Hello, it's been a while hasn't it?

I'm still alive, thrashing my way through jungles of Henry Lawson, deserts of proposal-writing and bogs of tax.

Just thought I'd give you something to look at while I finish it all up.

Best. Link. Eva.
KTHXBAI

My goodness

Forgive me lovelies, it's been far too long since my last confession post. I do think about posting, but then I get back to whatever I was doing and vow to catch up later. The last few weeks have been so busy. And then yesterday the whole 'busy' excuse got ramped up to 'emergency panic' status as a number of projects that had been ticking along in the 'one day I'll get it to you' category all landed on my doorstep to be done ASAP. So here I am, writing to you while my Book class do their own projects, between helping them with their problems, because once I get home there will be NO time to blog.

In the meantime, I've had a few little adventures, like the day my iPhone fell out of my bag while cycling in a tipsy manner and I found it a few hours later by retracing my route, only to discover that it had fallen on the road and had been repeatedly run over by cars. It was lying in a little pool of glass, as sprayed as blood, and would quite obviously never work again. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO was my first reaction, and panic as I thought of how much information was on it, and how I hadn't backed up for (thankfully only) a day or so.

But then I went to my phone provider and did a new contract that involved slightly more money and a much newer iPhone, and now I'm all 'that old thing, tuh'. No grief, just wonder at how much technology has improved since the iPhone 3. Yay!

Bumblebee found a beautiful flower to hang around with, and they are now like Siamese twins, connected at the hip when in each other's presence, and by non-stop telephonery when not. He's discovering what it's like when someone REALLY digs you, rather than just merely likes you, and he's totally hooked.

I have been busy in my studio, printing and planning and making, plus teaching at Megalo. This weekend I'll be taking the final week of the class promoted in my last post, showing the children how to sew their books together and make covers.

I think I've finally shaken the cold that has been bugging me since Easter, although it's still lingering a little bit. I'm seeing the doctor this week, just to make sure everything is hunky-dory.

Gym and I broke up, which is probably why I keep getting snotty, but he just put too much pressure on me, and he had weird friends that stared at inappropriate bits of my body. Now I go for hour-long fast morning walks around the border of our suburb, which takes me up around the base of Mt Majura, complete with rabbits, kangaroos and lots of birds. If I miss my walk, I don't think 'damn, I'm wasting money', which is much nicer than when I skipped gym. The walk makes me very happy, and my brain gets all juicy and creative, so that when I get back I'm raring to get into the studio.

I've seen a few movies, one of which was 'Iron Sky', a film so silly it's genuinely hilarious, about Nazis living on the dark side of the moon and trying to re-invade the Earth. It was made on a very low budget, and has to be seen with absolutely no expectations of quality. The piss-take of Sarah Palin is worth the price of admission alone. Bumblebee just didn't get it; I think you have to be an adult to understand the humour. I think it will be a cult movie eventually, it'll grow on people.

What else has been happening? My mind is a blank. All I can see is the print I'm working on at the moment back at my house, awaiting me. It's for a little show coming up in the Photospace Gallery at the ANU Art School to mark the Transit of Venus happening on 6 June. I had a simple idea, but it's turned into a complex process that's taken a lot more time than it should... and will look like a simple print. *sigh*

OK, I'll leave it there, but I will return soon, I hope. If not, imagine me buried under a pile of marked-up pages as I lay out the definitive scholarly edition of Henry Lawson's 'While the Billy Boils', which is what landed on my desk yesterday...

Sorry business

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.

Sturt Winter School: the end

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.

Sky

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

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

Doing things

I'm writing this at work from the BookStud, because I just can't find any other time to write. Excuse me if I get a bit disjointed, because I'll run off and do things and then come back in the spaces between jobs.



This is how life feels right now. It's been all go at this end, as I'm on the home stretch to a solo exhibition (opening 3 Sept) and there's still LOTS to do. The venue's been paid for, the statement written, the invitations are ready to pick up, and there's enough leftover booze from the studio warming to lubricate the opening, so I can't stop working, it's all too real and impending.

The best bit is that I actually like working under pressure. It releases all sorts of things from my brain that I'd forgotten about. The problem is that life goes on, and my family is getting a bit weary of all these working crises and deadlines. There's only so many times you can say 'Let's just get through this and then I can relax/fix that/help you organise that...' before no-one believes you. Even I don't believe me.

