Crazy weekend

I've survived a crazy weekend, lots of choir rehearsals last week and a lovely performance on Saturday night (Darwin Chorale at the CDU theatre) followed by a craft fair at the waterfront yesterday. That was the really crazy bit, it's the build up here, temperatures up around 35 degrees centigrade, humid but no sign of rain - the craft fair became something of an endurance test. I'm amazed and grateful that so many people risked heatstroke to come out and buy their Christmas presents!! It's lovely to have the ambiance of an outdoor event by the sea, but sometimes I think an airconditioned venue would make more sense. I was so hot and grumpy I didn't even go for a stroll around the other stalls...

The last couple of months have been busy, not only with choir and craft fair preparations but with a commission - a lady who bought some of my prints many years ago and then moved away from Darwin, tracked me down online and requested some ginger cat paintings. Luckily this is a subject I was happy to tackle as I have a ginger cat who turns up in my paintings now and again! Here are the three paintings which I sent down south a couple of weeks ago.

Today I've got the day off work to catch up on exciting things like cleaning the bathroom!! and baking cookies and apple crumble for my neglected family!

Hope you had a great weekend, and hope we get some rain soon :)

more menagerie...

I've been meaning to show you the other pieces I made for the dream menagerie exhibition. Again I was inspired by the designs on my indian skirts, and made some felt camels, a palm tree and a woman (camel herder!)

I'm not skilled enough to make a 4 legged animal that stands up!! So I made them as a wall piece. Working on these kind of projects is very much 'PLAY' I don't really know what I'm doing and just start somewhere and hope for the best! I love that I get to indulge in different materials to my usual paint and lino, especially to be playing with bold colour. You can see work by some of the other artists in the exhibition over on the smallest forest blog - here and here...Nat's photos are infinitely better than mine!!

It's been a busy few weeks, I also had a stall at the craft fair at Tactile Arts 2 weeks ago. Here's a photo of some of the paintings I took along, this was in my garden when I was getting everything organised...

It was a lovely day, perfect weather, lots of visitors, lovely tea and cake!! It was great to make some sales, get good comments, and come home inspired to get to work in the studio. July is whizzing past, the kids go back to school next week, I've started on some garden paintings and hope to show you some next time.

Hope you're having a creative month :)

Back from the abyss

It's so good to be back online!! Feels like I've been away for months, but it's only a couple of weeks.

The craft fair is only a week away now. I have a couple more paintings ready to take along.

This week it's been school holidays - for some (annoying) reason I just can't paint when the kids are in the house, so that all ground to a halt. Instead I've been doing some sewing projects, things I can pick up and put down when the kids yell. I've made a batch of felt brooches - I don't have photos of these yet. And this is my first attempt at a sock monster.

I've been admiring these on the net - there's a whole group devoted to them on flickr! We've been saving odd and too small socks for a while...

April is poetry month (officially in the U.S. but there are no boundaries in blogworld). I've been flying solo doing a poem a day while my computer was down. It's nice not to have the pressure to upload to the net every evening - which takes up valuable writing time. So hopefully I'll keep on to the end of the month. I didn't submit anything in March (blame the computer) and wll have to do double this month to make up for it!

Grooving on!

I had a good productive week, perfect timing with the craft fair coming, sometimes a deadline is just the kick in the pants I need! Here are a couple more new paintings, I'm especially pleased with the red bird one.







I've also made some fridge magnets - collages of different papers on heavy cardboard with a little saying or thought. It's a chance to get on my soap box!! and say 'read some poems' 'plant a seed' 'change the world with kindness'...







Now I'm reading High Tide in Tucson, essays by Barbara Kingsolver on a wide range of subjects. Here is a lovely quote from one titled 'Civil disobedience at breakfast' about parenting and creativity.



The remarkable poet Lucille Clifton was asked, at a reading I attended, 'Why are your poems always so short?' Ms Clifton replied, ' I have six children, and a memory that can hold about twenty lines until the end of the day.'

I would probably trade in my whole Great Books set for an epic-length poem from the pen of Lucille Clifton. But I couldn't wish away those six distracting children, even as a selfish reader, because I cherish Clifton's work precisely for its maternal passions and trenchant understanding of family.



Reading this put a big smile on my face!! What an amazing woman, what do I have to complain about with only three children!! It gives me a great feeling of encouragement, reminds me that I'm not the only one trying to juggle all these things. (the world of blogs tells me this too!). And it also sends me on a quest, I don't know if I have ever read a poem by Lucille Clifton, I definitely need to track some down!


Later note ; I just googled Lucille Clifton, and discovered I do know and love her poem Blessing the Boats. And sadly that she died last month.