Happiness Flags

Between xmas and new year I dragged out my neglected sewing machine and made some 'prayer flags'. I'd been thinking about it for a while (I have 2 sets made by lovely Marita, in my lounge room and they make me happy!!) Then a friend have me an xmas present wrapped in a lovely yellow gold fabric, and I thought it would be funny to make something with the fabric that I could give back to her.

I used some of my old lino cuts that I've used before for card making. I gave a set to my friend and have a couple of sets for my stall at the next craft fair. I am still not really friends with my sewing machine, it takes a fair amount of swearing to do even the simple straight sewing involved in this project!

I've just been for a couple of days away with my family in Kakadu. It's still school hols here. In some ways it's not a great time to go to Kakadu as it's the wet season and large areas of the park are closed because the water is over the roads and crocodiles are roaming. But it's also a lovely time to go because everything is so green, accomodation is cheap and we practically had the whole place to ourselves!! I'm keeping up with a haiku (or something like it) most days, here are a couple from last week.

Native ginger blooms
in the shade of ancient rocks
wet season treasure

(this one about my daughter)

she lies on my bed
singing a song from the charts
milkshake round her chin.


Some People Catch Fish

People running
to catch the bright red sun
with their cameras.

Starting the year

I'm starting the year with just one resolution, to be positive. Especially when I'm feeling emotional or defeated to go and do something positive, some sewing or lino chiselling, something that keeps me going forward instead of getting bogged down!

Over on flickr I'm playing catch up, I didn't post any of my work in the second half of the year so I'm trying to get all those into my photostream over the next couple of weeks. My internet connection is so slow in the evenings that I'd practically given up, but I've discovered I can get a lot done in half an hour in the mornings...so here I am!!

The sketchbook challenge is on for a second year, so I'm going to have another go at it... this month's theme is doodling.

I have set myself a little writing challenge, to write a haiku a day, I've bought myself a cheapo diary that just has room for a poem and a note about what I'm reading... here are a couple from the first week.

Lightning in the night
circling the house again
rain wave on the roof.

Last weeks pumpkin soup
seeds pushed in the ground sprouted
stems with twin green leaves.

I wonder how your resolutions and challenges are going. Cathy Cullis has a lovely post about daily challenges with a philosophy that is very forgiving!!

Hopefully I'll be back next week with some artwork to show! Have a great weekend.

Not really a review of the year

I just wanted to mention some favourites for the year. My favourite fiction book was The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. My favourite non-fiction was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

The exhibitions I enjoyed the most were the handmade books at Framed Gallery, in particular the work of Winsome Jobling. And Nocturne, and exhibition at Territory Craft, paintings by Sandra Kendall and glass by Natalie Jenkins. Sandra’s work had a Victorian feel, a bit Beatrix Potter but dark and atmospheric, and beautifully painted. There were heaps of other great exhibitions (not to mention the ones I never made it to) and that is one of the joys of living in Darwin amid so much creativity!

My favourite kind of night out has to be ‘off the page’, the spoken word nights organised by the NT Writer’s Centre. Coming up in 2012 will be Wordstorm combined with the national poetry festival which should be fabulous – I can’t wait.

Right now it’s very quiet, half the population of Darwin is either in Bali or down South. I’ve been enjoying a week off work – in particular pottering in the garden pulling out weeds which are rampant in the wet, and riding my bike down to the beach, I’m hoping to build up my stamina enough to pedal to work in the dry season… we’ll see!!!

Thankyou and best wishes to all the people who drop by my blog. Wishing you a creative and happy year in 2012.

More mermaids… if you can stand it…. and something about failure

I have been meaning to post a picture of these ‘dolls’ which were also in the mermaid exhibition in November.

It was really fun to work within the same shape/template but just play with colours/fabrics and my entire repertoire of embroidery stitches! (chain stitch, back stitch, running stitch and oversew). I have already started a couple more of these – sewing just might keep me sane over the xmas hols.