And it would be nice if I could drop everything else and just make things, but there's classes to teach, weekend workshops to run (I'm doing CMAG on Sunday for Book Week on Aug 23, plus another Intro to Book Arts at Megalo the weekend before I install the exhibition), old layout projects to finish off, and favorite television shows to watch. The latter is being solved by recording, but I'd rather watch them live, and the Spicks & Specks half hour is absolutely sacred, so much so that it is the time when friends drop around to spend time with me.

Huzzar! I just managed to arrange some last-minute framing; I thought my show would be all objects, but I happened upon a cache of prints I'd run off a couple of years ago when I was mucking around with some hell-type, and if I may say so myself, they're very pleasing to the eye. So now I shall have some 'real' prints on the wall! Goodness, how arty farty of me.

The staff show opening was fun, and the range of work is terrific.



This is a shot of the speechy bits, with Annie Trevllian's wonderful floor rug on the right and Annie herself standing to the left of it. There are lots of good artistic personalities in the shot, and the man giving the speechy bits is School Head Gordon Bull.

There's a lot of good shows on at the moment: ANCA has an excellent tenant's show (I'm not in it because I seem to be in everything else. I'll be part of next year's show); and at M16 there's a marvellous show of mechanical art called REFLEX: A show of Mechanical Poetry that is magical and excellent for kids, both big and little.

It's that day of the year again for me today, but it's not having more than a passing thought this year because I don't have the time to indulge myself. The way I am indulging myself is by making sure I have a glass of wine every night, and peeking at delightful and therapeutic blog posts like this one, and this one, among many others.

OK, enough said. Tally ho, see you in the soup!

even more fleetingly

[wiggles finger]

hiya

I really will be back soon, right after I drop this bundle of stuff.

My brain is bursting with interesting things about books & printing, but my arms are full of forms, course outlines, new books and to-do lists.

Also, I forgot how HILLY Brisbane is, so I have very sore calves, front and back.

BRB

A week's worth of post

Wow, where did that week go?!!

It seems like every time I sit down with the intention of writing, an email arrives asking me to do something, or a real life distraction captures my attention. I think I'm only going to catch up by using the dreaded dot points...

-- Bumblebee was very excited about going to his grandparents last week. He kept himself busy for the ten minutes or so that we were in my (poor, under-utilised studio) with one of his favorite toys, the whiteboard:



-- And so went to Bega, where I discovered that Colonel Duck's new satellite internet connection is only marginally faster than his old dial-up, except that now their phone line is freed up when they're using the computer. So checking my emails took ages, and I just couldn't be bothered wrestling it to get a post through. So there went my resolution to write something deep and meaningful. Instead, I lost my self in Byatt, various trashy mags and op shops.

-- While in Bega, I persuaded the local museum (a.k.a. my mother) to formally lend me their wonderful trays of woodtype in return for an annual poster:





(If that last photo looks vaguely familiar, it's because when the trays were donated abandoned on their doorstep (as I've mentioned before), I was asked to help them sort it, and I took some photos that with a bit of Photoshoppery became my current blog header!)

The coloured bits are coloured because whomever used them last didn't clean the ink off their surface. Tuh. Still, very pretty, no? Anyway, I got them not a moment too soon, because they were dying in a dusty backroom, wrapped in plastic and going a tad damp and whiffy. Using the type is the best way to keep it alive, and I'm more than happy to use it for the benefit of the museum whenever they ask me to. Goodness, I'm so happy, my heart keeps leaping with joy at the thought of all that woody goodness, saved from a dusty death.

-- And then, still in Bega, I wandered into the Regional Gallery to say hello to Megsy in her bright new shiny job, and was pounced upon by Gallery (and Library) staff who had 'only just been talking about me the day before'! I was asked to give a public talk and a weekend workshop about artists' books and ways to incorporate them into an artistic practice, to coincide with this year's Meroogal Women's Art Prize. Wow, how cool is that! It'll be happening in early June, so if you're interested, I'll mention it again closer to time, or you can contact the Bega Regional Gallery for details (although they haven't been finalised just yet!).

-- STILL in Bega, it was Bumblebee's twelfth birthday on Thursday. I get a little lump in my throat just thinking about it, and impending doom as he hurtles towards his teenage years. He had a lovely birthday, wot with the archery set given to him by Colonel Duck (along with a target fashioned out of an old trampoline) and a long romantic silver velvet cloak given to him by myself and my lovely sister-in-law (from the Folk Festival, of course). He spent the next day or so dressing up and stalking around posing with the bow and long hours at the target, practicing his shooting (and getting better each time!).


