Discuss

I've had this on my studio wall ever since I found it on a pole at the Woodford Folk Festival, many years ago. It reminds me that good thoughts come from everywhere and to be vigilant about where to find ideas. Nothing slack about this code:

- There is always a right place and a right time.
- Respect the power of the line and be aware of effects on others and surroundings.
- Things don't come half-balanced.
- As a slackliner your focus brings you much awareness and power.
- First foster your awareness within, then expand to all. When expanding out never lose the essential awareness within.
- Aways come back to the awareness within.
- Keep your head up and look forward, while always remaining in this present.
- Relaxation is to allow yourself to come to a more malleable state, allowing natural intelligence to flow through you.
- In a relaxed focus, reflexes are sharpened and agility is born organically.
- Actions move with the speed of thought.
- Your thoughts create your reality.
- Strength does not come from physical power. It comes from indominable will!
- Balance is a state: experience it.
- To step into the thread of balance is to step into alignment with what is.
- In the state of balance there comes evolution!

Test patterns

OK, so bear with me here.

I'm testing out this basic blog template, but I don't think the Title font transfers easily between users, despite the promises of the developer. Can you see them as a bold, sans-serif, almost wood-type kind of look?
I like the simplicity, not sure about the spacings, but it's lovely and flexible -- I despise overly long line lengths onscreen when the main point is comfortable reading -- so that you can adjust the width of your browser window and set your own comfort zone. The biggest yuck for me is the narrowness of the gutter between the posts and the side bar, but if I widen the window, the text gets too long. *sigh*

Thoughts, anyone? I may change a few times before I'm happy, but this is pretty close to what I like.

End of an era

I have been thinking over the last few weeks about drawing a line in the sand with this blog and starting a new one. One reason is a change in headspace (I think, apart from the pithiness and ease of Facebook, I've had a bit of Share Fatigue) and another is the request of my son to STOP BLOGGING ABOUT ME. He is growing up so much!

So I've been mulling over my options. One idea was to start fresh, with a new blog provider, call it ARSEQUACKERY (or something a tad more dignified) and see where it got me. But then some of my  FB peeps, who have been blogfriends for many more years, expressed their love for the &Duck space and suggested that I just revamp it and stay here. The more I think about it, the more it makes sense, especially since this one is being Pandora'd and I'd be pretty dumb to let that opportunity slide (thanks for the reminder, GT).

So. I'm going to draw a line in this sandbox, give it a bit of a redesign and start writing again, this time with more an eye to my work and thinking, and trying a bit of more creative writing. I'm moving into PhD territory with my printing (yes! Got in, but with no scholarship yet, so embarking part-time at first), and I want to get the brain juices flowing again. Of course this will be interspersed with the cats, since they are an important part of my thought processes, so things aren't going to change THAT much, really.

Before I rejig, let's say a little farewell to the family side of the blog... with a few photos.

Best Beloved recently got what we call his Masters of the Universe:

As you can see, Bumblebee discovered hair dye. He's taller than me now.

He's also a proud Uncle, and adores his half-sister's now-nearly-two y.o., who lives in WA but comes to visit a few times a year.

His taste in entertainment flavoured our Christmas tree, which was simple but eloquent:

I don't think his Stah Waz obsession will EVER go away.

Everyone wave goodbye to the public Bumblebee. *byeeeeeeeee* {sniff}


Best Beloved is totally in love with his kitties, as am I. Our devotion is constant and goes to fairly silly lengths, so let's just get down to some cat shots.

(long hours being studio cats, poor things)

And here was their Christmas:

So with Pooter happily pilfering his Christmas prawn for eternity, I bid the family version of &Duck a fond adieu. It won't totally go away, but it won't be so present in my blogging activity. Thanks everyone for your kind interest in everything Bumblebee has done over the years as he's grown up in front of you.

Back soon, with a new look. Remember to breathe!

Missing inside the action

The problem with not writing on the blog for AGES and AGES and AGES -- but I don't need to tell you how long it's been -- is that I don't know what to do next. Do I try to make up for lost time? Or do I just blithely go on?  Hmmm.

Maybe a little of both.

I finished Henry Lawson (to be published 2013) and this afternoon I came out of the bubble of trying to keep my head in a state of Deep Thinking while I wrote a PhD application. It's all over now bar pressing the button that says SUBMIT because I'm waiting on one letter from an ex-teacher and employer to upload and then I can press SUBMIT. Right now I have given myself permission to not think too deeply again until I get a message saying that my application has been successful. If it hasn't, I will try again next year and just keep those thoughts ticking along in the background a bit. I won't cry too much, there's so much on my list of alternative options.

So let's decompress a bit:

Here I am, covered in cats. This happens nearly every morning unless I have to jump up early to get to the university to teach. I would like to think that I am reading something about bibliographic notions of textual activity, but odds are that I'm reading Georgette Heyer, which is all I had space in my brain to read for the last month or so.

Let's catch up.

I had my exhibition at UNSW Canberra (aka ADFA) which seemed to go well, everyone who popped into it had good things to say, including a few really wonderful comments about how poetry really comes alive when it's actively engaged typographically and up on the wall in front of your eyes.

