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.
Friday, July 08, 2011
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Sturt Winter School, arriving
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Chosen
I took this photo as a quick souvenir of our bookshelf day, but OMG I captured the moment my son fell in love with this utterly daggy Ktel compilation and it hasn't been off the turntable since... THE CHOSEN FEW.
I must have been around his age when I bought it, and I loved the 'free' poster I got with it. It looks so tough and metal, but it's soft and sweet and very mainstream. Wanna see the playlist? Go here.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
snakes and ladders
Gosh, it's been a whirlwind of a fortnight. Sorry, I just looked up and realised that I hadn't even checked my email since Friday night. And working full-time just sucks your life away, doesn't it? Lots of time to do inane Facebook things in the background, no time to do anything meaningful. It just sucks. I remember now why I gave up my full-time office job, there's really no time to be fully-functioning in the world. Mind you, Best Beloved thrives in his job. He loves Serving the Public. Go figure.
Emotionally we've all been thrashing one way and another, with one niece on the brink of death last weekend (conveniently while we were in Sydney so that I could teach a (lovely, if I may say so myself) weekend workshop at Warringah Printmakers, hence we could go and sit by her Intensive Care bedside) and another niece giving birth yesterday to an enormously gorgeous baby, making us all Very Young Great Aunts and Uncles. The Very Young Grandparents are being extremely wise in seeing this as the opportunity to have a Very Long and Happy Relationship with their grandchild. Congratulations to them, and a big sigh of relief that the other niece (from a separate branch of the same family) is recovering. Apologies for all the parentheses, it's all pretty complicated.
This weekend was the big Books-on-Bookshelves moving. Lots of boxes to heave and empty. I worked out a system based on my experience with letterpress. Letterpress takes a long time to set up, with very quick printing. It's always an exercise in patience. So. I emptied all of my boxes (left BB to do his own, always safest) and sorted all the books into A to Z on the floor, and then once that was done, put them on the shelves, sorting further into A-Z within each letter as I shelved, and dissing the ones I just didn't connect with (or had multiples of, having bought them again unwittingly) as I went.
Here's a view of stage 1. This is all the novels, with the bookcase up the back filled with poetry. I had grand plans to enter all the books into LibraryThing as I went (those that aren't on already), having bought a lovely little cat-shaped scanner that works with it, but the scanner is in a box somewhere and I couldn't be bothered working manually and slowly to enter them. Sigh.
Of course, the cats helped.
So at the time of writing MOST of the books are on shelves. There are still lots of boxes of various stuffs that need to be sorted, and a garage sale to be had, and then I can do serious studio prep, like painting and floor coverings. The press move is booked for 22 July, and I'm just about to steel myself to write my official email to ANCA to let them know when I'll be out. Exciting but scary.
Hopefully now I'm going to have more time to write and read blogs. I also want to get some printing done and share it with you, as it's not been a terribly big making year so far. I'll leave you with the brooches that I made for ANCA's PIN WONDERWALL show. it finished today, and was a huge sell-out, red dots everywhere like the plague. There were fabulous pieces, by 70-odd artists.
This lot are called 'Phat Groovers', and they're made from vinyl record shards and rhinestones:
They're an edition of ten, and I think about six are sold. Don't try smashing records at home, kids! Vinyl doesn't smash, it has to be bent & it shatters. I'm still finding little unusable shards around my studio...
And this is a one-off, made from a vintage belt buckle and a piece of video tape (with a single rhinestone around the back). It's called 'Pretty Woman', because that's the movie I used. It sold too! Yay.
Emotionally we've all been thrashing one way and another, with one niece on the brink of death last weekend (conveniently while we were in Sydney so that I could teach a (lovely, if I may say so myself) weekend workshop at Warringah Printmakers, hence we could go and sit by her Intensive Care bedside) and another niece giving birth yesterday to an enormously gorgeous baby, making us all Very Young Great Aunts and Uncles. The Very Young Grandparents are being extremely wise in seeing this as the opportunity to have a Very Long and Happy Relationship with their grandchild. Congratulations to them, and a big sigh of relief that the other niece (from a separate branch of the same family) is recovering. Apologies for all the parentheses, it's all pretty complicated.
This weekend was the big Books-on-Bookshelves moving. Lots of boxes to heave and empty. I worked out a system based on my experience with letterpress. Letterpress takes a long time to set up, with very quick printing. It's always an exercise in patience. So. I emptied all of my boxes (left BB to do his own, always safest) and sorted all the books into A to Z on the floor, and then once that was done, put them on the shelves, sorting further into A-Z within each letter as I shelved, and dissing the ones I just didn't connect with (or had multiples of, having bought them again unwittingly) as I went.