Feeling dramatic and romantic...


...undermined a tad by the green crocs. The day before he'd been in all-black, with black boots and the cloak, and wishing he hadn't cut all his hair off. But I forgot to get out my camera that day :)


Note the target in the background. It was fantastic when he hit the centre, but if he hit the sides things got a bit weird.

He also made his own cake, with the help of Colonel Duck, since all the women had scarpered off to town to talk about important things like wood type.



They had a lot of fun with food colouring. The outside was yellow with myriad colours.



The inside, as you can see, was red and green. We invited some friends over with their delightful children to share the cake (and the latest gossip) and discovered that the cake was actually really yummy.

We had more friends over for dinner, making our own pizzas in the home-made pizza oven, washed down with copious amounts of wine, and ended up in fits of laughter while B shot his arrows down the driveway with sparklers attached to the ends of the arrows. Kept him busy, kept us happy, and only one arrow lost in the dark.

-- Back to Canberra, to find that if the house wasn't cleaned very soon, my marriage was going to implode. So Saturday was spent channelling Annie.* The thing I hate about cleaning -- REALLY cleaning, not just giving the place a once-over -- is the fact that when you look hard at something you try not to look at, it grows exponentially. I wanted to vaccuum, for the first time in ages. But I thought I'd better clean the kitchen benches properly, so that if things fell on the floor, I'd get them with the vaccuum. And then I needed to wipe the shelves above the benches, and then I noticed the windowsills, which led to me cleaning the windows. I moved across the benches and picked up the toaster, which meant I had to clean the toaster. Oh, ecetera frigging ecetera. Finally, late in the afternoon, I managed to vaccuum, and then demanded that we go to the movies so that I wouldn't notice any more dirt. There was plenty around, but I knew that if I broke the obsessiveness, I could go back to just walking through the house blissfully NOT seeing.

-- So we went to see Good. And lo, it was good. And put me back into a mind for thinking about things I really WANT to think about, like memory triggers, and the way music can take you places you've forgotten about, or even into books you want to read.

Have I mentioned how much I loved AS Byatt's The Children's Book? Oh, how I loved it, let me count the ways. It's the book I've been wanting to read for a few years now. Stuffed with facts and references to an era that intrigues me, it is nonetheless extremely readable, and very hard to put down. It is set in the thick of the Arts & Crafts movement of the late 19th century in Britain and Germany, and takes you through to the end of WWI, over two generations. She is such a clever puss, she keeps the subject firmly in that time, but evokes such pertinent parallels to Babyboomers and Gen X as she does so. I can't really say more than that, since the book isn't released until next month, but I highly recommend it when you get the chance. I came out of that book in a spell which housecleaning absolutely trashed, and felt that I needed a voice of reason to snap me back into the world. I settled upon a re-read of Helen Garner's The Feel of Steel, which has formed an excellent buffer between Byatt and my next book, Tracy Crisp's Black Dust Dancing -- managed to get a copy today! Hooray!

-- On Sunday we entertained the still glowing newlyweds from Sills Bend, fresh from hanging out with obsessive Regency dancing obsessives. We love entertaining in the morning, it's when your friends are looking their best, all freshly slept and hungry. Best Beloved does a marvellous brunch menu of Eggs Benedict (or Florentine if our guests are vegos) followed by fresh coffee and cranberry crumble muffins (whole cranberries and a sweet crumble topping). It's pretty delicious. Zowen** came too, bringing as an offering an amazing mushroom/tofu baked dish with a zingy relish. Food heaven. Then I gave Laura & Dorian a tour of my still sadly-neglected studio, and then we went and mocked a lot of portraits for a while, which was excellent fun. I haven't had so much fun in a gallery since Fluffy and I mocked a whole heap of steel engravings in Melbourne a few years ago. Dorian decided not to take his faux top hat home with him (he would have had to wear it on the plane) and donated it to Bumblebee's hat collection, which made my young'un very happy, and it was in fact used today for his holiday learn-to-be-a-clown workshop.