Then I went to Western Australia, ostensibly wearing my Print Council of Australia committee member hat but also working in bit of a holiday, taking Bumblebee and Colonel Duck with me. We hired a car and did the Epic Nostalgia/Rediscovery/Discovery (depending on your generation) Driving Tour of South-Western WA. From the Saturday to the next Thursday we drove from Perth to Kalgoorlie, then down to Esperence, across to Ravensthorpe and up to Lake King, then wobbled across to Bunbury and then up again to Perth where I donned my PCA hat and got to work.

We stayed in Kalgoorlie a few days and went to the Kalgoorlie Cup (or was it the Coolgardie Cup?) which was cancelled five minutes before the first race but because we were in the Members' Stand (thanks to my Auntie & Uncle) we stayed & partied and afternoon tea'd and had a lovely time with no horses. No end of scandal though, and we did meet a couple of horses at a big fry-up breakfast at one of the stables next day, so that was nice.

If I show you a few snaps you'll get the drift:

The saddest part for Colonel Duck, even though he'd been there before, was thinking about how much of his youth was erased by the Superpit. It covers the whole of what used to be the Golden Mile of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

Because I was heading that way, and one of my official duties would be to attend the opening of the Fremantle Arts Centre Print Awards (supported by Little Creatures Brewing), I thought it would be jolly to enter a print, in case it was selected for hanging. Then it would be extra fun to be there. So I entered Discontent, the print I made for the Transit of Venus show earlier in the year.

Well, guess what. It won second prize. And I was told two weeks before we left, and I had to keep it secret (apart from my family, of course). What a task! So going to the opening was even more fun, even thought it was crappy, crappy weather, the worst weather of our whole trip.

Here I am, clutching my Big Bunch of Flowers, next to winner Lucas Ihlein of Big Fag Press with his Big Big Cheque (photo from Lucas's Flickr site). You can see more photos, mostly with me cropped out, at the Fremantle Arts Centre site. I was stoked to see Lucas (and his collaborator Ian Milless) win, because he uses a four-plate litho offset press (the Big Fag), which is only a couple of steps forward from letterpress, so as we both joked on the night, the winner was Obsolete Technology!

First prize is $15,000 and it was acquisitional, and second prize is $5,000 non-acquisitional, but they bought the work anyway, which is marvellous. I have bought myself an iPad with some of the money, and the rest goes back into the Press Pit.

It was wonderful to catch up with family that I haven't seen for years, especially new members who were born or wooed since my last visit. I don't know when I'll get back again, but when I do it will hopefully be the same time of year, which is so much nicer than Summer, with all the roadside wildflowers to boot.

I had a birthday, and a wee party to reconnect with live bodies, and forgot to write 'no presents' on the invite, so I got some lovely presents. You all know who you are, I think you're wonderful.

I've been teaching a bit, not just my art school class, but some childrens' workshops. One was at Canberra Museum & Gallery, for Book Week, and the other was at Belconnen Art Centre, for the school holidays.

 

These are two of the books made in the latter class, called 'Hey, don't fall into that tunnel... book!', where we made tunnel books and puppets to go with them. Aren't they cool?

OK, I have to pack up now because Best Beloved is cooking a huge curry fest and he needs me to clean up all my gumph. Some of the gumph involves an exhibition I'm helping to curate for the Canberra Bookbinders' Guild that opens on Friday. Here's the invite in case you're interested:

If you can't read it, or access any images, it says Handwritten, Handbound: Canberra Bookbinders and the Canberra Calligraphers Society exhibition, opening Friday night 19 Octoberat 6pm at the Belconnen Art Centre Gallery. It runs to the 11th of November. I'm on the local ABC radio station (666am) that same Friday talking about it at about 4:20 if you want to tune in.

 Can you feel the busy? Boring, isn't it. More cats, that's what we need.

Naughty little muffins, you see the kinds of ways they struggle to get my attention?

Ta ta for now, hopefully not for so long this time.

P.S., a reminder that if you want me to send you one of my e-newsletters, which should come out more regularly than these blogposts, subscribe by clicking here.

Hand Set at UNSW Canberra

I just realised that I haven't put this up here:


This is my exhibition, up until the 10th of September at the UNSW Canberra Library (aka ADFA) and I'm also giving an artist's talk this Saturday (25th) at 2pm if you're around and interested in hearing (as opposed to reading) the stories behind the work.

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

Branching out

I've got a few things to promote at the moment, and I've been asked by many many people if I have a group mailing list.

Up to now, I haven't.

But now I have!



I have a hard-copy newsletter which sort-of comes out twice a year, but it isn't a very quick thing to do when I want to promote a class or something.

So I'm starting a Chimpmail e-newsletter, which will be used whenever I have an event or class to promote.

If you'd like to receive such emails, THIS IS THE PLACE TO GO. Even if we know each other well and I should be emailing you anyway, pop yourself on it because I can't just upload my address book, I need your full permission (which is how it should be, eh).

I solemnly promise to use my contact powers for good and not for evil.

Don't worry, I'll still be adding things here, but some people just aren't good at checking back to a blog, especially when it's updated as erratically as it has been. *sorry*, I'm still a bit snowed under...