blue-eyed crow

pages

2012-01-27T21:57:00.000Z

Although I have a hard time even writing in the margins of a book I love book art. Add a hint of mystery and I'm enchanted, so I was thrilled that although all ten of the secret paper gifts to Edinburgh's libraries have been found the anonymous giver left the option of future gifts open. I was surprised to read that the artist had not made paper sculptures before, the sculptures were so different than each other and so imaginative. Isn't the texture of the feathered cap below (found in the Scottish Poetry Library) gorgeous?Then there are Brian Dettmer's book autopsies, I was initially conflicted because they're made from older books, but the look has since won me over:Finally today a wonderfully creepy video my friend in the belfry found for a wonderfully creepy nursery rhyme book:

ghost

2011-04-11T20:18:00.001+01:00

Before I spend endless amounts of time painting (because I am the slowest of all painters) I spend endless amounts of time deciding what I will paint. My paintings are layers of images, and I draw, paint and photograph all the components separately then occasionally sift through the piles looking for pieces to combine.

This is the palest-green butterfly that flew in to the house one evening last summer and was caught under a wineglass before being released back outside. I love the way the insect floats, seemingly unsupported, but I don't know yet how I will use it.

To go with the butterfly I'll need a sample of handwriting, which will be disguised so most words cannot be read.

Some architecture, or maybe part of a map?

Background colour.

Or maybe toss all that and go with flowers and a fragment of handwritten poem or a letter?

While I am combining the visual pieces, their meanings also come together in a narrative which determines subsequent choices and also what part of each image will be obscured. It tells me which words should be legible, and the title. Nothing of this is recorded, because I think each viewer develops their own relationship with a picture, and knowing the artist's ideas is not necessary.

With all the parts chosen I sit down to make sketches until the pieces knit together, then it's finally time to start painting.

sequestered

2011-04-08T07:30:00.020+01:00

I love looking at other people's studios and hearing how they work. Blogs like from the desk of..., and Terri Windling's 'On Your Desk' posts are always interesting, also books like 'Artists' Houses' and 'In Artists' Homes: The Living Spaces of Contemporary Artists' and, of course, artists' own blogs, like Rima Staines' Into the Hermitage and this multi-talented artist who experiments with making her own iron gall ink and sculpting from the skeleton out. Harry Ally so impresses me in this video, working quickly among all those other people *and* in front of a camera.

It's amazing how different artists' spaces are, and their ways of creating. Actually, I think part of my fascination with Harry Ally is precisely because he works so opposite from how I do, his paintings and drawings are so free and large.

So, here is where I work (you can click on the photos if you'd like to see more detail, hopefully I dusted well enough!):

Sketches strewn over an old suitcase (because if I put them tidily away I forget about them), a couple paintings-in-progress, a little house my mum built (a simple one, most of the ones she makes are more complicated, she also does lovely water-colour paintings of bits of architecture), and to the left the door to the teeny balcony (it can fit either one chair or a pot of jasmine, I chose the latter).

The work table: more sketches, bits for some boxes and tiny shrines (underneath the bank bag are the littlest micro-bits hiding from the dusty winds that sometimes blow in even when the door is closed), a tiny village a 6-year-old and I are slowly constructing along with mini paper dolls and their even smaller clothing, and a wind-up toy I love that throws off sparks as it rolls around. I found the table itself on the street, it has lovely barley-twist legs but a sheet of plywood on top (with 'danger' still on from its former life) so I don't have to worry about protecting it. Note the lovely view of stucco - nothing to distract me there! (The view from the balcony is more treehouse-like - hibiscus, palms and jacaranda, a fountain down below and over the trees distant skyscrapers.)

Some possibly finished pieces hanging out on the built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves (I love these shelves!), another old suitcase barely visible bottom left.

The rest of the tour would include a small easel, an antique Arts & Crafts style table I use as a desk, an ancient cloth-covered trunk (all three found on the street), a chest of drawers with old fruit crates (avec labels) stacked on top as shelves for supplies, and bright silk longyis from Burma and cotton sarongs from the Philippines, gifts from a sister and a friend, covering big cushions on the futon because this is also the guestroom.

Also, numerous postcards and other flotsam and jetsam from vide greniers, gifts, and scavenged and found bits on the desk and shelves and tucked away in the drawers.

I feel very lucky to have this room, and I am completely dependent on it because I can't work around other people. At all.

I don't know whether it's because I am too distractible to create around others or too self-conscious, probably both, but it makes art classes and retreats awkward (I practice the techniques but can't actually make a piece of art) and group paint-outs or sharing a studio impossible.

And I can't work in short bits of time, or with interruptions. Portions of an hour are useless to me, especially when I am doing the initial sketches for a painting. Sometimes I work for hours before I start to get what I want, then when I do I don't want to stop for more hours until I'm finished (which means if I start in the evening it can be early morning when I finally put everything down). When planning the moving parts or secrets of the boxes I build it's like I'm making an invisible path in the air, so as soon as there is an interruption it's completely gone and I have to start at the beginning. And unlike the wonderfully free Harry Ally with his big brush and crowbar my paintings are built slowly, in layer after layer of washes and detail.

So, back to work here...

the cause of my unhappiness as I sit in a garret without a glass of wine

2011-03-03T07:03:00.008Z

: at this stage I still hold out hope

: here I'm fatally unhappy with it and call it terrible names

Okay, you probably guessed I'm not really in a garret. But I am sitting in a little upstairs room stewing, without a glass of wine. And can't step out on the miniature balcony (3' x 2') for some fresh air and sprinkling rain because I've not tidied and some panels are blocking the door.

Is it bad to post frustration on an artist's blog? When I read other blogs there are pictures of lovely new works and happy news of openings and sales, which is always nice to read (especially in difficult economic times!).

But tonight I am too irritated to post about the piece I worked on yesterday that I am happy with, because of this blue roof-scape.

It's not even from a sketch that I was really wild about, I just wanted to complete it to work out some things before I start a piece whose sketch I do love. And after a day out and about I was looking forward to an evening of progress and foolishly put off a friend's weekly visit to get to it. So instead of pleasant conversation over warm bread, cheese and a glass of wine in the dining room I am grousing over a painted wooden panel and haven't made so much as a cup of tea.

Part of the frustration, I suppose, is trying to figure out when to give up. I spend a lot of time on colour sketches and usually know for certain when I finish whether I want to go on to paint something or not, so I normally do not find myself spending time on I am not fond of.

And I paint in many layers, so working on something means I am spending a lot of time with it. (I was very happy when I learned that an artist I love (Vija Celmins) works so slowly that museums wait decades to get enough of her work together to put on an exhibition.) By the time the first image above was taken this panel had gone through many incarnations and could still conceivably surpass the original sketch.

