(still) in place

am delighted to say that

though the Arid Lands Botanic Garden Sculpture exhibition has now concluded

my work

'elegy'

will be staying there indefinitely

'elegy' is a poem written in bones

so far wind and weather and passing animals

have not effected any great change

i'll stop in from time to time

to give it a reassuring pat

read it a story

and

document how it is responding

to being there

in place

the solace of north

i've been wandering

northwards

taking some visitors to country

that is quite unlike the place where they live

it's a long way there

but worth the trek

my role was driver and camp cook

and keeper of the flame

feeding the wood stove in the kitchen 

and the donk that heats the water for the showers

[the visitors very kindly took on the washing up]

but in between i still found time for writing

and for drawing on and with country

on the seventh day

i left the visitors in Port Augusta

to make their way to other things

and went north again

this time a little west

past a lake of crystal salt

for a few days quiet work at the Observatory

where i found

six contributions for the Solace project

already awaiting me

all the way from the UK and the USA

as well as closer to home

back country, back story

if you click on the image above it should take you to the Moleskine site

where you can read the back story to back country online

when i receive my print copies

of which there will only be three

i will be annotating them in pencil and ink

one for the gallery

one for me

and one to go across the seas

coming soon

i've been working on the booklet

promised to participants in the Second Skin classes

that will take place in lovely Mansfield, Victoria

in November this year

unlike The Bundle Book

which contains explicit step by step instructions

on how to print on cloth and paper with leaves

string me a story on shapeshifting

will be 32 pages of ideas

jumping off-points

sketches and photographs

i'm hoping Second Skin participants will add to their copies

by writing extra notes in the pages

perhaps even tipping in a few extra ones

adding their own drawings

the odd swatch

other inspirational images

so that it becomes a highly personal working tool

this will be a strictly limited edition

100 copies only

numbered and signed

testing the water for that other publishing idea

that i floated a while ago

and Sidnee?    i owe you a dress [as well as the first copy of the above]
...those pix i shot of you in Portland last year 

have been getting a hammering

also

i think we need to do another photo-shoot

with a real photographer

in New Orleans

now that would make a fabulous publication

just sayin, is all