it hasn't exactly been a quiet summer

two weeks have just vanished somewhere,

never to be seen again.

i madly dyed scarves and packed cards

and took them to the Post Office where 

the kindly Postmistresses managed to get stamps on to the boxes

(most of them, anyway)

and send them on their way

i made a dress for a friend

and dyed a kimono for her as well

unfortunately the kimono apparently picked up a somewhat 

smoky smell from my studio

which i didn't notice, being accustomed to the slight smell of bushfire 

that seems to hang around the cauldron

but which intensified in the humid climate of the east coast

happily she was able to neutralise the aroma by soaking 

the offending garment in water with a 

teaspoon of eucalyptus oil added. phew.

i sent another dress to a new home in Victoria

(fingers crossed it arrived safely and fits, i haven't heard yet!)

and dyed some cloth for Poet's Ode (to be made into cushions)

in between i was taking care of my granddaughter

while her parents kicked up their heels in New Orleans

she's been handed safely back now.

running errands today i noticed the tree loppers had been at work

so i gathered up a pile (never let a chance go by) 

after dark i layered leaves and cards

sandwiched them between two bits of brass

and stuffed the bundle into a wee pot i picked up in New Zealand last year

 

i particularly like the bakelite handle.

back in 2007 i had a bigger version of this

and used it in a summer school class i taught for Whitireia at Kapiti.

unfortunately the one student who needed to leave early 

to attend a yarn fest somewhere (while we were on a field trip)

mistakenly took my pot with her (she had a similar smaller one). 

win some, lose some.

at least i have a baby pot now!

while on the subject of winning and losing

it seems the ink on the wandercards is by no means as stable

as that on the sample i had originally tested.

as you can see

'in the armchair' has pretty much been scrubbed.

so if you have invested in these cards, 

please only dye the blank ones

otherwise you'll lose a lot of information.

you can still colour them,

by beating in leaves (hapa-zome)

by grinding leaves and flowers in a mortar and pestle

and brushing the colour on

or

by rubbing colour in from petals

or just using your watercolours.

 

(i'm so pleased with this post-consumer recycled 

paper stock that i'm going to order a quantity of blank cards

just for dyeing)

 

lastly i'm delighted to announce that a three-day version 

of being (t)here will be held at Poet's Ode on the long weekend in April.

if you want to take this class in Australia

this is your last chance for the year

as the one at Beautiful Silks sold out before it was announced

and

the class at Scott's Head filled within days

otherwise

you'll have to hop the ditch next year

and join me in the lovely Ludd Valley instead!

same town, new eyes

yesterday i had to take the trusty Augustus

down to Murray Bridge for a grease and oil change

i love that i can take backroads there

through familiar bits of wide brown land

some visitors have described our roads as brutal

frankly most times i'd rather putter along on the dirt than hoon along the freeway

(unless i'm in a pony car. that's a different matter. entirely.)

after we dropped Augustus at his day spa

Kubbi and i faced a day on foot in the great outdoors

(they don't offer loan vehicles if you have a furry friend) 

also, we needed to carry supplies (drinks and snacks)

because unlike the customs prevailing in Europe 

where dogs are welcome even in restaurants

Australian canine companions are discouraged from darkening the doorways of local businesses

no matter how pretty they are

so it was a chance for me to discover that town through 

a different set of eyes

and accompanied by a different set of feet.

there's an evil local weed called caltrop

which has horrible and vicious spikes and is unavoidable in several places.

 i had to carry the Kubblet across several infested areas to avoid having her paws stabbed

we walked to the big river

met some other pups

and there was a splendid romp

(which was too much fun to be part of to waste time messing with a camera)

sat in the shade under one of the bridges for which the town is named

and watched corellas pretending to be pigeons

and also showing off by performing acrobatics and hanging upside down

and then went back for another swim

wandering about aimlessly

making the odd drawing

playing with feathers and bark

and an enthusiastic pup

was rather fun

(though i had a pile of work waiting at home)

and now i had better get on with it

to Sweden, from the Deep South

back home on the farm with a few days to finish dyeing a collection of dresses that are going to Sweden tomorrow

Sweden?

yes indeed.

when Li Edelkoort and Philip Fimmano ask you to put together a few things to take part in an exhibition at short notice...you don't say no.

so of course I said yes please, how many pieces would you like?

the answer came back : seven dresses with big skirts

dresses with big wild skirts are my favourite things to make.

