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.

wot i dun lately

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...

Housie

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.

A perpetuall Light

I was going to call this post Remember to breathe, as usual (well, as long overdue), but then Goebte sent me a link in a comment on the last post that led me to a much better 'To Do' list than mine could ever be.

This is the kind of light I missed in Dunedin.



I'm sure their sky can be beautiful too (I didn't get to see much clear or unrainy sky), and it certainly was a lovely sky over the harbour when we cruised about looking for albatross, but Canberra has such a WIDE and dramatic sky. Judith Wright wrote a poem about Canberra clouds once, and I found it and have since lost it, but I'm going to find it again and do something with it.

One more, then I'm off to the studio to print BIG.



This one isn't the sky, but it made me laugh when I noticed it -- I was looking down instead of up, and saw the Cheshire Cat's grin below me.

All of these photos --and my other ones -- were taken last night from the penthouse apartment of a friend. We sat in the apartment (she moved in 2 days ago), looking at the view with a glass of champagne and wondered at the shifts of fate that brought her/us there.

'Isn't this expensive?' I asked her.
'Yes,' she said, 'but it's cheaper than a mortgage, and I promised myself that when I got old I wouldn't regret a single thing in my life, and I want to have a good fun life.'

Huzzar! That's the spirit.

Yeah yeah, catching up

Yeah, yeah, I know that I haven't blogged for a week or more, my dad keeps nagging me every time he sees me, which is a lot this week, because he's in town.

Partly it's because of my addiction to Farmville and the nice things I can do on it:

Maynard and Rory held their breath:
were the stories of Grandpa's secret collection of 1950s p0rn really true?

Partly it's because I don't seem to have time to scratch myself, and in the spaces in between, I just want to plant and pat and harvest (see? Farmville again).

But here I am, feeling a bit worn out and off-colour at work, not wanting to operate heavy machinery, so in between small helpful tasks, I'm going to get you up to date.

Where was I? Goodness, I left you at the point when I was joyously riding my bike at night. That was a while ago.


TALKING

I gave a public lecture at the Art Skool's regular weekly lunchtime lecture series, Art Forum. If you're ever scratching around for something to do in Canberra at 12 on a Wed or 1 on a Thurs, there's usually a visiting artist or staff member talking about their practice. I missed one a few weeks ago by someone who went through Sculpture when I was a student who has become the technical assistant to Bridget Riley (Op Art queen)! O wot fun.

My talk was about the work I do with other people, and explaining that shorter projects with driven people or making smaller pieces for theme-based group shows always get precedent over my own larger projects because they are easier to juggle with home, work, Farmville, etc. Well, I didn't mention FV, but many of the people listening are Facebook friends and must be inundated with the stoopid notifications that get generated and published (that can be hidden, quite easily, if they are too annoying).

Of course, I talked too fast. I always do unless I can remember to slow down. I always feel like talking slowly makes me sound like I have a speech impediment, but if I hear a recording, I sound quite normal. When I hear a recording of what I think is normal speech, I sound like the tape has been sped up. Sigh.


SICK

Bumblebee was sick that day, and I made him sit up the back of the lecture theatre and listen. He's been ill for about a week now, with a really horrid head cold. I had to teach on Saturday and Sunday and Monday, so lovely Best Beloved did the nursing honours. It made sense on Monday especially, because he gets paid regardless if he stays home to mind sick child, and I don't, being the absolute bottom of the food chain and paid by timesheets.

I have been fighting off his cold, but I think it's tightening its grip. Olive leaf extract and masses of VitC is helping, but I may have to spend some of this weekend actually resting. Such an alien concept!


TEACHING & LEARNING

I taught a course at Megalo on Saturday and Sunday on Asian Stab Bindings and Coptic Binding. It was a lovely group of women who got on very well together, and that makes all the difference. If the class dynamic is good, everything is smooth and jolly, and if not, it's a slog.

The funniest part for me was that one person (whose name I shall not mention but she works with me here at Art Skool and you know who you are :) ) forgot her glasses EACH DAY, and discovered that another woman's glasses worked with her eyes, so all weekend they were passing the glasses back and forth as if they were the Graeae passing around their eyeball. If I ever get the sustained time to write a short story, I'll have characters doing the same...

I was very honourable, as always, when the participants filled out their feedback forms, assuring them that I wouldn't peek so that they could be totally honest in their feedback. I always keep my word about that, and juts popped the envelope under the office door as I was going home. On Tuesday, when I went to collect my gear, the Director of Megalo was really pleased, and sat me down to read the feedback, which was all really, really positive. Yay! Again, mostly to do with the luck of the class dynamics, it's always great when everyone helps each other and enjoy themselves.

