) made by Best Beloved and then going at lunchtime, ending up at the festival around 4.

I still got a lot done.

These are a couple of knitting pattern book images I inherited from one of my type purchases (when you buy presses or type you often have to take the rest of the crud the printer or his family are trying to offload). They usually come in sets of four: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and blacK (CMYK) but I only have the yellow and blue blocks. So it's a two-colour print.

I spent a bit of time playing with ink, to get the right colours (I mixed a geranium red with silver and a dark green with silver):

to make this rough idea:

for a print folio called 'Freaks of Nature', curated by artist Rona Green.

Then I set the type for it:

I flipped it around for you, but for those who can't make it out, it says

Cherylneezcha dreamed of that day
when she would be crowned
SCRAPBOOKING QUEEN

The finished product will be cropped to make a bleed print (where the colour goes right off the sides) and each print will have a gold or silver crown stuck onto her head (a proper, acid-free scrapbooking sticker). Fun!

(Since taking that photo I changed the name to Sherylneezcha. I'm striving for something quite clarsy but unique, like every contemporary mother. It had to be phonetic, and involve at least one Y and a Z. I also wanted it to be a strong name, and thought incorporating Nietzche might help her get through life with the right attitude.)

I also planned my flip books for an upcoming Megalo book show, and started working on my next Book Art Object piece.

And being at the studio and getting all this done made me very happy, so I could then really enjoy the bits of the NFF that I caught. While I was eating my dinner there I watched a documentary about Bill Munroe, the 'father of bluegrass' in a room full of people who really cared about all the teeny tiny details of who played with him when and how many times he scratched his mandolin front to make it less fancy. One of the aforementioned players, 'Chubby' Wise, played his fiddle like Barry Morgan plays his organ, teeth and smile and half-closed eyes and all. It was heart-warming.

I love Easter. I rarely get interrupted because everyone else is on holiday and most shops are closed, so I can just get on with things.

I hope your Easter is just as satisfying.

Ceiling Cat

2011-04-21T06:47:00.006+10:00

Oh my lovies, such a sad thing.

Last night our family from Kyogle came for dinner, after setting up their stall at the National Folk Festival down the road. These are the same relatives we visit when we attend the Woodford Folk Festival; they have a market stall selling lovely Asian clothes that they've designed themselves.

We (them and us, plus friends byrd & K) had a lovely dinner: vego curries followed by a caramelised fig, orange & walnut bread & butter pudding, and then sat around talking in a jolly manner for a while longer.

Finally, it was bedtime for bo-bos, so out the front door we all stood, lingering, when a small white cat came through the dark garden and said hello. It was all white with a single black spot on its head, young and whippy, with a lovely long tail that we all remarked upon admiringly. It said hello vocally, staying for a pat or three, and disappeared back into the night. Best Beloved said 'can we keep it?', as it didn't have a tag and had a lean and hungry look about it, but I didn't answer for some reason.

E & S started their car, byrd walked off into the night, and suddenly there was a bang noise. byrd yelled back at me that the white cat had been hit by a car.

We live on a service road of a larger road, with a large bit of tree-filled park between the two. As I walked across the park towards byrd (and E&S switched off their engine), I could see a white wriggling shape on the main road. byrd got onto the road and kept the cars from hitting it again, and the car that had hit it had stopped up the way, but by the time the young -- and shocked -- occupants had got to us and it, the cat was dead.

It was unmarked: no blood, no signs of struggle. It had made a couple of quick heaves to breathe and then stopped still. The poor little thing.

I felt sorry for the driver and his mates -- they hadn't been speeding, just driving along when the cat bolted across the road in front of them with no warning.

As I said, no tag, no indication of anything. The driver of the car picked it up and put is under a tree in the park. I suspect that it was a stray, but I am going to ring the RSPCA today and report its death in case anyone rings to report it missing.

E&S were as shocked as I, maybe more so since they had been the first to pat it and have a chat. We all went our ways, but not as merrily as we'd intended.

I went inside and hugged my cats for a while. We never let them out at night for many reasons, but visibility is one of them. If a clear white cat can be hit so easily, what chance do jet black ones have?

Poor little thing. Thank you for our brief encounter.

Time not only flies, it throws crap in your face

2011-04-14T17:43:00.004+10:00

Colonel Duck couldn't resist scanning the photo mentioned in the last post:

Oh, youth is indeed wasted on the young. This photo makes me feel quite crusty.

One of my hands and both insoles have broken out in dermatitis thanks to something stoopid lurking in the carpets that only emerged when I tried to clean a few spots, and I have an inflamed Achilles tendon from standing wrongly at the press too long, which behaves itself when I walk on smooth ground but breaks out in flame if I tread any path rougher than concrete. I walked across the tanbark from my studio to Nicci's studio today to say hello and spent the next hour saying OW. Ow ow ow.

Sigh. Judging from watching my Aged Poet deal with extreme old age, it's all just going to get worse, so I might as well enjoy the fact that my eyes are working and I have all my own teeth, even if I do have these annoying aches and itches. At least I don't have a womb anymore. That's one bodily adjustment I'll NEVER regret.

That purple bracelet is actually a hairband. Looking at it completely connects me to her, 22 years later. Be prepared, but in a nice way.

class duck

2011-04-13T08:06:00.005+10:00

I wish I had my jaunty graduation photo from my first degree to scan and put here as an illustration, but it's at Colonel Duck's place on the sideboard with all the other precious family photos. I'm wearing purple, with long bright red (henna) hair and a smug look on my face, mainly because I'd finally finished something everyone wanted me to do. [UPDATE! See here for the photo.]

At that point it was expected that I'd be a teacher, and I was set to go to do my DipEd the next year. Then I went to do a stint of work experience at what is now Bumblebee's high school (heh) and the experience was so awful that I changed my mind and cast around for some more study to do. I ended up going to ADFA as a civilian postgraduate and doing an MA, which introduced me to letterpress, which got me where I am today. Thank you, awful year 8 LHS students.

Why am I bringing this up? Firstly because last night I had to attend B's parent/teacher night. From the stories that Bumblebee tells and from the frazzled, overworked looks on some of the teachers' faces, I am profoundly grateful that I didn't become a high school teacher. There's something about the high school culture and the age of the students that screams UNWILLING. The kids don't, on the whole, want to be there, and the teachers are asked to do much more than just teach with their working time.

I do enjoy teaching, but I made a vow that I'd only teach people who wanted to be taught of their own free will. Art school students and adult workshops fit into this category. So do small children, who love being around fun things to do.

I found out in the last week or so that I'm one of five ACT artists to get a residency in a primary school for 12 weeks to undertake a collaborative project with the children and teachers. YAY! I'm having my first meeting with the school today, and we're going to start the negotiation process about the actual project. I haven't got a project in mind (although I have lots of ideas), because I want to hear what they are thinking about first, and then we'll wiggle along with ideas and plans and see where we get.

It's very exciting! That's going to eat up a chunk of my year later on, so now I'm pushing myself to finish a whole heap of stuff that's been bubbling along in an attempt to clear my desk and brain.

One thing on the boil is a PhD proposal, something I'm ambivalent about but I thought I'd give it a shot... lawdy, looking at all the paperwork and scholarship thingies and rules makes my head spin. I'm also putting together a proposal for another class in the Book Studio, a typography class, so that I can have a separate Book class and Letterpress class. I have to jump through lots of university hoops to get it going, but I have high hopes that it will happen, since the Book class is always full to the brim with people on waiting lists.

Other things that are more fun are prints for various shows & projects, and some flip books for the next Megalo members' show. Add to that the National Folk Festival at Easter (I just typed Eater... maybe that's what more secular holiday punters can call it) and I have a full dance card for a while.

Did I say last year that 2011 might be a quiet year? Yeah, right...

Oh well, there's always time to sleep when I'm dead, as it's been said.

wot i dun lately

2011-04-03T21:29:00.003+10:00

I've been a bit busy. I really, really miss having a decent camera, and I haven't really made enough money to warrant buying a new one. Want to help me buy a new camera? Visit the Duckshop! Sigh.

Anyway, what follows is from my iPhone camera. It doesn't have a flash.

Breathing, on the front step late one afternoon, sucking back a cold one with a mate. Cockies flew raucously overhead. Good times.

Watching and listening as legend Professor Jack Golson talked up legend Professor John Mulvaney at the launch of Prof Mulvaney's new book of memoirs. I used to be Prof M's secretary, and am very proud to be excellent friends with him and his lovely wife, Liz. It was a launch stuffed to the gills with interesting people, and the stoopid Coop Bookshop only brought one box of books along, which sold out within minutes. Prof rang them the next day, enraged, and demanded that anyone who requested one in the next couple of days got them at the Launch discount price ($10 off). I went in to order one and lo! they did so. Heh.

I've been working on a catalogue design for Thomas Middlemost of the Charles Sturt University Wagga art collection, for a print folio exhibition called Fair & Square. Due to all sorts of printing house bumbles, the printing & binding was completed on the morning of the opening, so I had to spend Friday morning sticking on enough of the custom-printed letterpress ampersand stickers to get through the opening & initial mailout, then I picked up the boys and we personally delivered the catalogues to Wagga CSU (we were going to the opening anyway, but hadn't planned to be couriering the boxes!)

There were 14 different ampersands used for the stickers, so choosing a copy was a bit like a personality test, great fun at the opening itself.