But now it's murky, it doesn't look like the sketch but is not an improvement on it, and although I have a bit of Renaissance script that was supposed to be the finish it's currently dark enough that I think I'd have to do too much to make the final layers work.

So, devote more time to this piece? A look at my tiny supply of panels makes me feel less than generous to the uncooperative. But limited time means I don't want those hours to have been unproductive.

I'll look at it tomorrow after working a while on another painting, maybe the mood will change.

Edit: Below is how it looked last week, I have since changed it some more.

post

2011-02-22T06:53:00.003Z

I've actually had both a computer and internet access for a while now but was feeling intimidated about blogging again after being away for so long. It's even more ridiculous than that though, I kept running across fabulous things and thinking I can't wait to post this on the blog, then I didn't. Okay then, enough wallowing.

I inherited quite a few old postcards but I still get weak a few times a year and comb through what's in the stalls at the flea markets looking for ones with ruins or any sort of Gothic bits. Then I look for an(other) old suitcase to carry them in.

This piece is one of a series that I'm working on that was inspired by some of my favourite postcards. So far I'm just doing small pieces, which is good because I haven't re-organised the studio in a while and space is getting limited.

So, back to work. Wouldn't want to write too much on my first day back or anything.

a thousand apologies

2010-11-08T03:34:00.001Z

Apologies for the extended absence, I have been living a computer-free life (not by choice).

I hope this will change in the near future, but whilst not blogging-and-reading-other-people's-blogs I have been travelling (not where I thought I would be this fall though), and experimenting with other ways of creating layers on my paintings (there is much destruction in the studio), so hopefully I will have something to show and write about once I return to the century-currently-in-progress.

waves

2010-05-30T22:22:00.002+01:00

What a great weekend - it was all about the water. Yesterday I floated for three hours in a friend's pool while we talked - so unbelievably relaxing. Today I breathed salt air and listened to the sound of the surf, and this evening I'm working on this piece with colours from the waves.

auditory

2010-05-08T20:30:00.009+01:00

I just finished with the flame-thrower and am waiting for the encaustic to warm up again so that I can pour yet another layer on to the piece I’m working on, while I wait I thought I’d post what Ron Black, who takes great nature photos, just sent me – pictures of our brand new pond, it’s just a baby, less than a year old.

Standing next to this pond, a small cone-shaped hill lurks in the trees to the south-west, there are acres of forest on all sides and unless a small plane flies over head you can’t see anything man-made here, even the part of the trail that is visible was made by animals. It is also the quietest part of the property.

Sometimes, standing there, I think about how much industrialization has changed the sounds we hear almost every moment of the day, even in the quiet of the night I can hear human sounds I couldn’t hear over the noise of the day – vehicles on a distant road, a train on tracks eight miles off.

I love human sounds, I live in more than one place and where I sit writing this now I can hear my old clock ticking, the neighbours to the east singing prayers, and the girls to the south happily shooting hoops. But just as looking at the ordered chaos of nature is somehow calming and energizing at the same time, the layers of sound around this pond make it hard to walk away. The soft natural sounds (when there are no tractors growling downstream) are meditative and somehow invite further listening.

As a kid I always wondered why sounds can affect the mind and emotions so much, why can music make us feel triumphant or despondent? I was reading an article about preserving areas of natural sounds, and some book reviews about silence (also this) recently, and, predictably, I thought about noise a lot when I stayed in this Buddhist monastery for a while, but this Radiolab show is my favourite exploration of sound. The range it covers in one hour is incredible, and the part where they talk about why there were angry riots when Stravinsky’s ‘Rites of Spring’ was first performed but adoration when it was performed a year later is amazing. I haven’t been able to embed the program for some reason, but here is another link, there are three parts (‘Behaves so Strangely’, ‘Sound as Touch’, and ‘Musical DNA’), they are each fantastic.

blue

2010-05-02T23:05:00.010+01:00

This is the current stage of the middle of the piece I am working on, it is going slowly.

I've been off my groove lately, this has somehow been a very complicated year, and I've let things eat away at my work time - a dangerous trend especially since technical problems are also hindering productivity.

These last few days I've been re-inspired and mad to work, but found myself instead enjoying spending time and eating (a lot!) with family and friends. Saturday I ate each meal with different people (ending up in an incredibly atmospheric old building full of wandering passages for a delicious dinner), but after lunch today it was time to get serious and focus, which feels great and frustrating at the same time.

The first few hours in the studio I generally spend flailing, the longer I've been away the longer I spend lost and wandering before I find the path, but I even resisted the holiday parade going down my street this afternoon and am finally making some progress.

Tomorrow I'll be getting my little flame thrower fired up, it's time to layer encaustic.

work

2010-04-27T07:04:00.006+01:00

Instead of working on art I am being a dutiful child and scanning ancient family photos, which takes a lot of time but is interesting. I hadn’t seen steam-powered tractors before, I like how complicated this one looks. And what is flinging that hay, a haybuchet?

Apologies for the terrible joke, just one of a zillion things that go through the mind during hours of scan, label, file, repeat.

There is also time to think about how different my life is from theirs. Some years before these photos were taken some of the people in them walked 2400 km to a new life, then there was another big shift to another new life, the one I am looking at. I can’t even imagine co-ordinating walking entire families that far, through whatever weather, eating only bread, cider and sour milk offered by strangers along the road. And how to even find the right roads, without all the street signs we have today?

Besides a good map I think I’d want a series of serious foot massages.

navigating

2010-04-24T02:20:00.000+01:00

I love all kinds of maps, and I have been fussing with this one off and on for a while without being sure where exactly to go with these constellations. They may be put aside to be part of a series of maps and charts that has been in the back of my mind for a while.

It’s hard to concentrate lately because of some frustrating technical problems, I love solving problems when it comes to building the metal boxes, figuring out different ways of making hinges and new hidden compartments, but when it comes to materials difficulties when I’m working with the 2D pieces I have no patience at all.

Sometimes when I am working out how to build one of kinetic pieces it makes me sad that my grandfather died before I could show him the things I make. Pictures weren’t his thing, although his family included many artists he was an inventor, and when he saw problems and inefficiencies he automatically started coming up with solutions. When I’m building something the technical difficulties are often my favourite parts of the process, various solutions are getting worked out in the back of my mind day and night, and I love the continual challenge after challenge until the let-down when it’s completed.

saki

2010-03-07T21:18:00.000Z

I was so happy to find this film, I just love Saki (H. H. Munro). The first thing I’m going to do with my new time machine is prevent him from returning to the front (he signed on as a foot soldier in the ‘Great War’ in his 40′s, and kept going back to fight even when considered too sick or injured to do so), and give him a long-lifetime supply of pens and ink.