I'm teaching a one-day course on concertina books at the Tuggeranong Art Centre on June 5th, if anyone fancies it. Should be lots of fun.

I'm also doing (as a student) a one-day course at Megalo on woodblock printing on June 12th, which should be ACE. I'm keen on collecting skills that don't need large and expensive equipment, and have always wanted to learn Japanese image transfer and inking techniques.


VISITORS

I don't know if you've ever noticed, but my dad isn't the only family member who actively prompts me about my blogging. I have an auntie from WA, Auntie Lou, who reads and works up the courage to leave comments quite often.

Well, this week I am having a visit from The Aunties: Auntie Lou (my dad's youngest sister) and Auntie Jan (the oldest sister). They are doing a Grand Tour fuelled by the immense number of frequent flyer points accrued by my miner uncle, Bill: enough to go around the world four times, apparently, but instead are getting L and J here business class and hiring a car and staying at some pretty swanky venues. They're also having a visit to Mary MacKillop's grave or some such thing, to celebrate her saintliness.

Auntie Lou is not well, with many dramatic health problems that keep her mostly housebound. Uncle Bill refuses to travel with her because the risk of things going wrong is fairly high (last time she visited us, when Bumblebee was a little tucker, she ended up in a Canberra hospital, ferried by an ambulance in the middle of the night, which was a bit scary!), but Auntie Jan has been persuaded to accompany her, and is a perfect companion: efficient, supportive and completely calm. And able to laugh in the face of anything, a family trait.

Last night I went out to dinner with the Aunties, Colonel & Lady Duck, and their friends, my godparents. The visitors are staying at Uni House, so we took over the posh restaurant there, Boffins. As their ad says, Boffins 'exudes quiet sophistication', an atmosphere that we shot to pieces with our raucous family banter, swapping stories about grandchildren and nostalgic recollections of their children (including me). I learned a fab new word for a woman's bagina (as Zoe calls it): a 'minnie', used by one of the WA grandkids, recounted to our tearful howls of laughter.


UH OH

Poor old Bumblebee saw more minnies than he'd planned to the other day. I'd set up his laptop with basic parental controls, and meant to do some more stringent things when I had a moment, and he and I had agreed that besides typing his homework, he could only check his gmail and play on Facebook. Anyhoo, he's been playing this game on FB called Wild Ones, and loves it. He hadn't bookmarked it, and one afternoon decided to find it by googling it. Well. You can guess what happened, can't you? I was sitting nearby and saw him looking at his screen with a weird look on his face: shock, confusion, and concentration. He saw me looking at him, and lowered his laptop screen slightly. I said jokingly, 'what's up, you looking at pr0n?' He lowered his screen even more and looked even more uncomfortable.

Oh noes! I thought. And got him to close the laptop.

Colonel and Lady Duck were visiting at the time, and we all sat around and talked over the issue. It was an interesting afternoon, and I think we handled it well, with sympathy and humour and not making him feel too shameful about having accidentally found the site.

Later on, once I'd spent a long overdue while setting his Google search settings and set up stronger parental controls (snaps to Bernice for the help), I had a look at what he'd been looking at. I could understand his confusion... thanks to our modern predilection for shaving, it was very hard to work out exactly what you were seeing, and it was like a very odd game of twister.

When I told him the next day that I'd set the computer up so that it would be very hard to recreate the experience, his response was genuine relief. But his cred has gone up a bit with his friends... and it has allowed some very frank discussions about what women *actually* look like and what an industry like that entails.

Took a while for my heart to settle down... breathe, breathe. Shows how easily this stuff can happen. I'm very glad that I insist he uses the laptop in a shared space, not locked away in his bedroom.


TALKING AGAIN

So tonight there's an opening at ANCA of a show of the work of two lovely friends, Genevieve Swifte and Nicci Haynes, called Shifting Signs. They have collaborated on the works, showing two separate bodies of prints & drawings and a few shared pieces. And there's even drawings on the walls themselves. The opening is at 6pm, and I'm the opening speaker... So I have to remember to speak. slowly.

Also, I'm featured (along with two other artists) in this week's issue of the Canberra Chronicle, or Chronic, as Crit calls it. I haven't seen the piece yet, as I've only just won my battle to stop having the community paper delivered. It wasn't the paper itself, it was the bugger who delivered it, and the weird ways it was deposited on our land. I started with an official sticker saying 'No junk mail. No Chronicle', which was ignored. Then I moved to handwritten notes, stuck onto the postbox, and then nailed onto the front verge in the last place the paper had been dumped. I was collecting a stack of them in their horrid plastic baggy things, ready to spell 'NO CHRONICLE' on the front verge in newspapers, just in case they were being thrown out of a plane, but then I noticed that they had stopped, and now I'm happy. But now I'm in the paper. So I'm asking people to save me a copy. Crit's doing it, so I know I'll get one.