All the boxes in the boot of my car. And that's the last photo of the event that I took! I forgot to get my camera out the rest of the evening... It was a Rona Green-organised print folio involving at least 30 printmakers, with some of them at the opening, and then a lovely dinner at a restaurant called Magpie Nest. Rona gave us all badges at the opening, so we felt like a real gang.

Next day I visited the Wagga Regional Gallery where I saw the excellent Recycled Books travelling exhibition (not to be missed! Probably coming to a regional gallery near you) and then was shown the aftermath of their flood damage. They have to replace the floor of the entire main gallery... ay ay ay!

And then we did some op and antique shopping. Bumblebee found a dinner suit that fitted, I found a few old books and tins, and Best Beloved bought a vintage apple peeler and corer.

We only stayed the one night. Apart from the few days I spent being born there, that's the longest time I've ever spent in Wagga. It's a nice town. It has almost as many roundabouts as Canberra!

Today, Bumblebee and I learned how to make rice balls, thanks to this post. We fell in love with them in NZ, and you can't get them at Canberra sushi shops. They are such handy lunches.

At the same time, the cats helped BB with the washing.

I went to the studio and caught up with a printing fellow I met in Dunedin, John Holmes of the Frayed Frisket Press (in town for a medical conference), and then played with the wonderful wood type that I asked printmaker Ros Atkins to engrave for me:

Apologies for the quality of those last shots. I really miss the macro bit of my camera.

I also rearranged some of my type from large loose cheap typecases to nice condensed cases within cabinets, in a desperate bid to declutter:

Tomorrow I'm teaching my book class how to make a hardback sketchbook in one four-hour class. Normally it's a tight but do-able class, but I've got a very large class, with a few dreamers, so wish me luck...

Newsflash

2011-03-29T07:46:00.003+11:00

While we were in NZ, Bumblebee fell in love with L&P, a lemony mineral-waterish softdrink. It's hard to find in Australia, we've tried all sorts of places, within the ACT and without.

Yesterday, BB sent him off to our new local supermarket to get some (badly-needed) tonic water, and he came back crowing. It stocks L&P. What are the odds?

Now he's really, really glad we moved. He's still bouncing around the house. All I can think is that at least now he's distracted from buying Coke.

Oh, and RIP Diana Wynne Jones. I hadn't realised she was dying. She really was a very good writer. I've said before here that I think she's better than JK Rowling, if only for the depth of her imagination. She didn't borrow and adapt, she MADE IT UP. JKR is better at making you bond with characters, but DWJ let her freak flag fly in sooo many different ways. She leaves an awesome body of books that are sometimes quite hard to find, but do persist.

She's leaving home

2011-03-24T22:06:00.005+11:00

Another photo-post, mainly because it's very hard to describe how I feel about leaving a house that I never warmed to, but which is now full of very precious memories. I had a watery tart morning as I locked it up for the last time, thinking about my son as a baby, the changes I made the house go through to make me feel like I was escaping my past instead of being trapped in it, and while I feel thankful that I've moved to somewhere that I love, a little piece of me will be reluctantly floating over the distressed wooden floorboards like a vapour wisp.

If you need more words, go to my flickr stream.

I'd like to formally thank Colonel and Lady Duck for giving me a home of my own, and for all their support even though I whinged a lot about the house. It wasn't actually the house, but I guess you knew that.

Putting it out there

2011-03-24T15:25:00.006+11:00

Dear Jemal Sharah,

I would like to use your poem 'Revelation' for a letterpress broadside.

I have looked for you everywhere. I have written to your publishers, who say the rights have reverted back to you. I have googled you, found where you worked a year ago (Dili, Timor), tried to email you (it bounced back), emailed a colleague who might work near you (again, bounced back), so wrote to you via your employer (a very large government agency), but the letter came back with 'whereabouts unknown' on it. I have asked around, since you are very connected to Canberra, even found someone who has rented your house, but they do not know how to contact you directly.

I do not want to give up. All I can do is make the broadside, fully acknowledge you and the volume from which the poem comes, and hope that you surface and contact me to get your rightful dues: a fee, or a copy of the broadside, or a mix of both.

I will try to make it beautiful, and if it's any consolation, I won't be making any money from it, as it's being printed to raise money for a good cause.

Cheers,

&Duck

Postscript:

I love blogging. Jemal found me, we got in touch, I'm printing the broadside with a clear conscience. Results! Thank you, interwebs.

BBQ Day: a photo-essay

2011-03-15T19:59:00.004+11:00

Yesterday was Canberra Day, a holiday we had and you didn't, to celebrate CANBERRA. I chose to spend the day taking piles of rubbish to the tip, which I thought was apt, and then I planned to build the rest of the outdoor setting gifted to us house-warmingly by Colonel & Lady Duck, and also the fancy-pants BBQ gifted to himself by Best Beloved.

After the tip trip, carrying old wardrobes that had been knocked apart and all the crap that comes with buying new things (which is why I hate buying new things), like masses of plastic and polystyrene

and cardboard

I got a phonecall from byrd, with a background of much high-energy squealing and similar noises. Could he and Owen (Zoe's partner) and all their respective kids come over to ours to get said kids from under the feet of respective partners? Absolutely, says I, if you help me build my BBQ. Righty-ho! They were over in a flash, with kids that emerged from their cars like a cork out of a bottle, amd a six-pack of BBQ-building beer.

So here's our afternoon:

Team BBQ. byrd and Owen, finding all the bits.

Meanwhile, I am Team Chair. Best Beloved is Team Faff around the Kitchen.

In the still quite bare loungeroom (around the corner from the tv-feet-up room) is Team Nintendo DS. To the left, out of shot, is our sandstone mantelpiece and open fire (not lit). Grand Days!

A couple of beers later, Team BBQ haven't lost any tempers, but they're having trouble finding a couple of pieces.

Team Chair becomes Team Table, which evolves into Team FAIL until Best Beloved surprises me by working out how to get three of the misaligned legs on a bit more easily, and Owen the Engineer works out the last one. You can see the coppiced paperbarks in the back yard. They're lovely, but they're getting taken out in favour of some fruit trees sometime in the nearish future.

Team Cook, standing around feeling justifiably satisfied, sucking on a beer each, discussing meat smoking and rotisserie strategies, but in the meantime whipping up some humble snags for the kids.

Our grass-free back yard, complete with new table and chairs. By the end of the evening, all chairs were occupied (although moved inside, because it started raining).

And finally, Padge, out the front on the silly front light pedestal (the light doesn't work so far) with a cheesy black cat statue I found once at a garage sale. It looks up adoringly at people entering, something Padge never does, although he is very welcoming in a dignified kind of way.

One of his nicknames is 'Dignity Puss'.

As promised, the bed

2011-03-08T22:05:00.005+11:00

I feel like International Wimmins Day has rolled right over me, and left me a bit bruised and exhausted. Today I've (in no particular order) packed and unpacked umpteen boxes, taught a class, bought some shoes, helped a load of students and a senior teacher, ridden my bike across town and back, had lunch with my hubbie, talked my son through his homework plans, amused the cats, attended a committee meeting and written the first draft of a second-round project application.

How's that for a full bloody life, eh? Classic over-'extender', dunno about 'achiever'.

For the record, 'buying shoes' was probably the girliest thing there besides lunching the hubbie (he paid, dammit), but the shoes themselves were NOT girlie, and anyone who knew me in the 80s (I think that's only you, Jo, and maybe Steeve, and possibly Lisa, if you read this) will laugh when they see them:

RIPPLE SOLES! I lived in these for at least ten years, then they disappeared off the shelves until this year. The guy in the shop laughed when I told him this, and said he's been trying to source them for years too. The originals ('Rollers', we both said at the same time, thus establishing our cred with each other, which I pretty much destroyed by saying 'SNAP') used to be made in Poland, but these are made in China and don't quite have the 'roll' as you walk that the Polish ones did. But I love them, and my feet are happy.

So. The bed. A gas-lift bed, for those enquiring minds who enquired, is a storage bed wot with you can store your winter/summer doonas or sex toys or whatever you want to store, and it has a gas-lift hydraulic thingy to help you lift the mattress to get to the storage (thank goodness, because we bought a huge mattress. The cats love it).

The bits, fresh from the flat-packed boxes.

The bits to put the bits together.

Me, putting the bits together. This is the abbreviated, censored, soaped-mouth version.

The gas-lift hydraulics, ready for the mattress.

The final bed, with brand-new linen. We keep looking at the old (Queen, so still big) bed on the low ex-futon base and wondering how we fitted into it. In this bed, sometimes in the night I don't even know there's someone else sleeping with me. BLISS.

Speaking of which, I desperately need a hot bath to relax my screaming muscles before I sleep. So ciao, until the next batch of bad iPhone photos or I get the chance to vent. Still no broadband, no tv, no telephone. Just a dongle. Happy IWD, peoples.

happy cat is happy

2011-03-05T13:35:00.005+11:00

Actually, the cats are nervous and prowly, but Padge didn't seem to mind a chin scratch a little while ago as I booked some cinema tickets on the internet:

You can see one of the things I love about our new house: the slate detailing on the outside.

By the time BB had loaded and unloaded masses of things, then I helped to unload and partially unpack other things, we were absolutely exhaustipated (tired and nothing comes out right). My lovely friend K has moved to Canberra from the Southern Highlands, into a house JUST around the corner, so she bounced around and we drank a bottle of bubbly then walked around to Wilburs (our new local) just in time to order food before the kitchen closed.