-- And finally, there's only weeks to go until the opening of my bookbinding exhibition at Craft ACT. All the books are pouring in; I gave a pretty early deadline because I knew there would be stragglers, but also because I wanted to see the work properly before I started writing the room brochure essay for the show, and now we'll be able to install slowly and carefully. So I've been getting lots of exciting parcels, like this one:



Bugger brown paper packages tied up with string; this one was wrapped in softly shining gold paper, and then a package tied up with soft leather thonging! very lush, and indicative of the gorgeous book within. I'll save that for a future post, when I can showcase some of the books together. How excitement!

When I first put the exhibition idea together, I fully planned to not only include the edition binding of Poems to Hold or Let Go, but also to create my own individual binding. But time and opportunity have rushed past, and I resigned myself to just being the 'provider' of the book, rather than a contributor in my own right. But the other day I unearthed a box of materials that I'd stashed, and came upon a stack of beautiful momigami paper that I'd made as a student. WIZZ! went my mind, and now I'm determined to make a special binding of my own. I think I've nutted it out; I'll document my progress and show you when it's done. And when I do, I'll tell you what momigami paper is. But for now, I'm posted out, and you've probably had enough too! Good night!





* Evoking the spirit of my late Grandmother, who was a dedicated and obsessive cleaner.

** The easiest way I know to say Zoe and Owen and their two sprogs.

the lost hours

I meant to post yesterday, all about how great Bumblebee looked for his end-of-year disco. The theme was famous characters, and he chose, of course, Dr Who, David Tennant style:


Without glasses, and with brand-new sonic screwdriver, bought by me.


With glasses; it's a wee bit fuzzy, but the one in which he looks the most authentic, I think.

I meant to post about Bernice's car trying desperately to break down as she gave us a lift to the school (BB having taken the car for another purpose), the same car we gave her last year with the express warning that it is a cute moneypit. Well, it is dead now, and we all mourn.

I meant to post about going to my doctor, and that fact that there I was, on me back, legs akimbo (even though my dictionary tells me it can only be done with the arms, but that's how it felt), him with a torch, and he says 'this is your 6-week check-up, is it not?' and I replied 'no, it's been about 4 and a half weeks' to which he replied 'really? You're healing very well, then!' Huzzar! I can swim in a couple of weeks. I knew that bikini was a good idea.

I meant to post that I didn't get the Melbourne residency I was hoping for next year. It was only a little one, but it would have been fun to do some work away from Canberra and catch up with the interesting people I know in Melbourne, which is SUCH a print-and-book city.

I meant to post that I have found a lovely bookkeeper who seems able to sort me out, even though I don't know if she knows what she's getting into...

I meant to do all these things, but then in the last-minute haste to get my papers together for the Nice Bookkeeper, I discovered that my mobile phone contract had expired, and I decided to drop into the Mall and see what I could see.

An hour later, I came out clutching an iPhone 3G, dizzy with excitement and fear. I got home, fell onto the computer to do some research (that I probably should have done before I bought the thing) and started playing. Next thing I knew, the boys had arrived home and it was dinner time. Holy data packages, Batgirl!

It's a thing of beauty, and means that I should be able to blog and email from anywhere, including the Woodford Folk Festival (no more waiting in line for 30 minutes at a crap PC!), and it solves the problem of whether I should or should not get a computer for my studio. No! It shall be a computer-work-free zone, but I can still order things and check things when there! Double hooray!

I would be grateful for any important tips & tricks about the phone that anyone has. I've run across a few really good ones (like the fact that unless you switch it off, it has a setting that tracks the location of each photo you take, and chomps up the download accordingly).

The next two days are, effectively, Christmas for us (sans any tinsel or trees). Colonel and Lady Duck are hitting town for presents and a nice lunch at a restaurant with us tomorrow, and then on Sunday we start the trek northwards to Brisbane and Woodford. I'll either be out of touch or blogging a lot, depending on how bored I get :)

Feeding frenzy

Tonight, out with the In-laws, we had the opposite dining experience to last night; M-i-L insisted upon eating a huge dessert even though she's a diabetic, so we went to the local Italian for coffee and luscious cakes.

Chatting away merrily, Bumblebee taking photos of us all with Grandma's camera, when a couple next to us suddenly erupted into globs of molten outrage, hissing at the young waitress in disgust about hearing from lawyers, and stalked off, leaving a table with two half-glasses of wine, and a garlic bread with two slices on plates with one bite out of each.

