sinkhole

Last week...

Burblings

 

 I have found an incredible sense of freedom and play in using the notebook.  It is without expectation or plan but the burblings of my inner dialogue do seem to be finding their way out.

 

 I have begun some bodies. Taken a step outside of the book and it is here that my time will enter the warp.  Seems so much more difficult to grab the moments but perhaps that is just psychological and I should reframe the objects on my work table as a 3D notebook which I am also just as easily able to dip in and out of.

And sidetracked by this wee figure which has been lounging about for quite a while now.  I really feel the need to complete it.  I have begun to stuff my figures with wool, it feels so much nicer to both stuff and hold.  My only worry is the wool.  It is raw wool that I have washed but not combed and while this is working well for my purposes of stuffing I can't guarantee it is free from the odd seed, dirt and poo.  I wonder if this would be a bio issue if I were to ever give away, exhibit or sell any work particularly overseas.  I shall investigate.

In the book

The framework/scaffold of this residency already begins to sit comfortably with me.

Working in my notebooks has always been a vital part of my creative life. Since childhood keeping a notebook has been my way of making the physical world and my responses to it more vivid. There is both discipline and liberation in this commitment to documenting on a regular basis a moment or experience.  My notebooks have increasingly become sensory delights containing expressive studies and inventions, objects in themselves. Now, inspired by my notebook practice, my work is moving in new directions.

Sandra Brownlee

The book offers a forgiving entry and exit point, I am able to work in fractured moments

as duty calls

as child calls

as the washing calls

as the stove calls

as 

idleness 

calls 

 

To Begin

To begin, to simply show up and begin. 

Sandra Brownlee suggests just that. 

A timely reminder for me and sage advice I took from her workshop 'Tactile Notebooks' but haven't quite implemented yet.

Here is my beginning:

In common with all new parents, the birth of my first child in March 2015 changed many things in my life. My identity and perception of time became blurred and fractured by the overwhelming and relentless needs of care and domesticity. As I surface from this I begin to see ironically that motherhood offers me time and a framework to work within.

I will undergo this 3 month self-imposed artist residency in order to fully experience and explore the fragmented focus, nap-length studio time, limited movement and resources and general upheaval that parenthood brings and allow it to shape the direction of my work, rather than try to work “despite” it.

I do this publicly because I struggle with procrastination, commitment and accountability. 

We shall see.

Cult of Doll

Something to blow out the doll cobwebs.

I think it will be a story of  intrigue, adventure and secrecy involving many great doll makers and dolls of course. 

Culminating in the publishing of an almanac!!

Here is a teaser.

Somnambulist

The Very Slow Doll Maker

This one has been on the go for a very long time! I blame teaching full time and whilst I know that is a significant factor - time management, procrastination and lack of organisation also feature highly. A common enough pattern of behaviour but one I am yet to master.
Anyway this one is paper clay over cloth - my first attempt and clothes made from my very own dyed material, silk and wool. Lovely backdrop! The light box having fallen victim to previous stated patterns of behaviour. Tee hee!!
Oh and not even finished!

Unwrapping

The unwrapping this morning revealed a delight of colour!

Afternoon Play

Loving the long weekend. Enough of a break to unshackle my mind from the 23 other minds that are my usual concern.
Today, however I have played!
The bag of treasures ready to be dyed that have been sitting for some months were hauled out.




The fire was started and stoked, a pot set upon to boil.




Leaves were gathered and some railway treasures, our farm luckily has an old rail track next door.
Cloth was bundled.




And placed to stew and wait!




The waiting will be my undoing, I can manage the next morning but no more as yet.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A walk in the paddock

   Today was lovely, I went for a walk through the paddocks.

Sometimes Bloke brings me treasures!

When he is out and about in the paddocks!

We are often lucky enough to play host to a small flock of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos.

And here is a treasure of a different sort. 

A wee bag that India Flint taught us how to make at the workshop in Nelson.

It is Japanese and translates to 'horn bag'.

This one is made from a tiny scrap of stiff silk dipped in a left over pot with iron in it.  

Very rustic but I had to convince myself I was still able to make it.  So confusedly complex in its simplicity I had to unpick the one I made at the workshop to figure it out - made my head hurt.

Setting foot on my birth land

I have run out of my 'this times last week' already! Back full swing in the tumult of small lives - classroom style. 

But I did take a whim as far as it would go, perusing the blog of India Flint (as I often do and recommend) and finding a workshop in WA - alas was full.  I spied one also in Nelson New Zealand and all I could think was - Why not!  

And not many cons followed not even from bloke.  

Why not indeed - so less than one week later I found myself in the beautiful Lud Valley, Nelson New Zealand.

I say 'follow your whim see where it will go'.

For I had a marvelous and magical five days (and some more), filled with the utmost of self indulgence (because I feel that is what I'm all about this year).  Which really is simply just doing what I want to do - duh!

And met many magnificent women at the lovely home of Judy Keylock and family, ate magnificent lunches and sighed and dyed.

India Flint tending the cauldrons.

Beautiful, strong and purposeful hands.

A pot of eucalyptus.

Unfurling treasures.

Stay tuned for I shall reflect some more.

Mucking about!

Haven't managed to get a decent camera yet.  Thought I'd still have a muck about, got dangerously caught by photoshop tutorials - what fun!!  My Frida inspired hair do for our local Spring Festival last weekend. 

Francesca

I'm hooked, it's on its way. 

 

And I'd love to drag out the old Minolta - but it has been so long and I have become accustomed to the immediacy of the digital point and shoot.  Not that long surely - hell I took that camera to Vietnam in 2000, seemed quite normal to have film. So I am researching digital SLR's and will be purchasing shortly.  Tomorrow I return to school and I am happy to do so - not so long ago I was not. I have had a quantum shift these holidays - yes sudden and significant!  I am re-framing my thoughts on teaching.

Crow Planet

There are a lot of crows on the farm, usually I dread them at lambing time.  They seem to lurk around new borns, waiting for the boon of fresh placenta.  I sometimes wonder if there is something more sinister and that they wait for an opportunity to pluck the eyes of said newborns - I am yet to witness this.  They do however have a merry feast over dead lambs.  For this reason I began to loathe them where before I hadn't. Oh, they also very cannily spy out the chickens fresh laid eggs and nab them if I'm not quick.  Bloke went on a bit of a crow rampage at one point and we dubbed him the crow cowboy.  But now I'm not so sure that my venom is warranted.  I enjoyed reading this and did take the time to check on a fledgling crow squatting quite calmly and naively on the drive eying me as keenly as I eyed it - all was fine.  The other day I spotted a pair ripping up old carpet presumably for nest building purposes. Perhaps a more considered Naturalist in the making, in the looking.

The Woodmans

The Woodmans -SBS On Demand

Quite a riveting and tragic view - Francesca Woodman was unknown to me until I watched this.  I could get lost in her images for a while I think.

On the work table

Some terrible shots - light box is out of commission.  The second doll I have made using the techniques learnt at the Akira Blount workshop.  I'm really enjoying working solely in textiles but have ideas brewing for some clay over cloth work.

Nearly finished!