Then we fell into bed and slept soundly with the nervous kitties for half the night, but then newness and strangeness took over and I found myself sitting in the loungeroom with wide-awake cats at 4.30am, talking to them about the niceness of their new home. Then we lay in bed pinching each other and saying, 'we're actually here!' Finally we all got back to sleep, but we also had to awake at dawn's crack to give back the rental truck.

So. We're underslept, caffeinated and happy, unpacking merrily but I have just bought cinema tickets in the anticipation of both of us crashing emotionally in a few hours and needing to eat and be entertained without having to talk to each other. Tomorrow Bumblebee gets back from his parental visit and Real Life in the New House begins in earnest.

Hope you're having a good weekend, too!

Poo bum

2011-03-04T10:11:00.004+11:00

I thought, since I've packed up all our internetty connection thingies* at home, that I'd be able to download some of my documentary snaps at work & show you yesterday's massive bedmaking effort.

But poo bum, no. My work computer has been overhauled since I last worked here (6 months) and all the useful things have been removed, and no software has been updated. All I can use is the internet. I can't even download photos. Sigh. Getting that all fixed will take a lot of time and phone-based earache and energy that I just can't spare right now.

As I type (quicky between chores), Best Beloved and byrd are packing all our furniture into a hired truck and hauling them one kilometre up the road to the new house. I'm best at work, out of the way, we both agreed when we decided, late yesterday, to go ahead with the move even though our dratted house buyers HAVEN'T exchanged yet. We figure, since they have requested permission to move in before Settlement and pay us rent etc, that they are serious and won't fall through.

So. Today, after work, I ride my bike to the new abode! I saw hot air balloons this morning on the way back from driving BB to Fyshwick to pick up the truck. Good-o, I thought: it's a Balloon Day. Excellent omen.

Yesterday our new beds were delivered. We borrowed enough money to buy a couple of new things, like beds and a BBQ (things that are better bought new, not secondhand) and the rest of our purchases will be secondhand, like couches and dining chairs -- Zoe is lending us a lovely cedar dining table that is sculking in the corner of her house, aching to entertain. Colonel and Lady Duck bought us an outdoor table setting as a house gift, bless them. It arrives today too, flatpacked and ready to assemble.

Bumblebee's new bed is a King Single, and only needed its little feet screwed on to the base (which is also a bed in its own right, so the two halves can be pulled apart for sleep-overs). Our bed, however, was delivered flat-packed (apart from the mattress) and needed to be assembled. So that was yesterday's task for me.

I will insert before and after photos here when I can upload them. Suffice to say that there is a special circle in Hell for people who ~~write~~ construct assemblage instruction sheets. All the bits were there, but the instructions were supremely unhelpful, and in fact quite obstructive. I eventually just glanced at it to make sure I wasn't doing anything downright dangerous, and worked it out for myself. I like assembling things; I have friends who ring me up to build their Ikea whatevers etc for them, but I do get very cranky with bad instruction design.

I now have a magnificent (and solid) King Size gas-lift storage bed, fully made up and ready for us to fall into, exhausted, tonight. I feel righteous. The flat-packed outdoor setting will be a lot easier, I'm hoping!

So the cats are nervous, sticking together in worry and not sure whether we're abandoning them, or if we'll be taking them to the vet later or something. I can't wait for them to be prowling around the new rooms. Every window sill is wide enough for them to laze upon! Kitty heaven. As the nice man who came yesterday to install the catflap said: 'you don't find houses like this anymore.'

SQUUEEEEEE!

* I've been the resident amateur IT person at every workplace I've worked since the introduction of the Mac Classic. I put it down to my use of simple and accessible technical vocabulary.

hurry up, hurry up

2011-03-03T08:52:00.004+11:00

So much for the easy Monday exchange. Thanks to lawyers and banks stuffing up, exchange is slated for this afternoon. It better be, we've booked the truck for tomorrow and the new beds arrive in an hour.

I have primed up my iPhone camera for documentation porpoises.

I have met the pets on one side: two cats and a little yappy dog. One of the cats has obviously learned from the dog, as it is yappy too, and looks like a miniature version of our cats. We'll have a black cat street! Mind you, I think it will be chaos for a while.

Padge has also been ill. I have had to squirt horrid expensive antiobiotics down his throat with a syringe four times a day. I have become an expert at grabbing a huge handful of the scruff of his neck to pull it back for the squirting. It's not pretty, but it's a great skill to learn and I wish I'd been shown it years ago, could have some in handy with Bumblebee :) Anyhoo, the drugs are working, he's perky as hell today.

Action Stations

2011-02-25T07:14:00.003+11:00

Without wanting to jinx the process...

WE FOUND A BUYER!!!!!

Yay, huzzar and all of that!

... and they are willing to exchange on Monday and settle ASAP.

Which means ACTION STATIONS. We will be moving house over the next week, and will hopefully be spending our first night in Hackett next weekend!

so close...

2011-02-21T20:19:00.007+11:00

I received the keys to our new house today and shared a bottle of bubbly* with a couple of close friends (in lieu of Best Beloved, who is on a study week away in Sydney) and forgot to take a photo.

It was a lovely feeling, sitting first in the back yard, then on the front step, then sprawled on the carpet of one of the empty rooms, drinking from some gorgeously sturdy French glasses that lovely Sacha gave me as our very first housewarming gift, knowing that this was the place that I was going to be operating from for the next umpteen years. It already felt like home, and there was nothing, nothing of mine in the place, except my son, who was just as delighted as I was.

So... no photo, sorry. I can only really blame myself for dropping my camera out of the car at Christmas time, and for just not thinking about the camera in my iPhone when I really should.

We're still waiting for an offer on the old house... we can't move into the new one until we've exchanged contracts, so I have to be patient, my creatures. At least now I can pop inside & sit on the floor instead of lurking around the cobwebby front garden.

In other, hopefully distracting news, semester has started at art school, and today I met my new booketeers for the first time. They seem a very keen, thoughtful, enthusiastic bunch, which is so cheering. I've also got a couple of exchange students auditing the class, so it's full to capacity, and makes the BookStud a touch snug.

Someone who drops by my studio to play with my press occasionally and travels to England frequently, loaned me a book about Lucien Pissaro (son of Camille), who started a press heavily inspired by the Arts & Craft movement. Which, once I'd looked at it, took me straight to my bookshelf to re-read The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. Delicious, fabulous, mesmerising.

Bumblebee is enjoying year 8 much, much more than year 7. He's doing his first batch of electives, and to my surprise he chose Industrial Tech and Outdoor Ed. In the former he's coming home glowing after using chisels and planes, full of the praise of his dour teacher, having listened to my advice that he needed to focus on the tools rather than his friends. Mind you, this is the *only* class where he applies that focus, which is a pity. I wish all classes had dangerous elements that could cut and maim, maybe kids would do better if they did. The latter class is full of wonderful energetic, limit-pushing confidence-growing activities like sailing, rock-climbing and snorkel-diving. He's so excited. It's perfect for a 14-yo who is discovering how being tall and limber and fast is FUN. Bless him, he's changed so much over the last year or so.

Hmmm, coming down from the champagne. Wish Best Beloved was here to keep up the SQUEEEEEE feeling. Have to wake up early tomorrow to teach the UCan graphic design students. Might be time to snuggle up with the cats (who are going to LOVE their new domain) and read the book.

Good night!

*Our lovely real estate agents gave me a bottle of Moet with the keys, but I'm saving that for our first real night in the house.

Type type type

2011-02-14T17:32:00.007+11:00

WHAT'S UP? YOU'RE NOT BLOGGING.

Yes, Colonel Duck, I don't seem to be blogging much. Sorry. I'm in a bit of a slumpy void thing where I am hovering glumly between existences: break, teaching; old house, new house; busy, disengaged.

On Saturday I taught a lovely class of women how to do Asian Stab Bindings at the Belconnen Arts Centre. Here we are, doing lovely things:

On Sunday I slobbed around moodily before meeting up with the lovely people of the Hill End Press.

Tomorrow I will be back at the Book Stud, teaching a bunch of graphic design students how to REALLY handle typography.

As their teacher and I were discussing today, young people use typefaces intuitively because they've grown up with the ability to layout visual text on computers with a large (limitless?) choice of fonts.

Tomorrow they're going to find out what happens when there are only a few choices, only a few sizes, and in some cases, incomplete alphabets. They're going to discover that leading means just that: strips of lead of varying sizes that sit between the lines of type. That kerning isn't just an abstract concept, but real physical spaces that you can insert between letters, and sometimes have to insert because otherwise the letters overshadow each other and won't ink or print properly.

Fun!

I'm also reading Just My Type by Simon Garfield, which seems to be the book on everyone's reading list at the moment. I wasn't fussed about buying it (it'll be on every second-hand shelf in the country in 12 months) but someone lent it to me, so I'm feeling very up-to-date and it is indeed a jolly good read. Having learned eons ago not to judge art by the private life of its artist (we're a weird mob) but I'll certainly never look at Gill Sans the same way!

So there you go. I'll leave you with some typographic kitty play:

Housie

2011-02-07T15:48:00.006+11:00

We are trying *very* hard to find the right buyers for our house (or any buyers at all, actually), so to the delight of our agent, her proffered weekly editorial to the Canberra Times was not only accepted, but followed through with an interview and -- unheard of for this particular column -- a photographer sent around to shoot us in our lovely unique kitchen.