Here's a view of stage 1. This is all the novels, with the bookcase up the back filled with poetry. I had grand plans to enter all the books into LibraryThing as I went (those that aren't on already), having bought a lovely little cat-shaped scanner that works with it, but the scanner is in a box somewhere and I couldn't be bothered working manually and slowly to enter them. Sigh.
Of course, the cats helped.
So at the time of writing MOST of the books are on shelves. There are still lots of boxes of various stuffs that need to be sorted, and a garage sale to be had, and then I can do serious studio prep, like painting and floor coverings. The press move is booked for 22 July, and I'm just about to steel myself to write my official email to ANCA to let them know when I'll be out. Exciting but scary.
Hopefully now I'm going to have more time to write and read blogs. I also want to get some printing done and share it with you, as it's not been a terribly big making year so far. I'll leave you with the brooches that I made for ANCA's PIN WONDERWALL show. it finished today, and was a huge sell-out, red dots everywhere like the plague. There were fabulous pieces, by 70-odd artists.
This lot are called 'Phat Groovers', and they're made from vinyl record shards and rhinestones:
They're an edition of ten, and I think about six are sold. Don't try smashing records at home, kids! Vinyl doesn't smash, it has to be bent & it shatters. I'm still finding little unusable shards around my studio...
And this is a one-off, made from a vintage belt buckle and a piece of video tape (with a single rhinestone around the back). It's called 'Pretty Woman', because that's the movie I used. It sold too! Yay.
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
More mutiny
I got the family up on Sunday and we ran away to the coast for the day. Not downwards, towards the parental Ducks, but across, ignoring the boganity of Batepersons Bay and then slightly up, first to South Durras and then to our favorite place in the known world, Depot Beach, where BB and I were married.
I just needed to walk on a wintery beach. Beaches, in my humble opinion, are best when you can walk along them with a crisp breeze around you. I also badly needed to scour all the sloughing skin from my post-scabies feet and I didn't feel like booking myself into a solvent-smelling nail joint to do it.
There was greasy salty fish-and-chip eating; there was walking,
with and without seaweed;
there was hole-digging
there was stone-skimming
and there was the time when I thoughtfully put down my book to take a photo of all of us
it was a really good book, too, so that was quite a sacrifice.
Did I say stone-skimming?
I've been sitting and reading in the same spot while Bumblebee stood at that same spot and threw stones lots of times now.
Sigh. Time flies.
By the end of the day we were tired and happy and my feet were silky smooth and craving moisturiser. We went home and cooked up a quick Indian storm followed by apple pie from the Braidwood bakery, and we were all in bed by 9:30pm.
I'm working full-time this week at the Art School, and working all weekend in Sydney teaching at the Warringah Printmakers (feel free to join that class if you're in the vicinity) and then full-time all next week, so Monday will be the only day off I have and that will be spent driving home from Sydney... so I made sure to make that day at the beach count.
For all those Canberrites who love to wear brooches, get thee hence to ANCA tomorrow night for the opening of PIN Wonderwall, with around 70 artists making pin work and most of it at very reasonable prices. The show continues for another ten days, but I can't guarantee that there will be much left to buy... tomorrow I reckon the red dots will be faster than chicken pox.
I just needed to walk on a wintery beach. Beaches, in my humble opinion, are best when you can walk along them with a crisp breeze around you. I also badly needed to scour all the sloughing skin from my post-scabies feet and I didn't feel like booking myself into a solvent-smelling nail joint to do it.
There was greasy salty fish-and-chip eating; there was walking,
with and without seaweed;
there was hole-digging
there was stone-skimming
and there was the time when I thoughtfully put down my book to take a photo of all of us
it was a really good book, too, so that was quite a sacrifice.
Did I say stone-skimming?
I've been sitting and reading in the same spot while Bumblebee stood at that same spot and threw stones lots of times now.
Sigh. Time flies.
By the end of the day we were tired and happy and my feet were silky smooth and craving moisturiser. We went home and cooked up a quick Indian storm followed by apple pie from the Braidwood bakery, and we were all in bed by 9:30pm.
I'm working full-time this week at the Art School, and working all weekend in Sydney teaching at the Warringah Printmakers (feel free to join that class if you're in the vicinity) and then full-time all next week, so Monday will be the only day off I have and that will be spent driving home from Sydney... so I made sure to make that day at the beach count.
For all those Canberrites who love to wear brooches, get thee hence to ANCA tomorrow night for the opening of PIN Wonderwall, with around 70 artists making pin work and most of it at very reasonable prices. The show continues for another ten days, but I can't guarantee that there will be much left to buy... tomorrow I reckon the red dots will be faster than chicken pox.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Mutiny
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!
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!
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