For the book group I go to, we have just read the Anh Do autobiography ‘The Happiest Refugee’, it’s an entertaining, easy read – a love story, a rags to riches story, a family drama all entwined. What impressed me was his willingness to have a go at anything and to try again after failure. He writes this, about his father’s attitude to failure when he didn’t get chosen for school captain.
‘But my father treated that loss as if it were a win and it was a lesson that stayed with me for a long time. If the worst happens, if you lose and fail, but you still celebrate coming second because you’ve given it a red hot go. There is no need to fear failure.’
I could have used that advice early this year – I entered a couple of literary awards and an art award and was knocked back from them all – and got discouraged instead of celebrating the fact that I had work finished and good enough to submit.

Well, one of the positives of the year has been starting yoga classes, I’m working on a poem about it, here’s a bit of the first draft.

Going to yoga

What I get is an hour
and a half of peace,
a view out to a garden
where water trickles,
once a bird flew down and
perched on a ginger stem
as I made the tree pose.

I love the asanas with names
like eagle and warrior
the name is powerful,
and how our teacher
describes a pose as strong
instead of difficult.

When she demonstrates
I think
no way I can do that
and then I find I am
balancing one foot on the wall
the other planted on the ground
one hand resting on a block
the other reaching up –
half moon pose.

Wishing you all a relaxing xmas and a creative 2012. Hopefully I’ll be back next week with a bit of a review of the year, favourite book, best exhibition, etc.
Bye for now.

Sirens opening tonight!!

The mermaid exhibition opens tonight at DVAA, I haven't seen it in all it's glory but I hear it is jam packed!! Wonderful Nat has an exhibition of paintings in the smaller gallery and I can't wait to see those too.

I only managed to produce this canvas in time for the show.


It was supposed to be a year of tackling big canvases (bigger than 5x7"!!) - a resolution I made early on in the year, which only seems to have stalled my painting completely...

In other news I have joined a book group at my local library. The first book we had to read was The Road by Cormack McCarthy which has about 6 pages of rave reviews at the start. The writing is beautiful, but the story is incredibly bleak, I had to keep putting it aside because I was too worried about the characters! I probably wouldn't have stuck at it to the end if it wasn't for the book group. If you've read it and loved it I'd love to hear why!

Hot off the press

I've been madly chiselling all week, this lino-cut.


Which is based on this sketchbook gouache.


The mermaid theme is because I'm part of the Sirens exhibition at DVAA that opens next Friday.
The text reads -she considers joining the mermaids - it's about yearning to be something you're not; about being part of something or excluded from it. About longing for a mermaids tail while failing to notice how comfortable you are in the company of birds...

Did you catch the art show on ABC1 Tuesday night? There was a great interview with British artist Tracey Emin. I'd heard of her but couldn't have described her artwork before this!! (which involves sewing and installation work, confessional and considered provocative I think) What I loved was how passionately she talked about her work, in a way that was accessible not full of impenetrable art language! It made me feel pretty excited about art making, and sad that I'm so out of touch with what's going on out there in the world! May be you can catch it online.

still here

Hi, I'm still here...battling computer and internet issues. Dare not even try to load a photo in case the whole lot crashes again!! I've been down a hole artwise too, not doing much except sketchbook stuff. Luckily I'm part of a group show 'Sirens' next month which has given me a kick up the pants, but not too much pressure as there are 16 artists involved! Hopefully I can post some photos soon.
Here's a poem

My neighbour
raises a cloud of dust
pedalling furiously
down the hill, his dog
galloping alongside.
Too fast for me to nod
an acknowledgement.

By co-incidence
His wife is from Yorkshire too
and has been learning to play
saxaphone
I have never spoken to her
except perhaps when she
(or her double)
came to my shop
and I was too shy to ask
-do you live across from the school?

You would never let such
an opportunity pass
that difference is an icy cravass
I scale daily.