Click here to embiggen, but it's a bit embarrassing. Firstly, I look DREADFUL, but BB comes across beautifully. Secondly, they took my description of our budding fruit plantings and made it come across as if we're a bounteous Garden of Eden (we're not, there's a lot of room for improvement, but a solid framework of edible things is growing), and thirdly it sounds as though our friend discounted his services mightily. He didn't, formally, but we did give him a pretty tight budget and he did so much more with it than we expected, and we're still utterly grateful to him. I've scrubbed his name out because he's not building anymore, and we didn't want him to be asked if he would do 'just one more'.

You can also see a small fraction of BB's Poole Pottery collection, the jugs, up on the 'floating shelves'. The rest has been in boxes for years, but our new house has ample space to display nearly all of it.

The best bit about the column is that the article straight after ours is reminding everyone that the market is healthy, and yet to find its peak.

So, after prostituting our dignity (and BB's anonymity) and pimping our cats every Wed and Saturday: if it doesn't sell soon, I'm going to be morose. One more week of advertising and then we have to make some hard decisions. There must be a right person out there somewhere. It's a sweet little house.

Remember to breathe, Duckie. You all have full permission to remind me of that. Again, we're not under mud, or on fire, or blown over. That's a good thing to think about.

Freaky sky biz

2011-02-07T09:30:00.003+11:00

Ahem. Moving right along.

Hasn't the weather been crazy?

On Saturday we went for a wonderful jaunt up Mt Majura with our future Hackett community of art school-based friends where we dodged enormous green-arsed bull ants, drank beverages, ate yummies and many of us had swims in the Top Dam. I didn't swim, but I will next time. Best Beloved didn't swim, but he will when he gets over his shyness with my friends who wouldn't give a rats if he has all-over excema stuff. Bumblebee did swim, and I was very proud of him for doing so. He's turning into someone who will try new things, and many of them surprise the hell out of me. Like jumping off the 5m diving board at the Civic Pool, something he'd never have done a year ago. Mind you, he was with his mates, which is a risk-taking incentive that sends small chills up my spine when I think of it being extended to things like booze & cars in a few years.

Anyhoo, about an hour after we came off the mountain, we had another freaky hard rain storm, just like the one the day before that threatened to flood our studios at ANCA. Phew! We're the lucky ones, all threats and very few consequences, unlike nearly everywhere else in the country.

Freaky, freaky, times.

Dear Mister Man at my gym class

2011-02-04T10:35:00.003+11:00

Dear Mister Man at my gym class who stares at all the women's breasts as if we were there for your exercising entertainment:

We're not. We're exercising too.

Just a few pointers:

That ponytail doesn't make you look virile. It makes you look virulent, and does nothing to hide the fact that the front of your head is bald.

The tan makes you look like an old piece of leather. Or a tortoise. You take your pick.

The t-shirt saying 'If I'm right 98% of the time, who cares about the rest' says it all. You're right about that.

I wasn't staring at you in admiration, I was staring at you to see if I could shame you into looking away. Yay! It worked, but you just shifted your gaze to the next female across.

If I never look at you again, it's not because I fear Your Awsumness, it's because from now on, you don't exist. No biggie.

Have a nice day.

(Oh my, this was the first LOLcat I found this morning. How apt.)

Caretaker mode

2011-01-31T13:14:00.003+11:00

Week two of caretaker mode, where we have to be careful about how much mess we make in any part of the house and garden. For people like us, who trail grunge as we walk, it's excruciating. Moving into our next house will be like releasing your overfed gut from a tight belt or taking off a tight pair of shoes and walking barefoot on a cool wooden floor.

Actually, even though I don't wear tight shoes as a life philosophy, walking barefoot on the cool wooden floors of this house is just sooooo good when the weather is this hot and sticky. Since the next place is carpeted, I'm storing up the nice feeling while it lasts.

Lots of sniffs but no bites as yet. We're having another open session on Wednesday, and we might have a bit of something fun in the Real Estate section on Saturday if my agent gets her indominable way. She's a fighter, I tell you.

Yesterday I got to spend the whole day in my lovely cool studio... sigh of relief. As those of you know who hang out in studios, or even with a kitchen table, you can't just plunge in to being creative, unless you have something burning to be done. I'm feeling a bit disconnected, so I decided to do something that would just take a day, and be completed by the end of the day... doing with a sense of purpose, such a good feeling.

I made jam labels for Best Beloved's produce:

I decided to play with the cats as an identifying symbol of our household, and so created the 'Two Tails' motif. I'm probably going to make an Ex Libris for us out of the label design on the far right. They're a tad clunky, it's my first play with linocutting for ages, and I printed them using my nipping press. Still, it was a happy day's work.

Bumblebee gets home today after four weeks of only being home for two days at a time. He doesn't start school until next week, so we can have some fun together this week (as long as we don't mess up the house!). I took him to see the Space Invaders show at the NGA last week, which we both really enjoyed. He was very impressed at seeing byrd's work in there. It's a great show, only running for a few more weeks if you like a bit of street art.

I'm teaching a few times next month (as in February, tomorrow): a one-day class at the Belconnen Arts Centre on Asian Stab binding (and will be back there in March for a day of Altered Books) and a 2-Saturday class at Megalo doing a broad survey of simple bookarts bindings. Both classes will be a lot of fun, so if you fancy a bit of making, come along. At the very least I need to earn some money! New houses aren't cheap :)

Ergh, time to go outside again. Why can't we just skip February and head straight into Autumn? I adore Autumn, it's the most glorious time to be in Canberra (besides Spring).

Oh -- went to see Another Year (by Mike Leigh) the other day. At the same time, Best Beloved saw Black Swan. I was too chicken to go to it. We both came out wishing the other had seen our movies. So on the way home we told each other all about them. No spoilers for you, but both are really good. The Coen brothers' remake of True Grit is even better.

Do yourselves a faaaaaaavvvvooooouuur.

Down tools

2011-01-24T11:36:00.005+11:00

Wow, it's my first day since the new year started when I haven't had to pack, patch, paint or clean anything. I'm also child-free till tomorrow. I've spent the morning catching up on some work I had to do, and yesterday I sorted my tax, so I'm toying with the idea of going to the movies. Or going back to bed with my Connie Willis novel (I just finished The Domesday Book, am rereading Blackout because All Clear is winging its way from the Book Depository). Tough call.

Apparently our open house sessions on the weekend were a triumph. I can't say for sure, because we had to be out of the way, and Mr Padge just can't seem to articulate clearly enough for me to make out more than FEED ME.

On Saturday there were 21 groups through, more than any other house in the area. At the dot of 10:30am the empty street was suddenly full of cars; they must have been lurking around the corner. We scarpered, and there was no sign of the cats as we left in the opposite direction. As soon as we disappeared, the cats came out and set up begging stations, one in the back yard (Mr Pooter) and one right inside in front of the front door (Mr Padge, of course), so that people had to step over him to enter. Our agent thought this was marvellous, so didn't shove him out of the way. 'A novelty,' she called him. We have other words to describe him when he uses this very familiar blocking technique.

Yesterday, Sunday, the agent expected around 10 groups. We got 12. The weather was gorgeous each morning, turning grey and ploppy later in the day. Lucky us! Padge stationed himself a bit further from the door, wandering in and out with the people, playing host.

Today he's sprawled near the door, looking outside wistfully, wondering who is going to come today for his pats. Thankfully, no-one. He can suffer in his jocks, spoiled puss.

So now it's in the hands of Ceiling Cat. We have another double-day weekend coming up, but anything could happen in the next few days. In the ACT you only have to get one builder's report, and this gets sent, with the contract, to interested parties to consider if they express interest. A much more sensible way of doing things rather than each group having to commission their own report. Whoever buys the house, pays for the report. So far 5 groups have requested the contract & report from our agent, and there have been a few requests for rental evaluations. Fingers crossed!

On Saturday we went looking at beds and furniture, just cruising the shops. I hate shopping, and so does BB, so we ended up quite cranky. We cheered ourselves up with a Hindi movie (I can't say Bollywood, because it was much more arthouse than that, with no dancing or singing, and only 2 hours long as opposed to the usual 3 or 4) called Dhobi Ghat, or Mumbai Diaries. It was great; if you get a chance to see it, it's very beautiful and quite engaging. We followed that with dinner at our favorite South Indian restaurant, Ruchi in Belconnen, where we treated ourselves to a Thali, Best Beloved's favorite way of eating. He had the meaty version and I had the vegetarian, which is excellent albeit a bit too reliant on coconut flavours throughout the dishes.

Yesterday we went to CanCon at EPIC and had a wander around, marvelling at the separate universe that exists to one side of ours. CanCon is the local gamers' conference, and there were three huge rooms: one devoted to board games, one to card games (like Magic, Pokemon etc) and the last to role-playing and figurine-based games (is that the right way to describe Warhammer?). Lots of amazing merchandise and fun people to watch and very funny t-shirts to read. We didn't play anything, but we did buy a few games to bring home.

I'm hoping to get into my studio over the next few days to do something more than just clean up the mess. I have a few workshops coming up, at Belconnen Arts Centre and at Megalo, so if you want to spend a day or so making stuff, come along!

I think the first thing to do is to go for a walk to my postbox. There's something in it, and it just might be the Connie Willis book, which will determine the rest of the day's trajectory.

