Back home

Didn't I say I always come back from visiting Mum with at least one piece of old china? Well I did this time too except this isn't it. I wasn't allowed to steal this one so I just took a photo of it instead-beautiful romantic looking hand-painted wisteria.

It was COLD up there! And that's just not right. Still, it meant we got days like this one where the sky and sea merge so beautifully.

Back in Qld for my Grandfather's funeral, he was very sad and wanted to go, so it is a good thing, but we will miss him terribly.
He was three days short of turning 93.

gothic roses

Yesterday, I checked out the place where I'll be doing my pottery course on Saturday (with Sophie Milne teaching -yay) and despite a few minor issues finding it and navigating trams etc. I eventually got there and am now really looking forward to it. I suspect my first efforts may be rather pre-schoolish, but hey, you've got to start somewhere right?

To celebrate that, and the news that I am FINALLY getting paid for some design work I did a thousand years ago, I bought myself a bunch of roses on the way home. I loved the way they looked in our dimly lit lounge room last night, and so I took some rather gothic photos of them. It's interesting how with some objects you don't really need to see them clearly at all for your brain to instantly recognize what they are...roses are like that.

amazing nature

How incredible is the pattern on this shell? My mother, sister and I found it while walking on the beach last week and although we've seen heaps of these before, we've never seen one with such a clear and perfect pattern (and also colour) on the reverse side as well.

Things like this, created by nature just as she's going about her day to day business, strike me dumb with awe. Pattern for me is not a superficial thing, but deeply significant...and mysterious. All woman or man-made pattern no matter how sophisticated or frivolous, is originally inspired by nature.

I really am quite happily pagan.

unusual wall things

Found these ideas at Emma's blog and liked them- good for big areas of wall where you can't hang anything too heavy but want to put something big...I'm working on something big myself involving many pages of an old Gray's Anatomy text book and oil pastels. I'll do a post on it when it's done...which may be quite a while...

trapped

Snapped these lovely dead flowers this morning while trapped in the house waiting for the landlord to finish trimming the grapevine out the front...and stomping on my nasturtiums, which I might add, are just about to flower. Or should that be were just about to flower.

I know I rent, and I know I don't own this house, but I really like to pretend I do... and having your landlord savaging your garden at 9am on a Sunday morning makes the illusion very difficult to maintain.

Still, I took some nice photos of some dead flowers.

family visit

Just got back from a last minute visit to see my family in Queensland- usually it's sunny and warm up there but it rained (hard) and it was even lovelier to see the rain come down when they need it so badly.

Visits to my family always involve me returning with at least one piece of old china- this time I brought back three! But this rose-bud plate I had to leave behind and so I took a photo instead...so much old china, so little storage space...sigh.

the joy of papercuts and mugs

I LOVE these mugs a lot...spotted on bloesem's blog. Of course they don't ship to Oz. Typical. This is a papercut by spectacular papel picado artist Margarita Fick, found at www.mexicoetc.com/fickhtml , and I was inspired to post it after seeing the post on papercuts on heather's blog skinnylaminx.

It seems I am not the only one currently fascinated by chopping up bits of paper, but some people are really, really good at it!

new designs

I don't usually put my commercial swimwear designs up here, but these two I feel quite pleased with and think they deserve a bit more respect...cute deco/60's bikinis coming up hopefully! (They'll be winging their way to you this week Lewis, promise!)

But I do need to get off the computer and back to some hand painting/printing/whatever. The convenience of the computer can be a little too seductive though- especially when you can just click "invert colours" and poof!- you have a colourway, sure beats hand painting! Don't tell anyone.

Angie Lewin

These are cards and prints by artist Angie Lewin for Art Angels, who I found out about via both Print and Pattern and accidentally discovering one of her cards at the Brunswick St Bookshop. I absolutely love her work. She's what I want to be when I grow up.

ask him- he knows

Found this card on Poppy's blog the other day from Yee Haw Press, and just love it. He is a wise old owl- and very dashing too. Plus, he knows................ How wonderful.

I wonder just how one becomes a "Mentalist Supreme" ? I suspect I'd quite like it.

I've been working on some new design ideas for plates and bowls etc. and am feeling a little negative about the chances of anyone actually choosing to produce the ones I like best. They always seem to go for the so-so or even 'oh-no'ones instead. Still you've got to put them out there for them to be even given a chance at being picked, I guess.

Hopefully I'll be able to make them myself one day once I begin my pottery course in June...yay!

sun shower

I love it when it's raining and the sun is shining at the same time.....

Poiret exhibition

I'd give a body part ( perhaps not a truly essential one, like maybe a wisdom tooth) to see this Poiret exhibition at The Metroplitan Museum of Art in New York. I've always loved these Georges Barbier illustrations and would love to see some of these outrageously sumptuous garments in the flesh- not to mention some Barbier illustrations!

I've just finished re-reading The House of Eliot by Jean Marsh too, so I'm dreaming of beautiful clothes made with silks and velvets and glass beads and hats and gloves and proper sewing that won't fall apart after one wear. Sigh.

browsing

It's cool, rainy and thundery here today and I've spent a lovely morning browsing through some of my favourite blogs, and just clicking on links as I go. I could call it "research" or I could call it idling...both would be true.

I found this image via the Idler website and their myspace blog and it really appealed to me. I found a copy of their magazine/book in the library the other day and it made me smile.

I love that there are other people out there who feel as disinterested and unimpressed by the "Protestant Work Ethic" as I do...only invented in the 18th century to feed greed.

We all love to work, but on our own self-motivated creative work that is meaningful to us. Time is our only true wealth, so it would be nice to be freely able to decide how we spend it. Unbelievably some people don't actually want heaps of money above and beyond anything else...wasn't freeing us from tedious labour what all our technology was supposed to be for?

According to Brian Dean in "The Idler" Issue 35, p.41 " In 1965, a U.S. Senate subcommitttee predicted a 22 hour work week by 1985, 14 hours by 2000."

Hmmm....something went wrong there...what year is it again?

autumn dusk

Here is a photograph I am particularly pleased with, and my expatriate friends and family (yes you Lisa, Anna and Kerry-Ann) who may be missing some iconic Australiana may enjoy it as well.....it is "The Hill's Hoist", and ours is an ancient one too.

There is something quiet, deeply mysterious and enthralling to me about the light at dusk, not sunset which can be spectacular but flashy and a bit overwhelming, but the light just after sunset when it is practically dark....I love that.