The article itself is about an exhibition down at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre (Tuggeranong means 'Land of the long grey tracksuit') called The Story is the Thing, featuring artist's books featuring storytelling. I have a piece in it, but I'm featured in the article mostly to promote the associated workshop on concertina books that I mentioned earlier.

Phew. I think that's about all. I'll leave it at that for now.

Amusements

Happiness is riding my bicycle home late on an autumn night through the streets of suburban North Canberra, underneath canopies of still-leaved deciduous trees that muffle the street lights and allow brief glimpses of starry night, no traffic to endanger me as I ride looking up, listening on my ipod to Grizzly Bear and breathing long curly breaths of pale dragon smoke. It's cold enough for the hat, scarf and gloves to be comforting, but doesn't leave the tip of the nose frozen. I've had enough wine to be enchanted and dreamy, but not so much that I stray from the left hand side. The shame is that home isn't very far away, so it's only a ten minute ride, and I'm trying to ignore the reality that dragon smoke sometimes fogs up my glasses, but looking up helps a lot, and knowing my way home so well, it's a bit like walking around the house with my head in a book.




I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but when I remember, I collect amusing baby names from the Births column of the Canberra Times. Having named my own baby something suitably amusing but interesting, I'm always on the look out for other examples, or quite the opposite: disturbing trends. Today, reading yesterday's paper (after BB left me to sleep in -- until 9.15am!!! Bliss!!) I felt quite disturbed.

A few years ago (I don't date my finds) there was a Saxon and a Jaxon in the same day's newspaper. Yesterday also had a Saxon and a Jaxon! [hums theme to the Twilight Zone to herself.]

Also: two different families calling their baby girl Mackenzie, with a little brother called Liam!! Is there some famous partnering of Liam and Mackenzie that I don't know about? Seems very odd.

I was working on my monoprint editioning yesterday, trying to draw hands on my inked up plate fifteen times in a row. I like drawing hands when I do life drawing; they are the weirdest things when you look closely at them. But reproducing them from pulling back ink (a bit like burnishing back from a mezzotint plate) and thinking in reverse while doing so is a bit past my dubious drawing talents. The hands always looked good on the plate, but when printed went all lumpy and odd. Sigh. I'm going to go back in today and agonise over yesterday's efforts. Still, they're meant to be old hands, so maybe I'll be kind on myself and let them pass the spiky gates of Doubt.


This is the plate, rolled up with ink and then 'drawn' on by using a rag and some cotton buds.


And here are my various wonky hands. Not brilliant (especially my first attempt at the top left), but actually not so bad now that I look at them rather than recall them, and they are meant to be old, gnarly hands... My consolation is that the book readers only get to see one print at a time, not a batch like this.

One more printing session, and I'll be through the images, which are always the least amusing part of book making for me (one of the many reasons why I collaborate with others). Then I can print the text and bind it, and that's another tick off the List!

Remember to breathe

...and read this post. That will make you remember to laugh.

Remember to breathe

Really.

We bought Bumblebee a laptop for his birthday, and it arrived today. He did his homework super fast on my computer while I set his up, and now he's set up a Facebook account.

It's the start of a whole new era.


Breathe

Breathe


Breathe




But I didn't shoot no comic sans

Laugh.

Remember to breathe

I can't believe I've stopped doing these...* it's been AGES, hasn't it?

I know this sounds cheesy, but it was very cloudy and grey when my plane took off from Canberra last week, and then of course we broke through the clouds and ended up on top of them flying in a gorgeous clear blue sky... and I thought:

yes, that's something to bear in mind. There are layers of cloudiness.







*and I hate to admit it, but I was reminded of them by a photo in Who Magazine of Lindsay Lohan with her latest tattoo that says 'breathe'.

A glorious weekend

Q: What do you get when you cross a Train with a Harley?
A: Transports of delight, also known as a blissfully married couple.

Here's proof:



We (Best Beloved, Bumblebee and I, sadly leaving the cats at home) travelled down to the Victorian alpine region of Bright and surrounds this weekend, to attend the delightful nuptuals of Lexicon Harlot and Tim Will-Type-For-Food, two of my favoritest bloggers.