The 'spot the cat' game

2011-01-20T20:45:00.006+11:00

Well, I've done all the hard work, and the realtor's sign is hammered into the verge, signalling that the house is on sale. The photos are on a couple of websites, but BB has advised me not to put a direct link here in case Bad Peoples are reading.

I don't believe that Bad Peoples hang about here, do you?

Anyhoo, I'll respect his wishes, but I'm sure if you're one of my smart readers, you can find it for yourself, especially if I share some of my favorite photos with you.

Spot the cat!
Golly, our kitchen looks good. It hasn't looked this good since it was built instead of having a flashy wedding (by a friend who has excellent woody skillz). In fact, it almost looks better than then because he left us a few final jobs which weren't done until a couple of weeks ago.

Spot the cat!
I find this photo quite embarrassing. Our couches are really not that purple when you see them in situ. I was shocked when I moved one of them from the (tip)shop where it looked 'normal' to the car in the sunlight where it looked this purple. The photographer turned on all the lights and used a fancy flash, and lo! the couches are purple. In the normal house light they look a lovely dark purply-brown, sort of like what baby poo looks like after they've eaten beetroot.

I'm really not selling the couches to you, am I? Sigh. As I told our lovely real estate agent: up to now I've had pets and a small child. Who buys new furniture? Not anyone with a practical streak.

OK, next:

Spot the cat!
This one is a tricky one. Mr Padge was lying slothfully on the front step, and you can only just make him out behind the greenery. It's amazing how wide they can take the shot without making it all buggy and fish-eyed.

So there you go. There are other pics, but they are the cattiest.

Wish us luck... we're having viewing sessions on both days of the next two weekends. And crossing our fingers that someone likes our house's quirky charm, including Best Beloved's many fruity jam plantings (red currants, apricots, quinces, plums and grapes). We have to make ourselves scarce during the viewings, and are planning some jaunty escapades to stop ourselves from fretting.

And we're making bets about whether the cats stay and fawn over people or scarper as well. Do let us know if you visit and spot them. Extra points in the game :)

Run, river, run

2011-01-16T22:41:00.006+11:00

I'm lying on my old mattress, the one I used to sleep on before Best Beloved moved into my life, and it now lives at Colonel and Lady Duck's prickle farm. I'm down here to teach a bookarts weekend, which I've just done. It was fun, but really hot and sweaty. The mattress is great, and I have the whole bed to myself. Luxury!

There hasn't been much time to do anything else except teach and lie on the mattress, since I've also been writing the paper that I've been trying to write for weeks, that is due by COB tomorrow. Tomorrow I drive back to Canberra to finish decluttering the house in time for the Cleaners to clean, and then on Tuesday we're having our Official Real Estate Photos taken.

Gosh, I'm feeling so ruddy GROWN UP.

I think I've finished the paper. It's for the Impact 7 conference in September. They want the paper now, to be submitted and peer-reviewed, so I'm not too worried. I figure if there's something screwy about it, the peers will pick it up & tell me to make changes. And I will.

Before I left home on Friday, I finally finished all the painting of bits of the house that needed refreshing... nearly all of it, really.

Did I tell you that the goaty smell in Bumblebee's room wasn't actually teenage goat smell, but a school bag or two full of rotting uneaten lunches? EWWWWWWWWWW. My punishment is to not care that his new room has floral curtains when we move in. He can have black curtains and a Sith bedspread when he has proved to me that he can [a] make and eat his own lunches and [b] use a bin if he has leftovers. He's also been given the Monkey Painting to live with for a while.

The Monkey Painting is a special member of the family. Best Beloved, when he was about eight, admired the stuffed monkey of a family friend. So the nice old lady, instead of giving him the monkey, painted. a. picture. of. it. and gave it to him for his next birthday. WTF? It became one of his treasured possessions. So now we have a very odd painting of a stuffed monkey that stares at you inanely from the canvas. Up to now I have hung it in the loo, where it grins down upon you as you wee, and to avoid the stare you have to look at the Times Table poster underneath it. It's done wonders for our maths skillz.

But. Until he's learned his lesson, The Monkey Painting will live in Bumblebee's new bedroom, staring at him until he empties his schoolbag each afternoon. I think it's going to work. I hope so, and then I'll have to find another place to hang it, somewhere out of the way but suitably visible so that BB doesn't think I hate the painting. I don't, but it's slightly creepy in a 1970s clown-on-black-velvet kind of way.

Anyhoo, the title of this post celebrates the fact that the Bega River is running, the first time I've seen it with water in it for YEARS. It was so hot today that a couple of my class participants ducked off at lunchtime and had a swim in the river. I didn't join them because if I had, I probably wouldn't have returned to the class. We were in the Bega CWA Hall, a delightful venue complete with a caretaker living in the back flat, who had been living there for TWENTY YEARS. wow.

OK, bedtime for bo-bos. Tired. Verry, verrrry tired.

Almost there (ii)

2011-01-12T11:29:00.004+11:00

Have resolved to stop feeling cranky about what I'm doing. My friend Jo's latest post and all the news that is around us about the flooding has brought it home to me that what I'm doing is absolutely minor compared to what is ahead of a lot of Queenslanders. At least my house isn't full of mud (although what was behind our kitchen bookshelf was quite alarming).

Bumblebee is back for his two days of home but isn't very useful (he's a tad cack-handed in a gawky teenage way) so is watching Stah Waz to stay out of the way and doing occasional forays to the shops for me. The car is at the garage and it's raining so we're stuck at home, a great excuse to try to finish all the indoor chores.

Better get on. I'm sorry about the floods, hope all my Qld friends are coping. I'm thinking dry thoughts for you.

Almost there

2011-01-11T21:56:00.001+11:00

Trying to remember to breathe...

...but all I'm breathing is paint fumes.

House blues

2011-01-07T08:15:00.004+11:00

Most of my friends will smile and nod when I say that I've always said I love moving house. And I do. I've done it a lot, I've always said that it's a chance to declutter and renew your sense of self, to start fresh and reinvent your life.

Up until now, every move has been from a rented house to a rented house. Pack, clean the walls, patch a few holes/cover up red wine stains, ring the service providers, move on. Brilliant. But...

Getting the house (lived in for a record 13 1/2 years, and thus much more cluttered than the usual 2-year stint) ready for sale in under three weeks while your partner is back at work, your son is commuting between his father and you every three days... is not fun. I try to make it so with a bit of Facebooking, but that just sucks me in to world of fun that I juts should be ignoring for a while. There's also the normal commitments to meet like a workshop in Bega to teach (booked before the sudden move decision) and a conference paper to write.

I have the building inspector coming this Monday morning, unfortunately just before the bathroom sealer person (the sealant had a 5-year warranty, and was misbehaving after only 2 years, so is being replaced, yay), then the window and carpet cleaner coming on Friday, Best Beloved will be mulching the garden while I'm in Bega, then the industrial cleaners coming on the next Monday, the photographers coming on the Tuesday, and then the house goes in the papers and on the interwebs.

Le puff, le pant, as Pepe le Pew's friend used to say.

OK. I'll stop whinging. There's a lovely big house up the road that is empty and waiting for me to sign the dotted line and move in. Without that thought, I'd be going crazy.

The good good news is that my cousins had their twin baby girls and are in Mumbai as we speak, living on similar nerves and adrenalin, aching to take them home and start a new life. So exciting for them! Welcome to the world, girls! (I couldn't help myself being pragmatic within my comment to them; when Bumblebee was in hospital having his first heart surgery at 3 months old, my mother had a cold, and she wore a facemask into the ward to protect him. She had so much praise from the doctors and nurses, because very few people think that their germs mean anything in a hospital environment. I hope J understands that I'm not being a party-pooper.)

Oh well, back to the sanding (I love my drill!) and the painting. And the Scrabble. And the helpful cats who bring me presents of mice and disembowel them close by to show me how helpful they are.

Procrastrination city

2011-01-04T13:13:00.004+11:00

I've just wasted a couple of hours (how fast does the clock go when you're having fun??!!) building a quiz that you'll all probably hate.

I've been having an ongoing discussion about Bernice's Oztralyan Bounty of Books, and what I'd like to know is, of all these books that we get on reading lists and study lists etc, which ones do we actually like by these authors?

So I've made a very uncomprehensive list which will probably make people sigh, but maybe I'll make a better one when I'm not meant to be sanding and painting and dusting.

Here it is, in friendly quiz parameters, with their stoopid advertising and stuff, but I hope to get something interesting out of it, for no reason at all really. Feel free to share the link, the more the merrier.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T22:49:00.001+11:00

Welcome to my eighth year of blogging. I hope you're all enjoying the new year so far.

Our new year started with being woken by fleas in our bed.

Apparently fleas like a quiet house. I've had two tales told to me by members of each side of my family (old and new) of going away and coming back to a house so full of fleas that [tale 1] their feet were black with fleas as if wearing ankle socks and [tale 2] they had to sleep on a shelf of a wardrobe with the door closed to escape them. Apparently vibrations keep them (fleas, not both sides of my family) from wantonly breeding, but that sounds a bit suspect to me. Probably more to do with the lack of attention.

Anyhoo, we woke up resolved to do something about it. Going to Woollies at opening time on New Year's Day is now my favorite time to shop... so quiet! And all the people who are there are clutching their heads slightly. Almost as good as Best Beloved's mother who apparently went shopping while the whole world was watching the moon landing. Again, I'm a bit skeptical of that tale. Who was serving her?

