... and another thing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.