This is not the first blog wedding I have attended, but it is the first where both parties are bloggers, and actually got to know each other through blogging, despite persistent rumours that they went to the same university at the same time and did all the same courses. University unischmersity, this was a clear instance of like minds meeting each other in a thoroughly contemporary way, and the world can only benefit from it.

The last bloggy wedding was quite surreal in all its fun and beauty, due to the swiftness of my travelling, but this time we drove, and took our time, and enjoyed the journey as much as the destination.

We left on Friday night after BB finished work (Just in case you're wondering, Mr Rudd, he works long hours for you but tries not to let his work interfere with his family life... yah boo sucks to you.) and we headed down the Barton Highway, merging with the Hume Highway, to a MYSTERY DESTINATION. I had asked BB to book something cheap and cheerful to break up the long drive, and he was being coy about telling me where we were going, which made the drive interesting.

We ended up here, at a farm stay accommodation smack bang on the freeway between the Snowy Mountains Highway turnoff and the Sturt Highway turnoff. It's far back enough from the road to be blissfully quiet, and there were fun things to do like patting enormous mud-wallowing pigs and tiny fluffy doe-eyed alpaca. It was monstrously hot, but there was air-con, and nice Ikea furniture including a king-size bed, so we were as happy as the pigs outside in their mud. Good call, BB!


Cabin. All our water was recycled to use on the garden, which was good to know


Piggie-wigs.

Next day, yesterday, the wedding day, we kept driving, and discovered how many fab antique and junk shops there are in Holbrook. The antique shop on the Melbourne side of the sunken submarine is one of the best I've ever been to, with reasonable prices and a really interesting emphasis on textiles, thanks to the owner's hankering to have been a textile designer but having apparently missed all the opportunities to do so. She had a few unopened vintage boxes of 'swan-bill hooks', which are apparently the hooks used for corsets, something that fascinated me but I didn't buy a box. Now I wish I had because they'd make great book fasteners. She also had beautiful needle cases and Victorian crochet and other sewing tools. I managed to find a bookbinding hammer head without a handle (I'm hoping Bernice reads this and thinks "I can make you a handle! me! me!" :))

Then we followed our very careful directions through the Yackandarah and Myrtleford and so forth until we arrived at Porepunkah, where the Ovens and Buckland Rivers intersect, and where we'd booked an unpowered tent site (months ago!), which was the ONLY scrap of accommodation for miles, since there was a huge Aust. Day bicycle event happening in the region. This had seemed like a bit of a bummer, but it turned out to be wonderful because we were given a site right next to the Buckland River, so that once we had the tent up, we could get our togs on and go down the embankment to sit in the river and still see our tent.

I sat almost in the centre of the river, on a comfortable stony riverbed, with the water running over and around my legs but not covering them. I was in the shade of trees, and next to me was a lilo run that had been made by generations of regular campers. Upstream was a larger, marginally deeper part of the river, then there was a loose rocky dam that had a central opening that then had long snaking rock 'walls' forming the lilo run. As I sat and enjoyed the sound and feel of the water, kids and adults were scooting down the run on lilos and other inflatable shapes. (If you don't know what a lilo is, it's an inflatable single mattress, with bed and pillow section included.)

As some of you from hot dry areas will appreciate, the sound and feel of running water is quite possibly the most luxurious thing in the world. I could happily spend a week sitting in that river, just listening to it. It looked like others were doing just that, setting themselves up in pockets of shade with camping chairs, their bums and feet dangling in the water, drinking beers from a floating esky and reading their books while the kids played. Now that is my idea of holiday heaven, and I now know what I want to do next summer. I felt richer than any millionaire, just enjoying the coolness and the silky burbling water.

It was very hard to leave the water, and if it wasn't for the prospect of a life-affirming event starting soon down the road, I would have stayed there all night. But we managed to dry ourselves off and put on our glad-rags, and we got to the wedding on time, cheered by the sight of myriad purple and green origami creatures festooning the front of the house.

The wedding was hosted by Alexis's parents in their amazing house up in the hills of Bright, with a view that provided a setting better than any chapel. I love a wedding that is simple and creative, and this was not a disappointment. I can't understand why people need to spend a quarter of a million dollars on an event that will stress them out if it's not perfect, when they can keep it simple and meaningful and enhance the love rather than stretch it.

Here are the simple and creative things that made this wedding amazing:

-- There were bagpipes, and a wonder-beagle who ensured that all were entertained (and that cleaning up afterwards didn't involve any food scraps).



-- there was real, meaningful poetry, actually written by the bride and groom! Serving suggestion only, should only be attempted if you feel confident with your word skillz. In this case they were poems that brought tears of joy to the eye, not tears of pain, and each poem reflected the aesthetic of the writer, so A's poem was seriously beautiful, and T's poem was comically touching.