We pulled the bed apart and cleared all the floors of the carpeted end of the house, kicked the cats outside, and set off some flea bombs. This, of course, meant that we had to go out for a few hours into the killing heat, so we went to the movies.

We saw The King's Speech. It was in Dendy's largest cinema, and there were no spare seats. The audience was vocally appreciative, laughing and cheering and at the end clapping. I think it's not only that the movie is excellent, with wonderful acting and a spiffing script; it does more to generate a sense of pride in being Australian than any Australian film could. I can't speak for any other audience member, but I related to Lionel's egalitarian spirit, his larrikin (sp?) streak, and his cheekiness. Colin Firth was his usual loveliness, especially when he swore. Sigh.

We came home feeling karmically unbalanced, having unleashed noxious gases upon hundreds of little bodies. But a solid vacuum and a bedding change later (plus a good cold shower), we feel much, much better.

Good enough to keep packing & cleaning tomorrow.

Photos are off, luv. I did lose my camera. Yes, I know that my iPhone has one, but it hasn't got a flash or macro. I'm officially in Object Mourning.

Achy breaky tummy

2010-12-27T14:06:00.004+11:00

I seem to have (sob) lost my camera, so I can't share any pictures of the last couple of days. The company and the food has been amazing.

We had a collective effort for Christmas Day: fresh oysters from Tathra, prawns and ocean trout from the Sydney fish markets, ham from the Bega valley and turkey from... somewhere. Lots of salads, too, you'll be pleased to know. We ate and drank so much that dinner was missed, but not missed.

Yesterday the food splendiferousness was all due to my sister-outlaw, Dr Naomi and her new fellow who bears a passing resemblance to Shaun Micallef, something that might make Crazybrave Zoe jealous if she didn't have her own fellow who bears more than a passing resemblance to Keanu Reeves. My fellow bears a passing resemblance to Captain Haddock from Tintin, but I'm very happy with that.

The short part of that digression is that quasi-Shaun is a very nice fellow, and after a very delicious lunch of crayfish, barramundi, Vietnamese salads and sticky rice with mango and then after an extremely drunken game of Scrabble, he proved to be a perfect match for Dr Naomi, and has our blessings, not that she needed them.

Today we are having yet another eatathon, on behalf of another branch of the family. I think my stomach is going to fall out of my body through my bottom, it's getting so overloaded. My head is only just recovering from this morning's hangover (we drank a lot of champagne with our Scrabble). I don't think I'll do that again today, although I've already played three games of Chess and two of Scrabble.

It's been raining like the billy-o, which makes me very glad I'm not at the Woodford Folk Festival sloshing in the mud like my intrepid niece and nephew. No, the worst bit about this holiday is the incessant cricket watching by Colonel Duck, but it's bearable because [a] they're leaving tomorrow, so we'll have a few cricket-less days and [b] the worse it is for Australia, the cheerier Best Beloved becomes. He's humming around the house as I type, happy in the knowledge that the newspaper is bemoaning HUMILIATION OF A CENTURY. Honestly, I would have pegged that as something from the Vietnam War, or even Gallipoli, not a frigging cricket game.

Anyhoo, hope your stomachs are recovering. See you again soon.

Happy Holidays for tomorrow

2010-12-24T10:52:00.003+11:00

('Darwin Santa' from the Cool Cards blog)

I'm sitting in a gently genteel ramshackle house in the Blue Mountains, around the corner from BB's parents (did I ever tell you that he's the son of a preacher man? *And* a preacher woman? Both ministers!). It's grey and cool outside with a faint drizzle, and it's the closest and best thing I'll get to a white Christmas.

Other years we've spent today driving north, getting hotter and sweatier and preparing ourselves for a week of hot/humid/dusty/muddy randomness from the Woodford Folk Festival.

This year we're getting the Family Christmas out of the way; if we do it right, we won't have to do it again for another few years. Today Colonel and Lady Duck are wending their way here via the delights of Canberra's Brand Depot for a touch of last-minute shoppery, something I'm delighted not to do. They are sharing the house with us for a few days before returning to Lucky the Wonderdog. Lady Duck will adore this weather as much as I do. We both hate heat.

The best thing about this arrangement is that this house has not a skerrick of Christmas crap around it, whereas with a short walk we can be enveloped in the real deal: tree, decorations, presents, food, attitude, good cheer. And then we can return to the sanity of this secular space. Best of both worlds. Huzzar!

We exchanged contracts on our new house yesterday. It is a very traditional double-brick 1965 Canberra house with a triple garage for my studio and more storage space than you've ever seen for all of BB's jars and preserving and whatnot. Lots of wall space for books and art, and the only changes we'll need to make is to the curtains and colour scheme... eventually, when we've done everything else. I can live with peach tones and floral curtains for a while as I recover from the freefall of getting the old house ready for sale and resuming teaching etc.

So here we are, in an oasis of calm for a week, booked long enough ago to not be able to change our plans, and thus are forced to stop sanding and painting and cleaning and packing until New Year's day, when it all starts over again.

So raise your glasses and let's have a toast to a full and busy year: to Christmas 2010, here in a flash, what a year that was. Thanks to all of you for your support and friendliness, and I hope tomorrow is not too stressful for anyone. It's only a day. May it be a good one. Happy holiday!

Cheers.

Semi-wordless wednesday

2010-12-22T16:42:00.001+11:00

terribubbly sad but happy too

2010-12-17T07:54:00.005+11:00

To be honest, I didn't know that Ruth Park was still alive until yesterday when she died. She's three years older than the Aged Poet (who is 90), so she had a lovely long life (although I hope she enjoyed her Extreme Old Age more than the AP is).

We are huge fans of The Muddle-headed Wombat. I packed the books away yesterday so I can't give you an example of the wonderful writing. Best Beloved was reading them aloud to me when I was sick recently and he does all the voices so well. In our minds Padge is Wombat and Puss is Pooter. Secretly in my mind, I am Mouse, Bumblebee is Wombat and BB is Puss.

Her novels and autobiographical work are wonderful as well, of course, but if she'd only ever written TMHW, it would have been legacy enough. Thank you, RP, and RIP.

The most excellent news is that after some high-tension negotiation argy bargy, we got to a price we could pay on the house we like. We haven't exchanged contracts yet, so cross fingers for me that all goes well until then. The best bit of the agreement is that we will get access to the new house's garage between Exchange and Settlement to store all our boxes etc so that the old house can be clear and uncluttered for the Open House time! *big sigh of relief*

I was out last night, and I'd left a tense and gloomy household, because of the argy-bargy. They were supposed to be cooking dinner, but nothing much had happened by the time I left. Then I got a text saying BRING PIZZA AND CHAMPAGNE. Shazam! I happily did so, knowing that the world had just turned on its axis.

So I'm suspending my studio activities for a month (unless something really urgent comes up) and devoting my energy to packing, painting, patching, and what ever else comes up. Apart from Christmas, of course. It's going to be extra relaxing, because we know how much work is ahead of us. W00T!

Doorbitchery

2010-12-16T12:27:00.003+11:00

I'm sorry, peoples, I'm turning on comment moderation for a short while in order to discourage commenters whose names are product names. More work for me, but I'm getting tired of reading computer-generated text that makes no sense, especially when some of it is a straight cut & paste from my own writing. Bugger off, trolls. Nice people, stick around.

Also -- if, like me, you're feeling a bit sad about the poor drowned peoples and some of the press that's coming out of the incident, arm yourself with this essential reading. Won't make the situation better, but you might feel slightly empowered with teh knowledge.

Not Wordless Wednesday

2010-12-15T07:22:00.005+11:00

Although here's a little snap that could be wordless:

Oh, it's all excitement here.

Not wanting to jinx the process (I'm a practical person with odd little superstitions), we've put an offer in for the house we fell for, and have had a fairly positive response, with a few little points to negotiate (like the actual price), so it's full steam ahead for gussying up the Private Jetty for sale.

I've been trying to meet all my normal commitments whilst furiously painting bookshelves and packing books and knick-knacks to unclutter the space. I packed four boxes of little bits & pieces and afterwards couldn't even tell the difference, which was a bit depressing. Boxes are arriving en masse today so I can start packing up the piles of books that came from the main bookshelf in the loungeroom (that I've been meaning to paint for seven years, since it was built) and then we can move freely in the space again. One of the terms we're negotiating is to be able to use the garage space of the new house (which will eventually be Studio Duck) between Exchange and Settlement to store our boxes while we sell this house. Thankfully that shouldn't be a problem, according to the agent.

On the weekend I was sugar-soaping a few spots in readiness for paint and decided to use the rest of the bucket on the window-frames. Every spot I touched seemed to flake off, and I had a spot of the wobblies. Poor BB came in from the garden where he was doing a sterling job of de-ivying and de-cluttering and I had my first meltdown of the process, which was quickly defused by the swift administration of a chocolate brownie. Phew.

Ceiling Cat, bless sugar soap.

I'm so glad I'm not a painter as an artist. I really don't connect with the medium.

Of course, there has been help. Colonel Duck is here doing a marvellous job on the garden with his magic whippersnipper and DIY skillz

(that's the nicest view of his bum that I could get out of three photos)

I'm very grateful, and have been plying him with tea and fruit cake and risotto and wine, etc.

And of course, the cats are helping.