All of us nearby were mystified, having missed the initial inflammatory situation. Best Beloved made a joke out loud that their forks had been placed on the wrong side, and the group at the table next to us turned and said 'REALLY?!' which made us laugh.

We asked the waitress (after she'd composed herself) and it turned out to be as pathetic as if the forks HAD been on the wrong side: she'd forgotten to bring their bread until just before the hissy fit, and he'd said that if the bread was on the table at the same time as the meal he'd be walking out. I think she'd just come out to tell him that, sorry, their meals *were* imminent, and he'd erupted.

I should be addressing this question to the Devil Drink at Progressive Dinner Party. Is such a situation really so bad as to stalk off? I secretly suspect he'd discovered that he'd left his wallet at home or some such thing.

Catching up

I haven't spent all my time since the last post playing Scramble, no no nee no.

Busyt busy busty. Gawd, I don't think I'll correct that particular typo, because it's eerily true. My left boob has been large and hot (in the non-sexy sense) for at least a week. But you don't want to know things like that! You want book sexiness and cooking loveliness or some such thing. OK!


YUM



Let's start with Sunday breakfast. This incredibly dodgy photo (my hands are definitely going -- my typing is crap and my photography is shaky) is a gorgeous sorrel and potato omelette with rocket on the side. It's become Best Beloved's latest scrummy Sunday breakfast offering. He cooks potato chunks in the microwave, then sautes them with mushrooms, butter and fresh sorrel leaves and puts the mixture inside a thin omelette. Ohh, the lemony tang of the sorrel is delightful!

We've been buying our vegetables more often, rather than just once a week at the Growers' Market, because there's a new local shop that sells local produce for local people (hello, hello, there'll be no trouble here). It also stocks produce from further afield, but the proprietors always mark the food miles on the labels. Some is organic, some is not, all is fresh, and the prices are very reasonable.

It has a fancy name, and someone may be able to translate its obviously relevant, caring and beautiful meaning to me: Choku Bai Jo. Unfortunately the only way I can make myself remember it is by thinking 'Chokos by Joe', as if it were a weird rural fashion label.

They stock lots of lovely Asian vegetables and herbs like fresh sorrel, but we're so hooked on sorrel that we've planted at least three batches in our wild back yard, having been told that once it's there we'll never get rid of it. Well, anything that can survive extreme neglect apart from two avid weeks of gardening at the beginning of spring is alright by us.

If you're interested, Choku Bai Jo is at the NORTH Lyneham shops (not the Lyneham shops), and they are open during decent hours for workers: 3-8pm weekdays, 7am - 12noon on Saturdays.


READING

I don't know about you, but a new Helen Garner book (let alone a novel!) is on par with a new Harry Potter book for me. I finally managed to get to my COOP bookshop this afternoon and buy a copy, and I'm already 40 pages in. I hope you realise how much reading time I'm missing out on by writing this post! Most excitement.


BOOK CLINIC

The other fun thing that's been happening is the institution of a formal chance for me to allow people to release their inner book... the studio I maintain at the Art Skool is tucked in a quiet corner, and no-one except my once-weekly book design students and the printmaking students know it's there. At a recent staff meeting I heard that someone suggested the studio be used as the 'sick-room', since it's being under-utilised!! Someone who has obviously not been up there since the old regime of being out-of-bounds to undergrads (three years ago!).

So I decided to be pro-active and slightly cheeky, and announced a weekly drop-in Book Clinic for Honours and Postgraduate students from all workshops. For a few hours of two days a week, people can drop in and get ideas, tips & tricks, help, a cuppa, and help to keep the space relevant to the entire school.

Yesterday I had four people dropping in, and it was great fun. It's amazing how many people love the idea of making books, no matter what art they practice. Each person came in tentatively, with a vague idea of what they'd like to do, and left completely keen and enthusiastic. I'm keeping a log of visitors, so that I can throw the statistics around next time they're needed...


MAILOUT

I'm finally at a stage where I can promote my Nan McDonald book, and I've printed 300 letterpress brochures to put about a bit. I'm compiling a couple of lists for my press, one virtual, one snail mail. If you'd like to get emails from me about my publications etc, please email me on ampersandduck[at]gmail.com. My snail mail list is for serious buyers and supporters, and if you want to be one of those, email me with your mail address and I'll put you on the list.

Meanwhile, here's a bit of brochure:



I will make it into a PDF and send it to the Australian Artbooks email list. If you want to be part of Artbooks, go here. It's the best way to know about artistic booky activity around our country.


