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!

silence

Sorry for the silence. My computer has problems and has been at the fixer for a week...it could take longer. The timing is not too bad, less distractions when I'm getting ready for the craft fair, but I do miss you all and your blogs!
Happy Easter, back soon (hopefully) with lots of new work to share.

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.

Craft Fair coming

I knew there was a craft fair coming, but still it manages to creep up on me. Only a month to go, and I have heaps of work to do. I've started on a batch of little paintings, 4 inch square and 5" by 7" mostly. I think of these as 'not serious work', but it's really interesting to work fast like this, take inspiration from anywhere - images in magazines, old sketchbooks, half remembered paintings - and let one painting suggest what to do for the next. Some turn out great, some don't! (Sometimes I'm surprised about which ones sell and which don't...)

On the writing front I did send out a poem for Feb, but didn't feel like mentioning it as I hadn't written anything all month. At last - after a couple of false starts - I have a new poem underway about a blind man I saw getting on the bus. ( Hooray for catching the bus!!! half my inspiration seems to come from there.) The experience also reminded me of a great poem by Denise Levertov, 'A Solitude' - about seeing a blind man on a train, of being able to gaze at him because he doesn't know he's being watched, and then helping him through the station; her feeling of him being closed off in his own world. Unfortunately I can't find it on the net to link to, but check it out if you can. If I'm sounding very knowledgeable here, don't be fooled. I loved poetry at school and as a student, but then didn't read any for 10 years or more, and only started again in the last 5 years or so - reading it and writing it have come along hand in hand. I have a couple of huge anthologies that I'm slowly dipping in and out of, finding poems that I love, and poets that I'd like to read more of one day!

two steps forward one step back

On Friday I didn't get as much done as I'd hoped. I printed up this new lino-cut of woman with guitar (& admirer), and re-printed some of my old ones so that I have a stash ready for card making.

Other than that I was running around - to the hardware to buy cord, then stapling the cord to the back of paintings, and then delivering the paintings to Territory Craft. I get frustrated when these jobs eat up half of my art morning, but they have to be done!

I've added an extra section to the sidebar of my blog, of books I'm reading. I always have a book on the go, and squeeze in reading on the bus and in my lunch break.

Hopefully this week will be a bit more productive...

Revision

So I've finished the gluttony painting - which I think of as a kind of mona lisa with burger bun! In the end it only took half an hour and some very minor adjustments - an extra roof top, a tendril of hair, the colour of the flags, and that was it. I had it hanging on the verandah where we eat dinner, for the last 2 weeks, so I'd been looking at it and thinking about what needed changing.

It seems strange that I can jump back into a painting, but struggle to revise a poem. Especially because changes to a painting aren't reversible, once the acrylic goes on you can't go back. Whereas with writing you can keep a copy of each draft.

Sorry about the quality of the photo, it seems very yellow. The monsoon is back with more torrential rains, and very grey skies. No sun at all today, but it did lighten a bit this afternoon when I grabbed the chance to take this shot.

cards and confessions

Some of the less successful monoprints have been gradually finding their way onto cards - collaged, coloured with pencil, watercolour or acrylic. The better prints I'm too scared to touch and will probably moulder away on my desk for months!

One of the blogs I like to drop in on is mouse notebook, always thought provoking and her artwork is beautiful. I enjoyed this post about the difference between how we might be perceived by someone on the outside reading our blogs, and how we are in 'real life.' I'm always jealous of those blogs that have beautiful shots of their house/ studio with displays of artwork and seasonal crafts. You'll never see a photo like that on my blog... there aren't any beautiful corners in my house, just cobwebby ones, with piles of the kids junk that needs putting away!

Hope you're having a great weekend!