Mr Padge walked all over the (removable) shelves I was painting out the front and got white paddy paws, and Mr Pooter sniffed the shelves and ended up with a white Hitleresque moustache. All washed off now, but fricking hilarious.

Here's something to make *you* laugh. It made me laugh like a drain, and was a great way to bring ancient Egyptian history alive for Bumblebee:

(For anyone without access to pictures, like Thirdcat, it's a clip about Oprah Winfrey giving thousands of her most devoted fans the chance to be buried with her in a vast tomb called the Oprahmidion (built by said fans), along with all her favorite products to be used in the afterlife. Comedy gold.)

Signing up for Wordless Wednesday

2010-12-08T11:39:00.001+11:00

House hunting

2010-12-07T08:25:00.004+11:00

More adventures in real estate. This is a whole new world, and one that makes the head spin.

Last weekend we saw some amazing places, and by amazing I mean the full spectrum of 'oh wow' to 'WTF?!!?'

Best WTF was a place down the road that was completely unrenovated and still furnished. Best Beloved stood for ages in the loungeroom, gazing open-mouthed at a reproduction of a painting of a man teaching his son to shave, witnessed by a beagle. Later he said to me incredulously, 'It wasn't just the subject matter that was awful; it's the fact that [a] someone decided to paint it in oils and [b] someone else thought it was good enough to reproduce it!'

Bumblebee ran down the hall, past the pink & green bathroom with lime green shag carpet, and called for me to come & look at the cupboard in the spare room. When I got there, he opened the door onto a whole other wing of the house with a 'rumpus room', cocktail bar and home office full of lion kitsch (the owner was a member of the Lions Club of Australia, judging by the number of certificates on the wall telling us so). So I quickly stood behind the bar and B called BB down and said the same thing, opening the door on to me doing my best 1970s housewife pose, asking, 'Hello dear, had a hard day? Would you like a cocktail?'

Given that we're not interested in any renovations, I don't think that was our dream house. It may be someone else's, especially if they don't want to renovate, but live in a retro heaven. You'd have to get rid of the smoker's fug, though, which lingers in the drapes and walls and shagpile.

The best house we saw I'm going to hug close to my chest, because we've shifted from what an agent called 'passive clients' to what they probably call 'emotional suckers' and I don't want to jinx anything. Suffice to say that in the past two days we've interviewed a few agents with a view to putting our house on the market after Christmas, and we now have a long and daunting list of things to do to our place over the next four weeks. These agents, they don't waste a second. They seem to work all hours, and their enthusiasm is amazing. We have a shortlist of two really lovely women to work with, and it's a tough call, because they've both got really good qualities in their own very different ways.

But the speed at which this is happening is doing my head in. If we don't get this house, we're ok, I'm sure something will turn up, but the whole family is in love with it, and no matter what else we find, this will always linger in our hearts as a ghost house. I'll tell you more as things firm up, or fall through... and I'm starting to declutter. I don't have the energy for huge tasks at the moment, but Best Beloved is a very goal-orientated person, and now that he has a concrete reason for doing things, he's powering along. I'm just going to move around the house putting things into boxes and doing little jobs like touching up paint scratches and repairing door handles etc. I think I'm going to tell the family that any help in lieu of Christmas presents would be much appreciated.

In the meantime, I've written a post at Book Art Object about the Claire Beynon piece I've finished.

Oztralyan Bounty of Books

2010-12-04T12:56:00.006+11:00

The marvellous Bernice Balconey has rightly pointed out that while the last list was Very Worthy, it's also Very British (well, it was a BBC list). My objection to it, upon contemplation, was the weirdness of it -- I mean, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, with Hamlet singled out? The Chronicles of Narnia and then The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe singled out? Bizarre.

Anyhoo, Bernice has gone to the trouble of making another list for a meme. It's called

Bernice's Bounty of Books: The Ozstralyan Way

Same rules: bold for read, italic for started/not finished/bits read. I won't do so well this time, but I'm still going to try...

Fortunes of Richard Mahony - Henry Handel Richardson
The Reading Group - Amanda Lohrey
Coonardoo - Katherine Susannah Pritchard
Dog Rock - David Foster
The Transit of Venus - Shirley Hazard
Voss - PW
Children's Bach - Helen Garner
Reports from a Wild Country - Deborah Bird Rose
Jack and Jill - Helen Hodgman
Legendary Tales of the Australian Aborigines - David Unaipon
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - M Barnard Eldershaw
Carpentaria - Alexis Wright
The Little Company - Eleanor Dark
For the Term of His Natural Life - Marcus Clarke
Tourmaline - Randolph Stow
My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
Peel Me a Lotus - Charmaine Clift
The Acolyte - Thea Astley
Cicada Gambit - Martin Johnston
Fat Man in History - Peter Carey
Seven Poor Men of Sydney - Christina Stead
The Magic Pudding - Norman Lindsay
Cloudstreet - Tim Winton
Tirra Lirra by the River - Jessica Anderson
Exiles at Home - Drusilla Modjeska
Harp in the South - Ruth Park
Letty Fox: Her Luck - Christina Stead
Mr Scobie's Riddle - Elizabeth Jolley
Eucalyptus - Murray Bail
The Pea Pickers - Eve Langley
From Little Things, Big Things Grow - Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly
Merry Go Round in the Sea - Randolph Stow
The Female Eunuch - Germaine Greer
Come in Spinner - Dymphna Cusack and Florance James
The Blue Plateau - Mark Tredinnick
Lillian's Story - Kate Grenville
Me, Antman and Fleabag - Gayle Kennedy
Johnno - David Malouf
Because a White Man'll Never Do It - Kevin Gilbert
The Commandant - Jessica Anderson
Just Relations - Rodney Hall
A Difficult Young Man - Martin Boyd
The Albatross Muff - Barbara Hanrahan
Power Without Glory - Frank Hardy
Pioneers on Parade - Dymphna Cusack & Miles Franklin
City of Women - David Ireland
Mother, I'm Rooted - Kate Jennings
Five Bells - Kenneth Slessor
My Brother Jack - George Johnston
The Year of Living Dangerously - Christopher Koch
Careful, He Might Hear You - Sumner Locke Elliot
Fringe of Leaves - PW
Death of A River Guide - Richard Flanagan
The Spare Room - Helen Garner
The Glade within the Grove - David Foster
Mr Darwin's Shooter - Roger McDonald
Bush Studies - Barbara Baynton
The Electric Beach - James McQueen
Beware of the Dog - Peter Corris
I Can Jump Puddles - Alan Marshall
A Million Wild Acres - Eric Rolls
The Plains - Gerald Murnane
Diary of a Wombat - Jackie French
Nice Try - Shane Maloney
Two Weeks with the Queen - Morris Gleitzman
Paper Nautilus - Nicholas Jose
The Lost Dog - Michelle de Kretser (heh)
A Mother's Disgrace - Robert Dessaix
The Seal Woman - Beverley Farmer
Collected Poems - Gwen Harwood
Maestro - Peter Goldsworthy
A Long time Dying - Olga Masters
Benang - Kim Scott
The Lyre in the Pawnshop - Fay Zwicky
I for Isobel - Amy Witting
The Persimmon Tree and other stories - Marjorie Barnard
Moscow Trefoil - David Campbell and Rosemary Dobson
Caught in the Draft - Veronica Brady
Weevils in the Flour - Wendy Lowenstein
Vertigo - Amanda Lohrey
Sugar Heaven - Jean Devanney
Sorry - Gail Jones
The Twyborn Affair - PW
The Cry for the Dead - Judith Wright
Schindler's Ark- Thomas Keneally
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living - Carrie Tiffany
What a Piece of Work - Dorothy Porter
Bobbin Up - Dorothy Hewett
The Drowner - Robert Drewe
Blue Skies - Helen Hodgman
Ride on Stranger - Kylie Tennant
Radiance - Louis Nowra
Aunts Up the Cross - Robyn Dalton
The Slap - Christos Tsiolkas
My Place - Nadia Wheatley
White Man Got No Dreaming - WEH Stanner
The Drover's Wife - Henry Lawson
Tasmania by Road and Track - E T Emmett
The Aunt's Story - PW
Come Back Peter - Joan Woodberry

Hmm, not too bad... quite a few gaps I'd like to fill! I would just like to say in my defence that there are a lot of writers in this list that I have read other books by.

There's a few I'd change or add. Like

The Sound of One Hand Clapping by Richard Flanagan (although he's there, with a book I haven't read)
Gilgamesh by Joan London
and (this may be howled down) Monkey Grip by Helen Garner?

Although we could debate all day whether this is supposed to be a list of things every Australia SHOULD read, or a top 100 of what Australians HAVE read (which is what I think the BBC list is). Which would make quite a different list, methinks, stuffed with Bryce and Tim and Colleen.

How did you go?

A lot more than 100 books

2010-12-03T13:22:00.009+11:00

*

It's been AGES since I've done a meme; I know I've done this one before, but I think the list has been updated. While I'm sitting here trying to decide if I feel well enough to hang around outside in the rainy damp in order to present my residency tonight or if I should sit in the relatively germy closeness of a cinema with my boys, or whether I should just go back to bed (I'm REALLY bored with that option), I might as well reminisce about the nice books I've read and see which gaps I need to plug this close to Christmas.

I got this version from Godard's Letterboxes:

And so it comes around again….

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.

Instructions:

Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.

Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2. Lord of the Rings – JR Tolkien

3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte

8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott

12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy

13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier

16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien

17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19. The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch – George Eliot

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens (but I have it on my iPhone, waiting for a chance)

24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams

26. Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh

27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis

34. Emma – Jane Austen

35. Persuasion – Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis

37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell

42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown (Oh, I'm so ashamed)

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving

45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery

47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding

50. Atonement – Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel

52. Dune – Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon

60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold

65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas

66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding

69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens

72. Dracula – Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses – James Joyce

76. The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath

77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal – Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray

80. Possession – AS Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day – Kazu Ishiguro

85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White

88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Am tackling these on ebook right now)

90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks

94. Watership Down – Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas

98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Phew, that's a lot more than 6! There are 15 that I've never tackled, which gives me a score of 85. Mind you, with all the sets, there's a lot more than 100 books on that list. Lucky I had my Thomas Hardy binge this year! How did you go?

Nice gaps, though. Gives me something to look for at the library for our Christmas sojourn to the Blue Mountains... we're renting a house around the corner from the in-laws, so that we can do the Big Family Christmas but still have some space. Board games and books ho! Last time we had Xmas at the BMs, it snowed! Mmm, that would be nice, although my Dr Sista Outlaw (happy birthday for yesterday!) might not agree.

* This image is a sculpture idea I have. It's called 'Book Club'. One day I'll make it.

Patronus

2010-12-02T10:58:00.003+11:00

Here I am, venturing forth from my sickbed (well, sick house) to attend the ANU School of Art Patron's Day to pick out two interesting graduates for my Broadside Residency.

I'm standing in the main Gallery of the school, caught like a bug on a pin by Megsie from Glass Central Cenberra but the entire school is, for ten short days, a vast cornucopia of emerging art.

It's not a fabulous snap of me, but I thought I'd pop it here so that you can have a glimpse of the lovely little brooch that BB and B bought for my birthday. It's a tiny silver box with the sea inside it, beautifully modelled in perspective so that when you look in, you seem to be looking over the waves forever.

The brooch is by Jane Dodd, and we found it in a fab studio called Lure in Dunedin.

Straight after this I went home and had a nana nap. Looking at talent is exhausting.

Today I woke up to a fresh onslaught of head ache and sinus crappiness. I'm seeing the doctor this afternoon.

Two weeks out of the studio! What a waste of good free time. Bah.

House

2010-11-28T20:11:00.007+11:00

I'm amazed at this lurgy I have. It just keeps shapeshifting. I suspect I picked it up at the local hospital. At the moment I've got weird neck discomfort, a sore throat and the headaches persist. So, I've been flopping on the couch with lots of juice and cherries and cool jelly, and watching DVDs and playing here on the laptop. I'm trying not to be impatient; it's only been a week, and I have to let myself heal properly, otherwise it will only get worse.

I watched Melinda and Melinda by Woody Allen. The attraction to this particular WA movie is that Woody Allen isn't actually in it and Radha Mitchell is. Strangely, though, when I didn't look at the screen and just listened to the dialogue, everyone sounded like Woody Allen. Is it mandatory, when you work with a WA script, to mimic him? Or is it inescapable? As I listened, I had this vision of everyone being WA, a-la Being John Malkovic. {shiver}

OK. Here's some really exciting news. When we were planning what we were going to do in NZ, we'd decided not to go to the North Island because we had vague plans to be there next year for a wedding. Anyhoo, while we were travelling around the South Island, I asked (sideways, while driving, as you do with males) if we were still going to the wedding.

'Hmmm, I'm not sure,' said BB. 'I think I'd rather buy a new house.'

I nearly ran off the road.

Some context: I've spent the first 30 years of my life living nowhere longer than 4 years. I loved moving house; it gives me a chance to de-clutter and reinvent. When Bumblebee was born, Colonel Duck decided to put some of his hard-earned babyboomer bucks into an investment property and rent it to me.

And thus I started living at The Private Jetty. And I'm still here, 13 years later. When Best Beloved came on the scene, we bought the house from Colonel Duck. I've been trying to either move or knock the house down for a long time now, but BB is a very sensible fellow and insisted that we pay off lots of this one before we accrued any more debt. Good man.

You see, it's not really the 13 years that I dislike, it's the house itself. Actually, we've made the house quite nice, with a fab kitchen and various enhancements (detracted severely by our shoddy housecleaning and abysmal gardening skillz), but the floor plan is just mingy.

We have the classic Inner North Canberra Ex-Government House. It's like a small shoebox, divided into 3 undersized bedrooms, a teeny tiny bathroom and separate toilet, and what used to be a loungeroom, then combined kitchen/dining area. Nothing special. It's the same house-plan I lived in with my sweet ex-husband, many years ago, so I've not just lived in it once, but twice. And so that's longer than 13 years.

I'm not being ungrateful, I'm constantly aware that I'm freaking lucky to
[a] have a roof over my head, and
[b] be a homeowner (thanks, Colonel Duck)

but the spoilt white middle-class educated brat in me thinks about all the interesting, even grungy houses out there with personality and sags. I love a bit of personality. I'm not afraid of drafts and mould. I don't even want high-end renovations. I abhore spas and pools and black granite. I just dislike how mean-spirited these ex-govt shoeboxes are.

And I'm itching to declutter and reinvent.

So. You can imagine my joy when BB said this. I've been trying to persuade him that while we dislike the house, we love the position (walking distance to school and shops, walking distance to cool people we love), so why not knock down and rebuild?

BB's position is that we are not practical people. When we had the kitchen reno done six years ago for our wedding, the workers left us a couple of finishing-off jobs to do. They're still waiting to be done. Gah. True.

So. He wants to move, but into the same suburb. Who am I to complain? YAY!

On Saturday we scoured the papers for the first time, and I managed to drag myself up and out to see a couple of places (and then went back to bed).

The first place was delightful, belongs to an acquaintance, and we fell in love with it instantly. We're wise enough to know that we can't be mobilised in time, but it's motivated us to get an assessment of our own place ASAP. It's got so many things on our wishlist:

-- renovated, but not in a posh way, just smart, up-to-date and liveable
-- bigger than our house but not so much so that we'd be swimming in the place
-- a low-maintenance garden
-- a backyard studio which is about the minimum I'd need, and could be made bigger.

Sigh. I don't think we'd be able to land this one, and I envy the people who do.

The second one was hilarious. At the moment it's stuffed to the gills with overseas students, and it was quite obvious when we went through that the number of mattresses had been culled to two per bedroom with the rest of the living spaces gutted of furniture for the selling period. We liked the underpants draped over the curtain rail in one of the bedrooms. The entire backyard was cemented over, and there was a garage between the house and an external 3-room granny flat that would have made an amazing studio if we could have coped with the yard and the house. Also, an external kitchen wot for making jams & preserves! Too much renovation needed, though, way outside our capabilities, and I fear that the house will just go to someone else who will use it as a student farm.

The best thing about the house was that when I walked into the 'sunroom', there was a framed Monet print. I showed it to BB, and said 'Happy Anniversary'. We both laughed.

So here begins our house-hunting adventures.

Recovery mode

2010-11-26T11:21:00.005+11:00

Best Beloved is spending two weeks acting in a higher position than his normal reasonably highish one. This means that he has an EA, or for those of you who, like me, have a dislike of acronyms, he has an Executive Assistant who answers his phones, which is quite disconcerting.

It is our wedding anniversary tomorrow, and I got this email a few minutes ago:

From: Linda
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 11:14 AM
To: BB
Subject: You received a Phone Call, contact Your wife.

Hello BB

Your wife called. Can you please call when you get a monet.

Thanks

Linda

Is that what you're getting me for our wedding anniversary?
BB

Ah ha
ha ha ha ha hahhhahaaaaaaaaaaa

I don't think so. I'm getting him something better than old French art. I'm getting him brand spanking new Canberra art! But don't tell him that, I can't give it to him until Teffany's exhibition closes next week or the week after.

I did forgive him for the Harry Potter thing. Of course I did. The fact that I was on the brink of sickness that felled me like a hammer blow didn't help my mood that day.

I feel so much better today -- I went through last night like I was in a sauna, thrashing and drenched in sweat, and woke looking like I'd been swimming. But my head is clearer, like someone cleaned my internal windows. I'm as weak as a kitten, and still have to lie down a lot, but I think I'm through the worst of it. Byrd dropped around this morning and said that I'm 'carrot-coloured' but if that's the worst thing he can say I'm pretty happy. He's an honest, observant lad.

I was planning to go to Sydney tomorrow for the day on a mission to link up some artists and printers that I like but I've had to cancel; I just can't physically manage it. I think I can manage holding hands in a movie though. That would be a nice thing to do to celebrate six years (which means that I've also been blogging for just over six years. Yikes!).

Pulpy

2010-11-24T17:42:00.003+11:00

I'm not ignoring you. I'm really sick, and can only spend about ten minutes in from of a screen before my eyes explode. I have a viral infection, and have been bedbound since sunday night apart from a brief attempt on Tuesday to do something quiet in my studio, an experience which resulted in a huge temperature spike and a hot/cold experience last night that I hope doesn't repeat itself today.

While I'm aching and sweating and bored out of my brain (there's only so much radio you can listen to), go over and have fun with the wonderful Pulp Fiction exhibition at the University of Otago Library, curated by my marvelous Donald-the-Special-Collections-Librarian and finally digitised.

Then come back here & amuse me by telling me which is your favorite cover or title and why.