There was also fun poetry, in the form of The Owl and The Pussy-Cat, which made the pigs from the night before mean more to us as a family, and also made us all hold hands as we listened, because Bumblebee read that aloud at our wedding.

-- there was handfasting as well as ring-exchanging, just in case no-one had taken the situation seriously enough. It was impressive.



-- As you can see above, there were no meringue-shaped expensive dresses nor hired suits. The bride rocked a green sari and magenta top hat, and the groom looked (fittingly) like he was taking a break from his vaudeville act and was due back on stage at any minute. Everyone else followed orders to dress "casually smart, for the weather".

-- There was a *killer* view, provided by Mother Nature, of forests and sky and house tops and clouds. It was a dreamy view, often hindering conversation during the evening.

-- There was a vegetarian feast of nibblies followed by a dessert fest. The cake was green, topped with two ceramic kissing beagles. Perfect!



-- Guests were given lolly-bags upon their leaving: hand-sewn, with Scrabble-piece brooches pinned to them. We got to choose our letters. I seem to have a collection of Scrabble jewellery now: I have a 'G' pendant set in resin within a silver spoon, and at Woodford I bought a 'C' wooden letter pendant. Now I am the proud owner of a 'Q' brooch, since the points might bring me luck next time I play Tim (or Byrd, both of whom flog me regularly).

Added extras at this splendiferous event:

-- catching up with Ms Lucy Tartan and her offsider Arty Fufkin, whose wedding was my first blog wedding experience.


Not a particularly flattering portrait of LT, but the best I could manage with my iphone and a glass of wine or three. Bumblebee is standing behind her.

LT looked amazing in her 1950s dance attire, complete with black & white saddle shoes and her new black glasses. It turns out that we have very similar eyesight, but my optometrist (when I was 7) insisted upon my needing glasses, and all her optometrists insisting until recently that she didn't have to unless she wanted them. And so she has only recently realised that trees have leaves, and clouds have texture rather than just mass.

-- Going down to the cellar and meeting Harriet and Beatrice, whose adventures I have avidly followed since their adoption by A. They are larger than kittens (but small compared to my two black beasts) and very fluffy. And gorgeous. Beatrice seemed much more relaxed than Harriet, who seemed eager to join the party/ torment Wilbur.

I am very grateful to have been asked to such a wonderful and special event. I cannot stress more fiercely how marvellous it is that two such singular people should find each other and recognise each other's qualities. I expect extreme happiness to radiate from their respective blogs, and mayhap they may even create a new merged blog in the spirit of their collaborative poetry performances. I wish them every happiness in their brave new world.

I went to sleep in the tent at Punkepore listening to the sound of the river. My only regret of the weekend is that I didn't take a photo of it, but I suspect the aural memory will stay with my all the stronger for the lack of visual stimulus.

Today we cruised back to the Hume Freeway via Beechworth, telling Bumblebee all about Ned Kelly and the gold rush, two things his woeful primary school didn't teach him anything about. We revisited a bookshop in Holbrook, and a junkshop in Yass, where I picked up some old pianola rolls for $3 each.

When we got home I called in upon Zoe, who was entertaining a posse of pals including Nabakov, Iconophilia and Pammy Faye. I only stayed a while, just to check that all was right with the world, and then came home to type this all up before I forget about it.

So all is right with the world, and life goes on, a little bit happier than it was before.




(Finally, I came home to find this link, which I hope will make everyone, except the vegetarian newly weds, even happier. Unless the thought of meat being used for something besides eating makes them happy. Snaps to Poppyletterpress for the pleasure, who ironically needs clients who spend a lot on their weddings!)

Running away

I ran away again. Always to the same place, Depot Beach, far away in time. And again, we left Best Beloved behind to his work and his study (he's starting a Masters in something governmental) and the cats.

Usually when we go to Depot, we camp at the wonderful National Parks camping ground, or we hire a cabin from the same place or from the posher private cabins complex next door. This time, however, we were offered a stay in a house that looks like this:



Architect-designed, it was like something from a magazine. My friend Wazza has access to it, it's a family-owned thing, and it's heaven on a stick, so to speak.



This is the view from the main section of the house. You can open up the big glass doors to make the living room and balcony one big space, and in winter you can roll the roof back to let more sunshine in.



This is the view from the guest bedroom. I could have the window open all night to let the sea breeze and the sound of the waves in. It was divine.