I enjoyed hearing ‘The Open Window’ read on National Public Radio‘s ‘Selected Shorts’ years ago, it was a good pick for a short film. The Reginald stories are so incredibly funny, I wish someone would make some of them into a movie. Starring Johnny Depp. Somebody call him, quick!

…

Waldo is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.

‘The Feast of Nemesis’

Reginald sat in a corner of the Princess’s salon and tried to forgive the furniture, which started out with an obvious intention of being Louis Quinze, but relapsed at frequent intervals into Wilhelm II.

‘Reginald in Russia’

Reginald closed his eyes with the elaborate weariness of one who has rather nice eyelashes and thinks it useless to conceal the fact.

‘Reginald’s Drama’

Think how many blameless lives are brightened by the blazing indiscretions of other people.

‘Reginald at the Carlton’

Reginald in his wildest lapses into veracity never admits to being more than twenty-two.

‘Reginald’

We all know that Prime Ministers are wedded to the truth, but like other married couples they sometimes live apart.

The Unbearable Bassington, ch. 13 (1912)

my heart

2010-03-01T05:16:00.000Z

Often when I go to compose a post I am tempted to just put an image of whatever piece I am working on without any text, I find writing very difficult. I love reading what other people write though, and admire how skilfully some people blog.

During a conversation there are the constant decisions and adjustments regarding how much of one’s life and thoughts to reveal. Bloggers, without knowing who will be reading, need to somehow maintain a balance between not revealing enough to intrigue a reader, and sharing too much, thus becoming instantly uninteresting.

I first started reading Rima’s blog because I love her lively drawings, paintings, and fabulous clocks with their medieval influence (and this game she made is fantastic), but besides being a talented artist (child of two artists) her talent as a storyteller sharing her adventures helps make her blog so entertaining (and popular).

Making the decision to take time away from her work to share the joyful times of her life is generous, but it must be hard to decide to keep writing at times like now when things are not going well. I admire how strong she is to be open at a vulnerable time.

sarah

2010-02-13T03:35:00.000Z

As usual I find myself astonished at what the clock says. It’s so easy to work all night in the quiet, there is no sign that time is passing.

cutlery

2010-02-04T05:59:00.000Z

Isn’t this gorgeous? The fork threw me at first, but someone in the comments to the article had an explanation which further reading supported (there are a couple beautiful Roman forks here). Whatever its age, it is very cool tool.

I realize I haven’t posted any of my work recently, I do mean to do that soon!

camino

2010-01-03T00:21:00.001Z

This fall I’ll follow a path trod by pilgrim feet for a thousand years or so and among other preparations I need to improve my Spanish. I prefer to work on languages through regular books rather than language texts, and figuring I should begin at the beginning, I grabbed something basic. So, as of this afternoon, I can explain that I do not like to eat green eggs and ham with a zorro, in a rincón, or in a barco, while navigating a charco. I question the text though, translating Sam-I-Am as Juan Ramón doesn’t seem to reflect the flippant energy of the number one fan of green eggs and ham.

Wandering around the Internet reading what other people have written about the pilgrimage I came across a blog by a Canadian girl (a cousin of mine, twice-removed, lives in her hometown). Her last post, mentioning another kind of adventure, was a link to the blog she started when she later moved to Paris. How can you not adore someone who wanders into these kind of situations:

Things that don’t happen in Kingston

And writes posts like this:

couple of weeks ago I had my first

LXD

2009-12-04T00:12:00.001Z

Hmm, and I thought I’d be happy if I could do a decent tornado kick.

Best to click and see it big screen, but it’s a poor quality video, so even better see it on a really big screen if you know someone who has ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ TiVoed. These guys are so innovative, it will be fantastic if their online adventure is as good:

oops

2009-11-19T21:18:00.000Z

An experiment gone awry.

I love a bit of decay incorporated into things, which is why I love old buildings, Michael Eastman’s photos, and the furniture I inherited (although a small fund to keep the chairs glued and un-wobbly would have been a good thing to inherit along with). I’ve been working on a way to include that in some of my pieces, but how best to partially destroy my work?

Here is a piece I’ve been wreaking minor destruction on, pre-destruction:

It definitely needs some decay, so I go to work on it, trying to balance giving it some integrity while still leaving it vulnerable:

Then I become Kali, speeding up the destructive force of time, and the result is:

Far too much decay!

Tomorrow, back to the easel, so to speak. I will repair it to wreak (less) havoc on it another day.

At least it won’t need this treatment:

Done to erase the result of another experiment. One not to be repeated.

tulip

2009-11-15T01:16:00.000Z

A day of frustration – my materials were not in the mood to do what I wanted today. I knew exactly what I was trying to achieve, but couldn’t get the spark I was going for with the ink, pencil, encaustic and other pigments at hand. I’m sure that, along with the intimidation of a blank page, this is not a rare experience.

Part of my frustration is I’d like to do a couple larger pieces to go along with this series (so far they are 5″x8″, 6″x7″, and smaller – tiny!), but on the bigger pieces things keep warping and going astray. New materials are only 20 minutes away at Dick Blick, but this is not a good time for me to go because I tend to get distracted and find myself with a basket full of gold leaf, sheets of nickel, and a better riveting hammer when that is not what I am supposed to be working on right now.

moth letter

2009-11-13T21:46:00.000Z

I am working on some butterfly/moth + flower images this week, this is the one closest to being finished.

I’ve been experimenting with encaustic and layers of vellum and paper, I love how the vellum resists ink, gathering it up, making the image even more translucent. The ones that turned out best had pale colours and a limited palette.

Time is limited because I’m getting a lot of small pieces ready for a show, so back to the bugs…

urn

2009-11-03T00:50:00.000Z

These are from this summer, all in my mom’s neighbourhood.

I’m working with photos for a few days to distract myself from some technical difficulties with the other series I’ve been working on. I’ve looked around to see if anyone else is doing a similar process with inks, pencil and encaustic, but haven’t seen any, so I’ll go back to experimenting with the propane torches tomorrow. So far nothing big has caught fire or blown up, that’s good anyway.

Earlier this evening I was showing a friend the website of one of my favourite photographers, Michael Eastman – his Cuban and Italian photos are incredible. Then I learned of the death of Roy DeCarava, another amazing photographer. I was trying to pick a few of his photos that I liked best, but it is so hard to choose. This is one of many, and this, and this. They are so evocative.

Now that I have loaded my photos onto this post I’ve decided I don’t like the way they look small. I love how art has such a different effect at different sizes (except when it doesn’t work small on my blog). I spent the day at an art museum with some friends recently, and was loving the difference between various pieces close up and at a distance. And the texture, that fantastic delicate texture of drawings and miniatures, it’s all completely lost in reproduction.

injured

2009-10-30T12:08:00.000Z

These are details of one of the paintings in the stash that inspired Barbara Levine (former director of exhibitions, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) to write ‘Finding Frida Kahlo‘. The trunks of materials (diaries, letters, recipes, paintings, stuffed hummingbirds, and so on) have been called forgeries by some interested parties in Mexico (ArtSlant article, NY Times article, Christopher Knight’s take), and I am curious to see how this all plays out.