PUSSY CAT HEADS & TAILS

Mr Padge is healing nicely after blowing out my credit card. His head looks scarred but presentable, and his tail is, well, curly. It doesn't seem to bother him much, but he's always been a pretty laid-back cat. Mr Pooter is on my lap as I type, an when he sleeps his little top fangs creep out over his bottom lip like a buck-toothed vampire. Uber-cute.


Have to go. Just itching to go back into Helen's world, fall asleep to the tone of her voice. Love that woman's writing, no matter how crabby she gets.

watch this space

Sorry, I'm buried under a pile of tax things, grant acquittals and bookbinding gumph. I'm hoping to blog about Mackay tonight. In the meantime here's what survived of my photos (I take really bad photos -- I think they look great in the camera miniscreen, but when I see them on the computer they reveal themselves to be crap).

Looks like we got out of Mackay just in time. Poor buggers. I hope everyone is ok, especially the gallery :)

Post-script and Drawmo 5

It's slightly shameful how happy I can be when I discover a small stash of brand new Ls in amongst the M part of the typecase. Lower case Ls are what I run out of first in this particular font (Bodoni). I think their poor stalks and serifs are too easily worn and damaged. Finding a small stash (we're talking 4, 5 max) made me do a little dance on the spot. Such a geek, me.

Anyhoo, this is a quick post to promote a couple of great booky courses coming up! They need participants!

1. Sturt Summer School, Mittagong, NSW. First week of January. Lots of fun things to do, hear and see, and one of them is me. If they don't get another few participants, my course won't run, which would be a mixed blessing.

2. The Monash Rare Book Summer School, Melbourne, VIC. This looks like more fun than you can poke a stick at, but I'll be working with an artist that week, printing something fun hopefully. So you'll have to go instead.

OK, I didn't get around to drawing today. I did set four of the last five pages of type that I have to print for the first book. And assessed two students. And ate pizza. And worked on turning someone's PhD into a book. So this is the first of my drawings from the archive. And since I was entranced by the LOLcat Bible this morning, I found it funny that I opened one of my old sketchbooks at this page, from about 11 years ago:



OK, it's a cartoon, and an unfinished one at that (although I have reformatted it to run vertically). So sue me. I was hoping to publish a more polished version in Fruity Murmurs, a groovy art-school run comic of the time, but then it got a bit too close to the bone,* and I abandoned it.



*Friends of the time have probably worked out the context of this, and are allowed to vomit.

excuses, rationalisations, whatever

I didn't end up going to the blogmeet. Apparently no one else did either! God, Canberra rocks on. I don't know what anyone else's excuse was, but mine was/is sheer exhaustion. I didn't think I would be missed, since I'm not the centre of the Canberra blogging world. I went over to Zoe's for a while and had a whinge about how tired I am. She had a whinge back (it wasn't a competition! She wins hands-down. It was a bout of empathetic whinging) and by the time we were finished neither of us were going anywhere except bed. So apologies, anyone I let down. But if I was the type of person who enjoyed a rowdy pub outing I wouldn't be a blogger. Or at least, the type of blogger I am.

Today I dragged myself reluctantly out of bed to go to the markets. I pulled on some vaguely filthy mismatching clothes from the floordrobe and did my duty, buying a rhubarb and apple pie for brekkie amongst other delectables for the week. When I got home I read my mail over a cuppa, because I haven't had the chance to check it for a couple of days. Shock! Horror! It is AFI film judging time and I missed the grand opening! The first films screen today! I checked my watch, first one started in 20 minutes. A quick conferral with BB decided that he'd seen two of them, wasn't interested in the third really, and maybe I should just go alone and he'd mind the boy. Within 15 minutes I'd been dropped off at the War Memorial theatrette with my bike and bag, still wearing my floordrobe glory and sporting a very tufty ungroomed head of hair. I hope I didn't smell too bad. I sat away from people, just in case.

I worked out today why I like to watch romantic comedies and re-read favorite books when I'm tired and stressed. It was an epiphany, one that probably underpins our culture, and probably no mystery to anyone else, and I've probably had it before, but I have the memory of a goldfish, so indulge me for a mo.

I have a lovely smooth, shiny veneer. I'm friendly, I make jokes, I'm relatively calm and patient on a daily level. When I feel stressed or sad, I try not to crack up by papering over the little splits with well-loved comedy and words and lashings of chocolate. If I need a cry, I'll do it behind glass or in the dark (like in a car or in a movie).