Bumblebee has stopped being resistant to the idea of us hoping to sell our house and get a bigger one one day (over the rainbow). I don't think he realises that we can't have one like this, but he now knows what it is like to have SPACE around you.

The weather was cool, the sea was glorious (not that I actually swam, I didn't feel like it this trip) and the walks were lovely. Wazza and I made good food, drank lots of G&Ts, and wrangled the kids. Plus did lots of reading, or at least, I did. I was reading the first of the Millennium trilogy, given to me by my mother-in-law, and I'm not much of a crime fiction reader, so I was struggling with it a bit.

On the first night at the coast, I woke up in the night and decided, since I didn't have the sleep princess with me, that I'd read myself back to sleep. Suddenly I hit a really exciting bit of the book, and the next thing I knew, it was dawn and I had no idea how much or little sleep I'd had... So I'm a Larsson convert, and I'm well into the second book, which I'm not actually sure if I am enjoying after all. It's all getting a bit bitsy, and that always annoys me, but I'm sure he'll put it all together soon.

If you're reading this, Wazza (when you get back yourself), thanks so much for the chance to breathe before the year gets crazy!

In other new year news, I have joined the local gym, and since my startling assessment, when I was gauged to be fitter than I thought I was, I have been twice and am trying not to feel smug, since I know that the newby enthusiasm will wear off fairly soon.

Also! I have a shipment of brand spanking new type arriving today, and I'm very excited. And two books lined up to use it, so it's work ho! from hereon in.

Also also! the countdown is on for Bumblebee's new high school experience, starting 1 Feb. He seems calm enough, and excited that they'll have a camp in the first few weeks, but I haven't told him yet that before camp is... vaccinations. Yeek!

twilit breathing

It's quite odd being somewhere that has broadband access but no mobile phone coverage. Another laptop, another opportunity, more rain, this time there's thunder rolling around the valley as well, which is usually a sign to unplug & switch off, but not here where the computer is on my lap and the only noise beside the thunder is a horsefly buzzing around behind my head and the sound of my fingers tapping.

I'm in Kyogle with my beautiful siblings-in-law. Best Beloved has driven into Lismore to have some kwality time with his nephew watching Avatar in 3D (something you can't do at the Kyogle cinema), and I'm coming out of the fug that my brain became after reading all four Twilight books bumper to bumper in three days.

I've been wanting to read them for ages, to experience them firsthand but not keen to purchase them. This time last year we bought them for the niece, so now I was determined to get my money's worth. The first two books went down the gullet like McDonalds burgers: no chewing necessary; by the last two I'm guessing she'd had some professional plotting help, and it improved them enough to make me chortle occasionally. I can't say I actively disliked them. They reminded me of lying in bed furtively reading Flowers in the Attic when I was 13 or so, without the stomach-churning naughtiness. I can see why women are enjoying it as much as girls, but not having seen the movies I can't understand why they're obsessing so much about the poor actor who plays Edward so much that they're actively screwing up his life. He's going to split at the seams soon, poor dear.

Wow, there's a thick curtain of rain outside, and I feel guilty at being annoyed with it. I've had one full day of sunshine since leaving home, and my poor parents are sitting at the dessicated Prickle Farm watching the grass curl up and die. I wish I could shoo some rain south for them, and for Ronnie, and anyone else who needs it. Right here we need some sunshine, or we won't have enough solar power to run the home theatre tonight :) Luckily there's a back-up generator. In the meantime, we're sitting in the gloaming, using whatever natural light we can find.

Today is our last day here, and then we're wending our way home. I keep thinking of the things I want to do when I get back, and then all the things I HAVE to do, and then I remember that it's also school holidays, the last before high school (!) so I should make the most of my time with Bumblebee before he starts morphing into teenagehood, and then I just stop thinking, because it's so quiet here and green and damp and calming. Breathing is about the only thing worth doing in steamy heat apart from reading. And at least there's plenty of water, so baths are in the picture too.

I can't remember if I told you about Byrd's latest show? It's an online show, so anyone can attend. I was just thinking about the hand-painted stickers he'd given us when we caught him in Coff's Harbour on the way up; I put some around the Woodford site, and also in the carpark of the MOMA in Brisbane when we went to see the Asia-Pacific Triennial a few days ago. It was fun, being furtive. The Triennial was fun, in parts. Sometimes I felt a bit frustrated by the way people respond best to art when there's a bit of novelty or 'magic' to it. I really enjoyed Tracy Moffatt's video, I always like her sense of humour. We ran into a number of Canberra people, which was surprising... and yet not, since they were all artists.