Detecting forgeries is a difficult art, because the science can be faked (although sometimes people are so sure of their ‘eye’ that they refuse to believe scientific evidence to the contrary, e.g. de Groot insisting that ‘Merry Cavalier‘ was by Frans Hals despite the fact that some of the paints used were not developed until long after Hals had died), and of course mistakes are made both ways (a collector of Rembrandt burned one of his paintings thinking it was a forgery, later it turned out it probably wasn’t).

Both those claiming these were Frida Kahlo’s belongings and those crying fraud have a stake in the outcome, influencing the way they see these pretties.

I do love Frida as a deer, a friend almost bought this version years ago, but didn’t, because it would have been a quite a stretch financially – of course looking back he thinks it would have been worth the sacrifice. So often in life it would be nice to have the benefit of hindsight ahead of time, eh?

Click the link below to see more:

“Finding Frida Kahlo” by Barbara Levine from Princeton Architectural Press on Vimeo.

texture

2009-10-15T00:24:00.000+01:00

The warm colour of this recent piece doesn’t appear when I put it on the blog, nor the texture, of course.

I love it when I get to visit art I’ve only seen in reproduction and can finally see the surface and the real colours. Size also has such an impact, whether because a piece dominates the space or because it is small and draws the viewer in, and none of that comes across in a book or on-line.

At this time of night my wish is for more hours in every day, there never seem to be enough daylight hours for anything I do with colour. Plus more hours in the night for composing. And calorie-free chocolates.

dawn

2009-10-14T05:25:00.000+01:00

I started this piece with a chalk sketch of a lovely 10-year-old I know. She has a beautiful wavy blond mane and a lovely singing voice, neither of which shows up here. I love her eyebrows, their angle gives her a vulnerable look.

Sometimes when I sit down to compose a new picture I can’t figure out how to start, the visual equivalent of writer’s block, I suppose. Suddenly I can’t remember how, as if I’d never done it before, and I swear it happens every third time I sit down to sketch out something new – absolutely ridiculous.

After struggling for a couple hours somehow I finally tap into it, then spend the rest of the night sketching out new pieces. Until when I should be getting up the next morning.

Luckily, there’s the work of creating the final versions before I do it all again.

broken

2009-10-09T06:45:00.000+01:00

This window is in a beautiful building in the village my mom lives in, it was abandoned 19 years ago.

In my art I like to use images from my life and the places I’ve explored. Damaged old buildings evoke so many emotions, and questions.

This piece is not finished but I haven’t figured out where to go with it next.

locations

2009-10-06T21:23:00.000+01:00

This is what I’ve been finishing up this week, another architecture + script. I love gothic anything, I haven’t put the buildings in my work much, but I do use this old Italian handwriting frequently.

All the travelling has stopped (for now) after a weekend at a beautiful town up the coast for a wedding (also beautiful). My computer celebrated by coming down with some dreadful, barely fixable condition, and now, after everything it went through as a cure, I’m having a hard time finding my stuff. I may have to learn quite a bit more about computers to get everything re-organized, adding to the chaos of moving back in to my regular life.

It has not been enough to keep me from thinking about a trip to New Orleans in March though, I’ve been dreaming about the food, music, and the architecture.

doorway

2009-09-24T17:46:00.000+01:00

For this I used the image of my mother’s doorway – sitting here I can smell the stone and plaster walls (unless my sister is cooking ratatouille, bread pudding with ginger toffee, or some other deliciousness). The house dates back to at least 1595, the records before that were lost when the town was sacked in 1576, and when she moved in the only plumbing was a sink underneath the window to the right of the door, all cooking had been done in the fire.

I love row houses because I love town noise, and my mom’s house is so accessible when someone drops by for a visit, but my dream house would be a ‘portland’, a row house with a long strip of garden behind. I recently stayed in a beautiful example of that in a medieval town outside London while visiting relatives (including my most adored aunt and uncle who are fixing up a barge in the gorgeous port of Sandwich), the garden was 40+ feet wide and 630 feet long, on a south-facing slope with orchard, pond and nuttery. Perfection. An upscale version, built 70 years after the one I stayed in, is Rothe House in Kilkenny, which has been restored and opened as a museum. It would be great to be part of a project like that, they did such a good job on the gardens and orchard, and next time I’ll definitely spend more time in their library.

90%

2009-09-23T18:08:00.000+01:00

This is one of the pieces that doesn’t seem to be quite finished, but I’m not sure what it needs. I keep going across the room to look at it, but the solution has not jumped out at me, so I will let it sit a while then try again. It’s funny how time can change what one sees in a work.

I am listening to a frog out in the woods while I work but the birds are quiet now. I’m going to take a dozen of the apples weighing down the trees out back and make a crisp, then take the fiendish hounds for a long run on a trail nearby, they weren’t with me for the last two months of travelling and the one I adopted last year didn’t do so well with the separation (she stopped eating and lost a lot of fur). The dogs I’ve rescued from shelters seem to do worse when I’m away, plus she is a dominant dog and doesn’t like the boss being absent, so long walks now that I’m back are essential.

Hopefully the time outside will be enough so that I can look at the pieces I’m unsure about and know what they need.

entry

2009-09-23T06:56:00.000+01:00

My three+ months of travel will come to an end soon, it’s odd making that transition from mobile to stationary. No more thinking about which stamps to use, or how much money to exchange, and no scramble to get Ryan Air boarding passes printed to avoid a penalty at the airport that is bigger than my ticket cost. Post-travel life always feels so quiet, too quiet, but it will be nice to have predictable internet access, plus it’s easier to cook in my own kitchen. Except that I love to eat but am not that wild about cooking, so I don’t care about that last one. Oh well.

In these last weeks I’m getting a bit of work done, but I have several pieces that I am 90% happy with and can’t decide what the missing 10% is, very frustrating.

15 kilos

2009-09-03T20:28:00.000+01:00

No art today because I am travelling, all packed to Ryan Air’s precise requirements. These are photographs I took during a drive with my sister the other day, all things we won’t see for a while. The farmer who sold us honey that day insisted that we come down to pick the tomatoes with him so that we could appreciate the layout of his farm. The tomatoes were amazing with some herbs we picked and chevre on bread.

terraces

2009-08-30T21:37:00.000+01:00

The other day a group of us went picnicking by the river hidden in all that foliage. The house with the green shutters is abandoned, but so desirable – it has a view, beyond the garden, of both the ruins of the castle and the mountains off in the distance. The part of the castle most visible from there is the part blown up by dynamite, part of a standing skeleton.