But the mending paper I use has to be soft and well-worn. It has to be familiar to the touch. If it's bright and shiny and new, it doesn't stop the cracks from getting wider, and the splits open up to expose my cranky, raw and overly-emotional bits.

Last weekend I used something new to try and feel better and it broke me into bits. And since I haven't had any kind of rest since then, today's bright shiny movies have done the same thing. I'm a wreck! I just cried all the way home on the bike.

First I saw The Home Song Stories, which is a wonderfully poignant tale about growing up in 70s Australia with a self-destructive (and non-white) parent. Suicide features prominently, and the way the story is structured (in retrospect, from the POV of the child who remains) pulled me into bits.

Then came Razzle Dazzle, which I have seen, and which I thought might pull me back together, nice soft, worn paper. But then the session finished with Noise, which BB had seen and highly recommended. Oh! Have you seen it? That last scene, that ending!
Hence the crying all the way home.

This can't go on. I need to be able to talk to people without yawning or crying. So Monday is going to be a Mental Health Day. No computer, no work, no child. I plan to sleep all day, eat gooey food and watch something completely meaningless. And then hopefully I can rally and get on with my books. And website. and stuff.

I hope your weekend is restful and fun!

Use the Force, Lord Mayor...

Bumblebee would think this story is perfectly reasonable... I wonder if Peter Adamson used it to communicate with his staff?

I am still alive, just finishing a few things. I'll be posting a bit more soon, with any luck.

Out, out, damned Padge

Mary Gilmore is sitting on my desk, staring balefully at me for blogging rather than continuing with her scholarly edition layout, but I just know that if I don't write this post, it will fade away like all the other failed posts I've ever intended to write. I guess there are three pressing things to write about:

1. IS SUNDAY THE START OR THE END OF THE WEEK?

This morning the radio news mentioned 'the death of Steve Irwin last week'. In my understanding, the week starts on Monday. Best Beloved disagrees. But if we're following a predominantly judeo-christian (note lowercase there) calendar, isn't Sunday the day of rest at the end of a working week? I could wiki it, but I reckon one of you intelligent readers will be able to give me an explanation.

2. AFI SCREENINGS: down and dirty on the streets

It's the Australian Film Institute Awards judging season again, and as members, we're in the thick of viewing as many films as we can. This year the predominant theme seems to be streetwise and seedy, drawing upon our Australian right to look cool while we break the rules and thumb our noses at authority. It's ok occasionally, but a bit jaded by the third or fourth film in a row. Still, I'm trying very hard to watch each film freshly, to give it a chance. I haven't got time to go into depth, so I'll give you the speedy version of what I've seen so far:

Em 4 Jay: Heroin. Bonny & Clyde. Good pace, some good laughs, old theme. Nothing very cutting-edge or shocking (unless you are offended by nudity and injection scenes) but entertaining in parts. Good lead actors.

Kenny: Very 'The Castle', endearing with fabulous Aussie vernacular. Take your (older) kids for some good poo humour.

Macbeth: Reviewed well on Sarsaparilla. If the intention was to make the play accessible to a modern audience, it worked for me (first time I've watched any form of M without wanting to drift off somewhere internally), although I could have done without the Michael Hutchence treatment of the lead character (half expected him to wrap a belt around his neck at the end). Lady Macbeth fabulous.

The Book of Revelation: A few things grated on me in this but generally powerful, with beautiful visuals and some compellingly twisted sexual issues. Tom Long (always a favorite of mine) looked amazing.

Lots more to see! Lots of babysitter points being racked up.

3. HOW CAN I WORK IN THESE CONDITIONS???!!!

What is it with cats and desks? The following is an example of my home office working conditions (and as I construct it, Mary Gilmore's manuscript pile is being warmed nicely by Pooter's fluffy arse).


Every time I leave the room, this is what I see when I return. Padge.


Pooter sits on my lap, then uses my arm as an armrest. I don't think he realises what bad OH&S practice this is.


When he gets bored, he shifts around and lies on my mouse hand.


As he lies there, he sees things that should be chased, like this naughty nimble pencil.


Finally, when my hands are numb, he moves to warmer climes -- lampbathing under my ancient and manky desklamp.