Kubbi lent a paw and in between supervising me pootled off for a swim with Uncle Boston and Auntie Molly

Willow [also known as Mrs Poo] prefers to take her baths without water.


so now i have seven dresses in the cauldron. Kubbi helps me gather sticks to feed the fire.
then they need to cool and dry before sending off tomorrow. i'd have preferred to leave them bundled for longer but as i'm hopping on a flying sardine can headed for my beloved Aotearoa early next week it's not practical : they need to be photographed for the catalogue before they go in the mail

although it's a group exhibition [there are twelve of us] this is a big event for me...
because it will also be the first time that a series of my photographs will be exhibited in Europe [as a backdrop to the dresses].

the show is at Artipelag, a museum on an island near Stockholm and runs February 6 - May 3, 2015

wandering + wondering

last Tuesday i packed 'back country' into the back of the ute [that's a pick-up if you're American] and headed out via the World's End Highway, the Goyder Highway and then the Barrier Highway up to Broken Hill and across New South Wales to deliver and install the work at the Tamworth Regional Gallery. [that's a little over 3000km there and back again]

and then yesterday i got up before sunrise, climbed into the [now much emptier] ute and pointed it in a westerly direction. Augustus [that's the ute's name] could smell his home paddock and was eager to go. 

me too.

i was also eager to see the Geminid meteor shower that's lighting up the night skies at present, so as the sun got lower i began to look for a suitable campsite. it's been years since i last slept under the sky in the outback. when the children were small we simply camped in a paddock at home and in recent years much of my travel has been to destinations overseas where camping isn't a practical response to the challenge of finding a bed [and where there are ticks, which give me the heebie jeebies]

about 120km east of Broken Hill i found a small red dirt road labelled Wirreanda. it looked suitably infrequently used so i turned up it and drove until i could see just the lights of the trucks on the highway but not hear them [thinking that i wanted to be within walking distance in case Augustus didn't want to start in the morning]. i also took a screen shot of the compass on my iPhone and messaged it to the folks back home so that they would have the coordinates in case that was the last time they heard from me and had to search for a body. 

then i unrolled my swag in the tray of the ute [there's just enough room for me to sleep diagonally] and hung a mosquito net over the top. perfect.

 

in the past i have always had a dog along when sleeping out but the pawprints left by Kip when she passed on July 19th, 2010 still haven't been filled so the precaution above [given the lack of canine company] was a simply sensible thing to do. you never know.

it turned out to be a splendid night, initially enlivened by lightning displays around the horizon and then beautifully clear with a myriad shooting stars, including one that seemed almost a Min Min light, bright green and travelling horizontally about 10 degrees above the northern horizon.

and then a couple of hours before dawn the moon rose in the east, cunningly disguised as a big slice of candied orange. at one point a tiny passing bat grazed my cheek with its wing as it flipped by, casually disposing of a mosquito

i had brought a book to read and also a set of solar powered twinkle lights [they'd been charging up on the dash all day] to read by but i never so much as turned a page and after testing the lights, turned them off as well. 

 

it was such a luxury to have the time to watch the sun go down, see the stars appear and truly appreciate the slow transition from day into night, listening to the birds organising themselves for sleep, the brief concerto of singing insects and then the rich velvety silence of a desert night, so quiet that it seemed i could hear the passing stars

and

i'm pretty sure the shades of the seven lovely Dogs who have blessed my life were there as well 

in the morning, after a bit of yoga [that 33 year old swag doubles nicely as a yoga mat] i packed up and discovered i had not been alone after all

there were also "tail-drag" marks from a kangaroo who had visited in the night, maybe to ask me to stop snoring. i hadn't heard it at all.

 i headed off again, stopping for a musical interlude under a bridge just outside Broken Hill while it was still cool and before the flies got busy. i like the acoustics that big bridges offer.

i found that others had been there before me

oh yeah? well i had sax under the bridge. 

far less messy and i'm guessing it probably sounded better too.

 

AWOL

on Thursday last week i filled a cauldron with bundles

set a fire underneath

and promptly absconded. 

i was in need of friend, dog and ocean therapy. 

happily i was blessed with all of the above. 

(that dress has special pockets for my Sabahs) 

and now back at home i have a cauldron full of bundles to unroll...

but i think i might give them another night's sleep.

being (t)here...again

it was lovely to come back to Newburgh

to work with Netti and Alison

who are like sisters and very kind to me

we worked on paper

first with words

and then with dyes

 local meadowsweet

made lovely colours

 we made a concertina river book

and a new sweet folded book

that i developed especially for the class

i call it the "island book"

because you have to sail around it to appreciate it fully

 trusty studio assistant Jazz cooling off

 wonderful peonies

 and the beautiful river

fresh and full of new stories each day

 we wrote and shared poetry

 found hearts in the streets

laid bundles in patterns here and there

and generally had a wonderful time.

Isabel [who works at the charity shop]

told me how the church [where our workshop took place]

used to be the drill hall for the "territorials"

and then that the Poles lived there during the war

and that there was a dance held there

"and the floor was ever so slippery"

+

the trouble with having good friends scattered around the whirled

is having to say goodbye. 

but not forever, merely ae fond farewell [misquoting Robert Burns] until next year

you can see more pix from class

here

and

here

And please, Father Christmas, may I have a bear like this?