Later, I bought a lovely sketch of the church in our neighbouring town from an artist there who has an upcoming show of paintings of local architecture. The sketch is charming, very lively, making me think again that it’s wrong that drawings get so little respect.

Galina

2009-08-28T22:00:00.000+01:00

I’m never sure whether I should write on bad days, but I’m thinking that until I get enough distance to make it sounds funny it’s probably best not to, eh?

It was nothing horrible, I’m just a delicate flower when it comes to a few certain things. Well, ok, I’m a delicate flower that lifts heavy weights and skilfully wields a pick-axe, but other than that…

stairway

2009-08-27T21:30:00.000+01:00

I have to do some writing about my work and I’m dreading it. I don’t feel very articulate about what I do, and I don’t have a clear idea of what people want to know about me or my art. I did brainstorm a list of stuff about the work I’m currently doing, maybe I need a ghost-writer to shape it. I wonder if people still hire ghost-writers, it seems such an old-fashioned term.

I’m not a writer at heart (I used to say I avoid writing the way I avoid cutting myself with knives, that is, sometimes it happens despite my best efforts), so it has surprised me how much I enjoy publishing a blog, but my posts do tend to be pretty brief.

inconnu

2009-08-24T21:08:00.000+01:00

Work in progress. The texture will be softer, the various edges will be worked, and the gilt enhanced.

There is a thunderstorm overhead, a very dramatic background to work to.

cheval

2009-08-23T15:17:00.000+01:00

These are views of the town today, local products day, but I spent my food money for the next few weeks on these streets yesterday at the vide-grenier (flea market) on bits for assemblages, so I enjoy the fragrance of the food only. The live music and dancing last night had everyone out late after our street dinner party (good company, delicious food).

This is a big part of today. The horse and rider on the course did some amazing manoeuvres, the blond with the forelock is a total sweetie.

Besides hundreds of horses, ponies, and burros there are traditional woodworkers, blacksmiths, and a small herd of sheep to be shorn. It’s time for me to head back out, there is a whole section of town I didn’t get to this morning with fowl, rabbits, pottery, and more food, of course. Then tonight is a concert of Andean music.

opera

2009-08-21T14:15:00.000+01:00

This is one of a few black and white pieces I’m working on.

I was talking with a very talented painter yesterday whose works range from notebook-size to barn wall-size. I know very few people who are comfortable working both very small and very large, and she modestly told me that working on something three times as tall as herself was not much of a challenge, that working small took much more skill. As someone who works exclusively on a small and smaller scale I can’t agree – I wouldn’t even know where to start on a big piece. I did do the one door-sized piece, but not only is that not terribly big, the composition was pure luck.

I adore huge paintings, if I could afford one of her larger pieces it would be worth getting rid of furniture to give it space. Actually, depending on which one I chose, I might just have to build the house around it. Which would be totally worth doing to have her painting of the Venus columns and l’abbaye-école (not on her website, sadly, and neither is the lovely ‘Icare’ which might require a small tower addition to the house). I just need to sell a bazillion of my small works, then I’ll get right to that.

summery

2009-08-19T14:23:00.001+01:00

It is hot! A good reason to take a break and walk along where the horses will be during the market this weekend.

I will not be actually buying a horse (this week anyway), but will be taking photos for a piece I am working on. The winds have started to blow down from the hills so the temperatures should be cooler by then.

view

2009-08-18T02:11:00.001+01:00

This is the view I should have been looking out on today as I worked…but did not. It is the fourth and last day of the village festival, even tonight people only started showing up around 11-ish when the band got going, it will taper off about 4am, thus the reduced daytime productivity. I did notice the pétanque balls were clinking all day (it is such a satisfying sound somehow), apparently unaffected by the late nights.

I have little experience with village festivals in any country, but to me the crowd here looks far more urban than party-goers in les Etats-Unis outside of the big cities NY, LA, SF, Boston & Miami, and the range of ages on the dance floor is much wider. The eight-year-old daughter of my neighbour began the evening at 9:30 on the bumper cars and was dancing with no sign of slowing down at midnight.

Next weekend is the vide-grenier (flea market) and horse sale, I don’t want to eat this week so that I can buy more bits for assemblages.

2009-08-16T21:36:00.000+01:00

Revisiting this one, with more colour. This is not my usual palette and I find it changes the emphasis quite a bit.

sonnet

2009-08-15T21:09:00.001+01:00

Detail of a recent piece.

cashio

2009-06-11T21:27:00.000+01:00

I’m excited because I’m getting ready for three months of travel, but I’m also mourning because I haven’t been able to work on assemblages lately, and I won’t be able to bring those materials on the road. I will be restricted to working on pieces like this one (which I do love creating), plus a few fiber projects which pack easily. It’s frustrating to want to be making things and not be able to get my hands on the bits and pieces, but at least I will be finding more in the four countries I’ll be travelling through to visit my family.

There are a few things I’m sharing from the garden before I leave – raspberries, boysenberries, figs, pads for nopales (with lentils, yum!), and this lone avocado, very buttery. When I get back there may be a few strawberry and pineapple guavas left, then there will be pomegranates. I’ll miss the peaches – heavenly when they’re ripe and the skin slides off in your fingers, also the ripening of the manzana bananas and thimbleberries. My stubborn pineapples think they are just for show, all the other bromeliads bloom while they just sit there, but I am very happy because an ancient cycad that was damaged and seemed to die three years ago just produced a beautiful crown of leaves.

I love traveling, although I will miss a lot of close friends – three months is a long time between visits, but I will be staying with family and friends, some of whom I only see every few years, and there will be a new bébé when I get back.

tulip rete

2009-06-07T07:15:00.000+01:00

Whenever I pass by I admire a beautiful astrolabe in the clock repair shop around the corner. There are many lovely things in the window, but I’ve always been especially fond of these instruments. The Museo di Storia della Scienza has a great collection, and the British Musem has this – a rare ‘pocket’ version found some years back.

weggehen

2009-06-01T19:28:00.000+01:00

I was thinking about the process of art – I love how poet Hilde Domin talks about being deeply immersed in her writing, then stepping back. From a poem of hers:

Man muß weggehen können
und doch sein wie ein Baum:
als bliebe die Wurzel im Boden,
als zöge die Landschaft und wir ständen fest

(my not-very-poetic translation:
One must be able to go away
and yet be like a tree:
as if the roots remained in the ground,
as if the landscape moved and we stood fast)

wing

2009-05-07T01:59:00.000+01:00

I happy to find this bit of handwriting to use for this piece, it’s so smooth and dense. It looks blurry on this post, but the original is quite clear.