Then Padge, having recovered from being ignobly cast from HIS chair, joins Pooter for a gentle lamp-bathe, looking for all the world like two Victorian dowagers in mourning.


Padge, being for some reason extra dusty today...


...gets a gentle clean from his brother. Meanwhile, I am trying to get to the papers underneath their bums.


Pooter gets the hint, but Padge, as ever, is persistent. Pooter then begins the whole cycle again by trying to jump onto my lap. If I get up to go to the loo, Padge will get onto my chair.

Sigh. I hope Dame Gilmore liked cats.

Material Girl

So hard to blog from home these days! I don't know what the technical glitch is, but my home computer plays favorites at the moment. I can get into my own blog but I can't add a post; I can read anyone's blog except crazybrave! If it doesn't sort itself out I will take an axe to it and stuff the expense. Maybe I should treat the motherboard to a nice glass of red wine.

Anyway, I am at work, recovering from my weekend of moving art out of my huge metal map-drawers, getting Best Beloved and friend to shift it into the Horrible Decrepid Garage (HDG) and then putting all the art back in with great trepidation -- will the drawers keep the damp out? Will the mouse who lives in the corner cupboard find its way into the drawers and nibble my life drawings? I am on the lookout for a set of drawers that can fit in the beautiful new design for our lounge, preferably in wood, but until then all is banished to the HDG.

Meanwhile, 11 sleeps to go! Builder friend came over on the weekend with colour swatches and design ideas for the kitchen. Very nice, I must say. The cupboard door are to be made of frames of recycled timber with a centre panel of what looks like black cast glass, but on closer inspection turns out to be common old steel panels that trucks use as ramps! Very solid, very noice, unusual, different, yers. Feature panels, including on the lounge-side floating arc-shaped bench/breakfast bar, will be colourbond 'mini-orb' (I think he called it) which means metal with very small corrugations, in a deep blood-red, and the benchtops will be a stone-grey glossy melamine. A bit funky, a bit traditional. Hard-wearing, because I am the world's shittiest housekeeper.

Best Beloved and I went shopping for appliances and hated every moment, because frankly, we'd rather be having a lie-in with a hot cuppa and a good book (have I ever mentioned that most of our wall-space is now bookshelves?). We found a dishwasher fairly quickly, thanks to Choice Magazine. The stove and cooktop took a bit longer; we wanted gas everything, but after looking at lots of options, we ended up with a gas cooktop, electric oven, and a separate grill. We found that all the ovens with inbuilt grills made the space too small, and we didn't think we could grill and bake at the same time (the salesperson assured us we could, but she didn't look -- or sound -- like much of a cook). We already have the uber-fridge, which is so large that the kitchen space is being modelled around it, and a small microwave, and that's probably all the gizmos we'll need, apart from the small plug-in ones that rapidly accumulate. Did I mention that my sister-in-law in giving me us a pressure cooker as a wedding present? Yay! No more tinned chickpeas (rarely have time or the forethought to soak).

So this is my materialista rave. So many new things, so much to do and think about. Map-drawers done, now to pack up kitchen appliances, take down curtains, finish the bloody wedding announcements, pick up beautiful wedding clothes (and Best Beloved's ring) and try to get some sleep. Yay!

Goin' dahn

Oooh, I'm going to hell for the lies I tell my physiotherapist.
She pokes my back and neck and asks me how they're feeling. Fine, I groan, even though it kills. You see, I'm supposed to be doing exercises daily, to build up my alternate muscle strength, to allow the pressure to come off the bits that creak and groan and ache every day. I want to do the exercises, of course, because it's my only chance to improve a very painful situation. I come away from each session resolved to spent the time every day, to remember and act upon the pain that nags me the way old Mrs Brilliant used to poke me with her finger in 5th grade. I go home, do my exercises for a couple of days, and then somehow they get lost amidst the flotsam and jetsam that is life around my Private Jetty. They sink below the morass, lost among dinners to make, brochures to design, cartoons to draw, clothes to be picked up, loungerooms to be vacuumed, child to be talked to, lover to be loved. The pain also rises and falls, and I'll do bits and pieces of the stretches, just enough to get by (with a bit of help from Nurofen). And then I notice as I turn my diary page that I have a physio appointment late that week. Then the exercises rise and bob persistently at the plimsol line in my brain, and I do them, just so I can recline on that couch with my head stuffed into a hole lined with tissue and lie that I've been a good girl. Well, I try to be.