We had a music night here a couple of nights ago, enhanced by the presence of an old friend from Canberra who had moved to Sydney and was visiting her old friend in Lismore, who was a musician himself and greatly enhanced the family musical moments. We played music all over the spectrum, from Van Morrison to Van Halen, Abba to Green Day. It was hot & sweaty and completely amateurish, but excellent fun. I sang a song I used to belt out with my old band but my voice was so rusty I can't bring myself to listen again to the recording we made of the night. The tantric-sex version of Gloria sung was so funny I'm still hugging the memory close, and I suspect I always will, with all of the musicians on their knees and the lead singer doing a deadpan monologue about touching palms & letting the sensuality of the universe flow through each other etc etc before launching into the full-blown screaming of G-L-O-R-I-I--I-I--I-I again.

This is such a lovely mudbrick type of house, with lots of wooden beams and chunks of tree-trunks as poles inside the rooms, bright colours and inspirational pictures everywhere and outside there is a lovely fishpond full of purple-blue lotus flowers and a waterfall that houses a wild carpet-snake. The atmosphere is relaxed and loving, and it's the perfect place to wind down before launching into another busy year. On the cards this year: a couple of exhibitions, some workshops (including a typography summer school in February that I really need to advertise more -- watch this space or go to my website for details soon) and a conference or two, some writing gigs and a residency in New Zealand in August/September followed by a stint as artist-in-residence for the Majura Women's Group...

Stop. Breathe. Breathe... listen to the waterfall. Find something else to do. Bye!

Getting to somewhere nice

When the art school is all cleaned up at the end of each year, students leave stuff behind. Sometimes it's confusingly useful stuff, sometimes absolutely useless. One year, a girl left behind a whole box of simple art materials: textas, ink pads, stamps, the sort of thing you'd leave behind when you're returning home by plane a very long distance.

I took home one of the stamps because I didn't understand why it had been bought in the first place. It's very twee, very odd, and very un-PC, using as it does a gollywog straight from the archives of Enid Blyton. I thought maybe I could use it somehow, some day.

Well, I decided to make it a kind of Xmas card for 2009:



Not too jolly, but (I hope) you know what I mean. The proper message is here: I hope everyone out there enjoys being home for Xmas, or at least gets the chance to go to a safe place that will look after them. And even if it's not Xmas for everyone, I hope the suppos-ed Xmas spirit pervades all the glum & sticky corners of our nation.*

We're off up north today, en route to the Woodford Folk Festival (all starting on Boxing Day), and I'm sure I'll keep in touch via iPhone and various loaned computers, although I won't be able to cruise the neighbourhood much...

So have a lovely whatever you want it to be. See you properly in the New Year!




*For any overseas readers: this is a very Australian message, and relates to our way of dealing with international visitors. Just google "Christmas Island" if you want to find out more...

Remember to breathe

Thought I'd just check in for a quick visit.

First off, let's all take a moment to breathe deeply.



It's been a while, hasn't it? I'm constantly taking photos of clouds. These were on the Monaro plains, on the way home from the Bega valley last weekend. I ducked down by myself to witness a thing of greatness:



Did anyone see that Stephen Fry show about the Gutenberg press and the fellow who made his own? Well, I went to the launch of an Australian version of the Common Press, down in Pambula. It's a true thing of beauty, made from vintage and new Australian hardwoods and local blacksmithery. I haven't got time to write more about it now, but I have a sworn duty to write properly about it, as I was the only other printer-type witness. I have voice recordings, video and umpteen photos. It was AWESOME. Here I am, pulling a print.

I came back to Canberra fired up, and inked up my press to get it fully functioning. And fell in love. I've been dicking around with it for days, working on a multi-layered poster for an upcoming group exhibition:



I'm in love. It's smaller than the Bookstud press, but far more accurate. I've barely stopped to eat and sleep, since BB has been in Carnarvon and B has been with his dad.

But there's always been time for kitty snuggles.



Right now, I'm dashing out to watch UP in 3D, making a token effort to give Bumblebee a fun holiday, and hoping that it doesn't make me puke. I'm teaching for the next four days straight, so you may not hear much from me again for a while. Keep breathing!

Pressings

Another invitation, this time to my very first solo show! I've been part of squillions of group shows but never really thought about doing a solo show until nice Alison from Megalo invited me to be part of this year's program. It's a bit scary, having a show all to one's ownsome, especially when nearly everything you've produced in the last few years has done the traps over and over and over...

So I decided to have a playful show, full of things I've never shown before and things I've very rarely shown, some made as souvenirs of printing experiences and others made from recycled stuff. If you want to read my 'formal' statement, click this post's title and it will whisk you through the interweb portal to my Big Girl website. Otherwise, stick around here and I'll do my best to amuse you.