Being away from the flotsam & jetsam of my workroom for so long I somehow fell out of the groove of assemblage. Back to work the other day I was at loose ends, mainly in the mood to rivet, but not inspired by anything right away. I finally made mini box with a beautiful dark pearl (from a lovely friend) and copper wire, I’ll post a photo later. I need to get back into creating complications, moving parts, etc.

another sun

2009-04-24T01:30:00.000+01:00

Another poem. There has been a lot of writing in my art this year, but not much in these blog posts.

So many small disasters have occurred since December – I think that I must have offended some minor god. Everything from a truck falling through my bridge and having to put one of my dogs down, to a key breaking in the gate lock and the kitchen tap exploding (surprisingly, I managed to fix that last for 38 cents). Each new event happens before I’ve finished dealing with the last, leaving no time for boredom, or writing much here.

In the midst of everything else I’m looking for a place that will reproduce these pieces.

sisyutl

2009-04-19T23:19:00.000+01:00

This is not finished yet, the 3-headed monster needs to be integrated and I’m not sure how I feel about the absence of writing.

ephemeral art

2009-04-13T18:09:00.000+01:00

Freezing is fun, but dancing – I love this!

It reminded me of Joshua Bell’s Metro performance a while back:

draft

2009-04-04T21:31:00.000+01:00

I have a commission for a huge version of this, yay!

sky

2009-04-02T06:10:00.000+01:00

I have guests occupying my workroom for these few weeks, so I am working on digital collages of my photos and ephemera in the meantime.

I meant to open an Etsy store in March, but didn’t get it together in time, I am looking for someone new to do these prints, then I should be set to go.

transom

2009-03-26T22:17:00.000Z

This is part of a series I am working on. I never seem to translate them onto the blog page exactly, but you get the idea.

ajouré

2009-03-25T05:59:00.000Z

rock-combing

2009-03-21T20:04:00.000Z

I grew up combing beaches, exploring tide pools and rocks hiding washed up treasures. My sisters and I walked miles (we thought) on driftwood without touching the sand, squished our feet at the edge of the water to make quicksand, and flew kites for hours on end.

I’m not even sure where to buy paper and balsam to build a kite anymore!

wool in Wales

2009-03-18T17:05:00.000Z

well-trained Border Collies + shepherds with time and imagination = sheep art

ruby

2009-03-08T20:03:00.000Z

I love making these tiny boxes, this one is about two centimeters across. As usual, the tiny jewel rotates out to catch the light.

fields

2009-03-08T02:35:00.000Z

What an amazing number of people can pack into a house when there is a band, eh? Especially when there are violins, a mandolin, guitar, whistles and a bodhrán (that last is essential). One of the violinists was 12 years old, a 78-year-old sang two solos. Of course towards the end of the evening the songs of separation and rebel tunes came out. Athenry was summoned, and a song that started with an Irish boy losing his leg in the American civil war ended with Bush and his Iraq war. Predictable, but perfect.

prod your gondola on over

2009-03-07T10:00:00.000Z

If you are in Southern California, please visit the fabulous Miss Ph tonight as she and these other talented artists show their work. Surrounded by art, a glass of wine in hand and interesting people to chat with, it will be a good evening.

verdigris

2009-03-07T06:16:00.000Z

lost

2009-03-05T22:28:00.000Z

I love this fragment, it went inside the lid of The Egypt Box (one of the story boxes I made a while back).

beams

2009-03-03T06:47:00.000Z

In all the excitement of the Eglu, I forgot my bag of electronics up north and cannot charge my camera or load any photos of my work. Very frustrating. Hopefully it will only be a few weeks till it gets here.

not snow!

2009-02-27T00:20:00.000Z

Since I last wrote in January I’ve been 1,000 miles north and back. Like many migrating creatures I do this yearly, usually in late spring and early fall, but ended up going for a midwinter break also. I imagined I would spend my time listening to the cold wind whistling outside while I curled up with a pile of books in front of the woodstove, with occasional trips to a comfy chair in front of the library’s fireplace, or to meet up with friends in a café for a chat, my hands warmed by a mug of caffeine.

Not so much.

Instead, there was relentless sunshine (outside two brief snowfalls) provoking me out into the garden. So, I planted these lovely hellebores, a peach tree, an Italian prune, and one of those fancy cherry trees with four varieties grafted onto the trunk. I’m not normally in favour of multi-grafted trees, I did it for efficiency since I also had serial disasters keeping me from my books, including a truck falling through my bridge.

The return drive found the fiendish hounds crammed into the little bit of space not occupied by the new (used) Eglu. The family selling it needed a bigger coop, and before I left the daughter played a few beautiful tunes on the harp then demonstrated how she could balance a (live) mauve chicken upside-down on her head. Such talent!

waves

2009-02-26T01:05:00.002Z

I didn't expect to go so long with out posting, but I was off in the wilderness and internet-less. Apologies to commenters whose comments have gone unanswered, and double to Mike whose comment somehow got sent to the spam bin. I'll write more tomorrow, then it's back to work.

2009-01-12T23:16:00.002Z

I've been working on earrings and necklaces and besides the beautiful creamy pearls I normally use I've made a few pieces with some delightfully shaped freshwater pearls that are barely blue (they also look great with steel wire). I was on such a copper+pearl binge that I am now out of several gauges of copper wire and all but the tiniest pearls.

Tomorrow I'll be working with some lovely smoky crystals and gold wire.

good morning

2009-01-10T06:58:00.003Z

First thing this morning I opened up the delivery from yesterday and put two of my favourite things together - pearls and copper. These earrings are not very big, about an inch long, the next ones will be longer, and have more pearls.

shiny

2009-01-09T21:23:00.003Z

I got a delivery of tools and jewels this afternoon, so tomorrow I'll put away the clockpunk boxes and assemblages and make some earrings! A package of new elements is inspiring, since I use a lot of found materials and vintage or antique pieces I don't often get a whole bag of fun stuff all at once. I can't wait to try the three new pliers, but somehow the collet for my Dremel has gone missing, foiling my plans for lots of flat rivets.

I'm still fooling around with these crows, I like them, but haven't found a way to use them that I'm happy with. For now they are just one of the multitude of bits getting tossed around the workroom until inspiration knocks them off the shelf.

wald

2009-01-06T01:07:00.001Z

Bäume und Frakturschrift.

linked

2009-01-04T07:27:00.003Z

I have many partially finished pieces right now, but nothing near completion. Plus I keep changing my mind about which way to go with my favourite bits, many of which include pearls and copper wire. I am loving both the copper and steel wires I've been working with lately (and I always love pearls!).

This week I was at a few parties with people I don't see often but whom I adore, it was a great way to start the year. Eating as much fantastic party food as I did, maybe not such a great way to start the year.

chaotic silence

2009-01-02T08:41:00.003Z

I think the music Clow-chan chose goes well with the clips, and how can you not <3 Harold Lloyd?

swirl

2009-01-01T15:21:00.000Z

As usual I start making something and need a tool I don't yet own (although there can't be many left in that category). Of course, the hardware store down the street doesn't carry circlip pliers, either internal or external, so it's left to internet shopping to save the day.

A close friend of mine pooh-pooh's New Year's Resolutions, he says you should make changes in your life through-out the year, whenever you think of it. I agree (being fond of change, in general), but I think it's good to be reminded periodically to examine your life, just in case you get caught up in things and forget to take a step back, look at the big picture and decide on any additions and/or alterations. My list will get longer, but my first resolution for this year is to open an Etsy store this Spring.

remix

2008-12-30T06:22:00.004Z

Finally, an explanation (although incomplete) for the oddness of Jacopo Tintoretto's 'Nativity' - what is now a horizontal painting of the beginning of Jesus Christ's life used to be a vertical painting of the end of his life. Still unexplained is why Tintoretto cut up such a large piece and reworked it, apparently a couple decades after completing the original.

Here is an article about the discovery and film of a moment of restoration (or almost a moment anyway, isn't a moment 40 seconds?).

If you click here you can see the parts of the crucifixion that were remodelled into 'Nativity' by comparing the painting to the x-ray. If you zoom the slider up to the x-ray end and click 'show lines' then push the slider back down to see the paint you can see how he cut and re-arranged the pieces of canvas into the current, very different composition. Now, to find the missing pieces!

lace

2008-12-29T21:47:00.006Z

I'm forging leaves and swirls for some jewellery and an assemblage book. The bits of wire sticking out will be removed as the rivets go in, and I am starching pieces of lace to be stretched between them.

Cutting up the lace, even though it is damaged, is hard - I love making things but have a very hard time breaking something rather than restoring it. Friends have told me I'll get over that someday, but it hasn't happened yet and occasionally I think about going back to school (again!) because I'd love to do restoration, especially on textiles.

Finally I got to see who has been dropping clouds of pigeon feathers from the jacaranda and leaving wings to flutter down at odd times. This is the first time I have seen one of these in the fountain, he had three watery baths plus a sun bath because that water is cold!

wreath

2008-12-26T06:44:00.000Z

As a kid I heard many different explanations of what Boxing Day was, here is all of what I was told, plus some.

pilgrimage

2008-12-24T07:21:00.002Z

A date palm symbolizes planning for the future because it grows very slowly so the children of the person who planted it are the ones to harvest the fruit.

leaves

2008-12-23T01:04:00.001Z

While I was trying to fit some pieces for an assemblage book together this morning without altering them much I was reminded of how Andy Goldsworthy challenges himself to use materials he finds on site and with minimal modification. I love that he intends many of his creations to be ephemeral, like Tibetan Buddhist mandalas. The mandalas in person are so different from their photos, the visible height of the layers and the sound of the scraping on the sand delivery cones, seeing Goldsworthy's work in person must be even more different, the sounds and smells and breeze would add so much to the experience. Except the the smell of the dead heron he plucked the feathers from for one piece, I don't mind missing that.

clock beetle

2008-12-20T06:25:00.004Z

I'm letting this piece sit for a while until I figure out where to go with it. I spent much of today drilling tiny, tiny holes in wire which I will rivet tomorrow, also experimenting with odd-shaped rivets of various materials.
Last Saturday was a day of coincidental meetings. At the show (which was in another city) I ran into the lovely woman who was my neighbour for the last seven years until she bought a house this summer. Later, at dinner in a Peruvian restaurant, it turned out that the woman sitting next to me had been in the same Chinese (language) school that I was in, for the same three years, but we had never met before this. Two friends on my left told us they ran into each other on a sidewalk in New York last month, neither knew the other was planning to be there.

seriously, who robs a tomb at 10 in the morning?

2008-12-18T22:55:00.001Z

Mystery as century-old Swiss watch discovered in ancient tomb sealed for 400 years

must have

2008-12-16T01:06:00.003Z

Science Museum/Science & Society Picture

This is the best tea-maker I have ever seen and, dangerous or not, I wish this was a photo from my kitchen! Here is the blurb from the Science Museum, where I will have to visit it until someday I make my own:

The original design of this machine was built by Albert E Richardson, a clockmaker from Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. The patentee of the machine and maker of this example, Frank Clarke, a Birmingham gunsmith, purchased the original machine and all rights to it from Richardson for an undisclosed sum. It was heated by methylated spirits which would be lit by the automatic striking of a match. This action was initiated by the sounding of the alarm clock, which rang again when the tea was ready. A wooden base holds the alarm clock, kettle tilter and methylated spirit stove. Although ingenious, the heavy reliance on the match being lit at the correct time made the machine potentially dangerous. Made by the Automatic Water Boiler Co.

Quick, get the teapot:

Science Museum/Science & Society Picture Library

yet more Antikythera Mechanism

2008-12-11T05:50:00.009Z

Since I linked to Tony Freeth's video on the Antikythera Mechanism a couple months ago, and it was so lovely, I assumed I wouldn't be revisiting that bit of ancient technology here so soon, but between Michael Wright's reconstruction on Youtube (I am totally weak for that kind of thing), and the release of Jo Marchant's book (I've enjoyed her articles in 'New Scientist' and 'Nature'), here we are again. Ms Marchant's book will be available in the U.S. January 2009, or you can order it now from Amazon.co.uk.

mermaid

2008-12-06T01:06:00.001Z

pearls

2008-12-04T01:02:00.004Z

Pearls are so beautiful and strange, the way they reflect light is fantastic.

This is the last thing I finished today, then I went to dinner with friends and met the wool-pusher’s father, who is visiting from England. Miss P herself is easy-going and endlessly generous, with an incredible array of talents ranging from dancing and fiber-art through managing singers and teaching. She and her dad are full of funny stories about their lives, crazy wolfhounds, and adventures all over the world - they are the kind of family you want to be adopted in to, and it was a great ending to a good day.

coeur

2008-12-01T05:55:00.000Z

November

2008-11-30T06:54:00.001Z

garden notes

2008-11-29T01:16:00.001Z

petals

2008-11-28T01:06:00.000Z

Hmm, this appears too cool on the blog. I like the warm original better (the photo was taken with sunset light coming through smoke).

measured

2008-11-27T19:40:00.001Z

On request, here is a picture of one of the legs next to two acorns so that the size is clear.

flotsam and jetsam

2008-11-26T23:39:00.001Z

These are some of the bits that consumed my day.

stone

2008-11-25T22:56:00.001Z

This is the beginning of a little shrine I started this evening after I got tired of making bug legs (below). The figure was a gift from the always generous kats in the belfry, who just opened her etsy shop.

parts

2008-11-24T22:45:00.000Z

proximal

2008-11-23T23:55:00.000Z

Rock and metal are so beautiful together. I did not work with either today, instead I ate and drank with a large group of friends in the garden. I need to remember to have more work ready next time a bunch of people are here, it might distract from the chaos in my workroom.