That's not a non sequitur. I've just spent two days cutting a weeny ladder out of paper, 9mm wide and (so far) 1000mm long. It's not a piece I could have made at home with the cats. I started preparing for this show with one idea, and I'm coming out the other end with something quite different as my imagination kicks in and my paper drawers are delved -- something akin to Indiana Jones looking for treasure. There are old pieces, and brand new pieces, but even the brand new pieces don't use brand new materials. It's like op shopping, or second-hand book buying: I'm making things that reuse bits & pieces redolent with my memories but they're hopefully going to resonate with other people as well. Gawd, I hope so!

No photos yet, only the invite, which will hopefully entice some of you to come and have (another) glass of wine on me, or to skulk in the gallery when I'm not there. Set-up is two weeks tomorrow, and every time I walk into the space, I get slightly panicky about how much room there is, and I go back to my studio and remind myself not to be scared of space. Space is good. Space allows things to breathe...

...things like me. breathe. breathe. make. make. focus.

warming up

Studio cleaned -- check
Press de-rusted and serviced -- check
Bumblebee's corner sorted -- check
Grotty corridor/alcove thing outside studio cleaned of junk and plinths -- check
Grotty corridor/alcove thing swept and set up for food & drinks -- do tomorrow first thing
Alcohol bought -- check
Gorgeous woman cooking up a storm to feed my visitors -- check
Other gorgeous woman fanging down the highway to help out with food arrangements -- check
Son bribed prepped to help serve -- check
Husband getting takeaway tonight and buying more supplies tomorrow -- check
Picked out nice frock or something to wear -- later
Hot bath run to soothe shoulder I've pulled moving typecases -- soon
Parents have rung to apologise for not coming -- check
To assuage their guilt, parents have promised to ring special people I've forgotten to ring -- check
Bottle of wine opened, ready for Torchwood -- check
Remember to breathe

I don't feel ready, but I guess I am. I keep reminding myself that it's only 3 little hours, but it feels bigger than that. The best thing is that I thought my lovely little Vandercook wouldn't be finished in time, which was going to be fine, but as it happens I picked up my newly refurbished rollers today, and it's now fully functional. So tomorrow really is a press launch -- my Vandercook press, in mint condition and purring like a kitten when it is turned on. I'm very happy, and eager to get some printing done sometime next week.

Anyhoo, hope to see a few of you there. Sorry I've been such a stranger!

Remember to Breathe

It's O-week, and I wish I'd bought shares in instant noodle stocks. The poor young fellow next to me at Woollies today had a basket full of instant noodle pots, in a wide variety of flavours. I almost felt like giving him a dollar to buy an apple, if I didn't think he'd just use it for more noodle pots. I guess with that diet, the only kitchen stuff you need is a kettle and a fork...

I've been dusting off my art school hat, researching an application for a Churchill Fellowship, and trying to get my tax together, so nobody's seen very much of me this week. Art school isn't rich enough to have a whole O-week, they only have an O-day -- tomorrow -- and I'm going in to represent my studio complex and give a little powerpoint talk. Then I'm going back to the studio for the first time in DAYS to do some intensive cover-glueing.

Right now, though, I'm about to get changed into something loose and comfortable for my weekly Tai Chi class. I'm supposed to do some every day... I'm doing at least one or two exercises daily, but I've only managed the whole shebang a couple of times a week. Still, it's a start, and I refuse to beat myself up about it, as there are so many other things to take the punches for. Like the fact that I haven't clapped eyes on Zoe for at least three weeks, and we only live 200 frigging metres away from each other. And I haven't got the excuse of small children tugging at me for attention...

On the contrary, Bumblebee has started a whole new regime of independence, riding to and from school by himself! I have discovered that 3pm is TEH BEST time to do any banking or postal chores...

Ooh, BB has arrived home, damn, forgot to wrap myself in cling wrap to greet him at the door again. Dang. But I should at least go and greet him. Ciao!

Remember to breathe

It's been a bit hard to write anything in the face of all that's happening in Victoria.

I'm making myself a small sketchbook to use during a wood engraving workshop this weekend, and I pulled this red & black paper out of my drawer to use for the cover. It's so fluid yet fiery, isn't it? It made me think of the incredible images on the tv. I wish the tv cameras would back off a bit from the 'human tragedy' coverage, though. We've all been embarrassed by the invasive nature of many journalists.

Anyhoo, we send many thoughts and well wishes for those affected by the fires.


PS:


-- Post From My iPhone