Tomorrow, besides pretending to be a lumberjack for a few hours I will be carving a compartment out of a book for an assemblage. First I'll go to the library - I need a good audio book for that kind of job.

eternal

2008-11-22T06:28:00.001Z

I am out of tiny old bolts, I'm going to have to keep an eye out for more or age some new ones.

I almost never accept commissions because I have no sense of time. I can't tell if 20 minutes or an hour has passed, so often I set a timer for an hour repeatedly while I'm working to remind myself to look at the clock. There are things I can ask other people, like how long it will take to get somewhere, but I forget to add time for signing in, finding a seat, etc. To be minimally organized I keep a list of tasks and constantly revise it to move priorities to the top without writing in times or dates. When I try to estimate what I can get done, say in the two hours before I am going to leave, I am generally way too optimistic, and find myself in the middle of something when I should be walking out the door. Very frustrating, but I work around it so others don't have to, and only accept requests from a couple people who know me well.

lotus

2008-11-21T18:27:00.001Z

endive and pear salad

2008-11-20T23:57:00.001Z

What a perfect day - metal work for the assemblage in the morning, gardening in the afternoon, and French food with good company (and great conversation) in the evening.

I'm not liking my leg building options for the beetle I'm building today, it's big and I need to figure out a new type of joint.

*I did not kill the little guy in the picture, I found him dead on my workspace one morning. His antennae are adorable.

graphite pencil

2008-11-19T22:03:00.002Z

Sometimes I get frustrated by the slow rate at which I work. I guess I'm embarrassed that I don't work in a furious, driven frenzy of creativity. I walk my dogs fast, climb rocks fast, drink pots of tea fast, but I write slowly and I create slowly.

When an exhibit of Vija Celmins's work came around a while back I was thrilled when they urged people to come see it because there might not be another retrospective during her lifetime since she sometimes takes up to a year to complete a drawing. I don't know if that is true, but it did make me happy.

Actually, everything about her work makes me happy - the waves, the detail, graphite pencil. What a brilliant woman.

pencil

2008-11-18T01:30:00.002Z

These are a couple preliminary sketches for the bookplates. There is a crow flying away right outside the frame in the one above, I haven't decided whether to put it in the trees or not.

When I'm in the first stage of creating I'm excited by a thousand ideas and have a hard time winnowing the number down, the second stage is me loving the piece I'm working on. As soon as I get near to completing a project I suddenly don't like it at all, and when I finish I can't wait for it to be gone. I never have a problem with falling in love with my work and not being able to let it go.

ex libris

2008-11-17T00:42:00.003Z

I have been commissioned to create a series of bookplates, so I am casting about for direction. My first thought was a book curse and I was irritated to see that the one curse included in the Wikipedia entry is not from an ancient book, but was made up as a joke less than 100 years ago. It is funny though.

I love bookplates, small private works of art, I can see why people collect them. As I understand it the group of people collecting world-wide is so small they pretty much all know each other. I bought an old book recently and someone had carved the bookplate out of the front cover instead of steaming it off, maybe it was leather, apparently those are hard to remove. I made a few metal ones recently, etched on copper foil, for a friend.

*For those who didn't see the comments to this post, Mr Jaffe, a collector for over thirty years, gave the link to his bookplate blog, which has many beautiful and interesting images: http://bookplatejunkie.blogspot.com/

not in the garden

2008-11-16T22:19:00.002Z

I mapped out today's post in my head last night, it was long and intricate, and I was going to to flesh it out during the endless hours I was planning to work in the garden today - it linked orchid hunting in Irian Jaya with everyday life and I needed to somehow make all the philosophy clear. Atmospheric conditions changed my plans, instead I worked with metal all day and I'm so tired that botanical and philosophical musings are beyond me at this point. Plus my ears are ringing. Maybe I'll write abbreviated version of that post later in the week. Or maybe not.

coleopteric gifts

2008-11-15T20:10:00.002Z

I am surrounded by generous friends. An example of this is in the little bottle to the left in this photo, the latest carcass Maltagirl brought me. This summer she went to great lengths to put aside several of these lovelies for me, saving them in a jar in her kitchen even though it turned out on occasion that one or more of the critters was not as dead as it had originally seemed and was later found hiking across the tiles making for the back door (*all revived fig beetles were released into the wild to die another day). She sacrificed upper shelf space in that unlikely room because her adorable youngest calls these beetles his ‘family’ and insists that any live one be captured to cuddle up and watch movies with him - seeing bodies in a jar might have proved traumatic.

Another example above to the right, also green and beetle shaped, is one of many gifts from Ms Creativity herself, who has been generous not only with these and other small bodies, but is raising my apprentice with lovely manners and great cooking skills. She is also 100% responsible for me starting this blog and several other rewarding pursuits.

evening

2008-11-14T23:25:00.000Z

Happy chaos. A wider view of my workspace would show more of the same. Only pieces that are in the first stages of creation are ever visible since after that first bit the construction goes faster and faster until they are finished, then they leave immediately before I can reconsider. There are usually many bits laying around that are 1 - 5% finished, as their numbers increase they get combined. Not methodical work, but fun.

not sisters

2008-11-13T19:27:00.004Z

This map is so beautiful, I was happy to hear that more investigations at the site indicate its true status. Mr Hitchcock has compiled some articles on it here, he also has a page of hoaxes, including Piltdown Man, a childhood favourite of mine.

Years ago I visited a house outside London that had a display of silver and other items that had spent years in a closet because they were forgeries. The family decided that besides being beautiful, the stories of the hoaxes were interesting, so they revealed all, a bold move.

I loved the Voynich Manuscript the first time I saw it, even though I was sure it was a fake. Besides its beauty, the fact that it is a forgery makes it fascinating, I keep wishing more information would turn up.

case

2008-11-12T18:14:00.002Z

As is probably clear, even though I haven't posted many photos of my work on here (I will, I swear), I am of the salvaging-type persuasion. Sometimes something out-of-the-ordinary turns up which starts me in a new direction artistically, but today's find (above) has me imagining I am staying here and planning in the next few months to explore a bit here before returning to do some archaeology with my permaculture friend from yesterday's post (who, when I met him, was involved with antiquities at a major museum).

I was happy that the canvas cover had managed to stay with the suitcase all these years, and that it is all in such good shape despite the canvas being wet.

practitioner

2008-11-11T06:00:00.001Z

This is the person who got me interested in Permaculture - he is always finding massive amounts of useful information and is wonderful about sharing it. A brilliant man, he has used what he's found to make great changes on his farm, unfortunately it is in a country I can't visit. He also paints and recently sent this photo of himself, which tells you something about his sense of humour.