dear 1393 (the annual report)

the glorious view over the heathlands, from Mount Chudalup

one of the remarkable wildflowers in South West
Western Australia

to the 1393 folks who've stuck by this blog over the years.
a little over ten years, as it happens.

thank you for hanging in there.

this calendar year has been a particularly full one. I've taught five times in Australia, twice in Scotland and Canada,
once in New Zealand and once in France. that's eleven workshops. seven of them were a week (as in 5 days) long, three were three days, one was a mere seven hours and one ran over two weeks.

a string-and-bundle installation
created for the sculpture park
'understory' by the participants of
the retreat to Northcliffe, WA,
in October

I made paper by hand during a brief residency at Richard de Bas papermill in France and spent time in New Orleans, dreaming up new work and collaborating with musician John Fohl.

I built a new website at a new address, and then bought back my old domain name from my former host so as not to lose all the goodwill that it had built up over the past ten years
and
somewhere in between I took a big swig from a cup of courage and
having previously resisted offers from others (the kind that read "come to our studio across the seas at your own expense, let us film you doing tricks and then we'll give you 5% of the profits") launched the School of Nomad Arts, which is giving me much delight.

I had no idea it would be so satisfying to make wee movies and create online classes.
now I know.

I'm writing this post from the beautiful gardens at Inverewe in Scotland, where I am spending the last week of November, dyeing with windfall leaves, preparing for an exhibition in their Sawyer Gallery (next June) and dreaming up more classes for my school.

unsurprisingly, the mirror tells me I'm looking a tad frayed.

it may be time for a wee rest.
time to go home, cuddle that gorgeous grandbaby and go wandering with my dog.

but it's been a fabulous year.

the week at Northcliffe, during which we spent all day each day outside in sunshine and in rain was absolutely glorious. we made a field trip to Mount Chudalup, and created an installation for 'understory', the local sculpture park. people worked on their laps or on the grass, stitching dyed pieces into a 'wayfarer's comforter', a big soft cloth to keep them safe and warm on their travels.

local colour at Northcliffe

a mere two days at home to repack my bags, and I was off to Scotland to begin a three-and-a-bit-week road-and-ferry trip with  Alison Mountain (half of the team of two that make up Big Cat Textiles) . the plan was that Alison would cook for the first retreat (at Ardtornish Estate, near Lochaline) and I would captain the sailboat, and after that we would co-present a retreat on Orkney...meaning we would take turns at cooking and at telling stories. (we are nothing, if not optimistic)

the lovely people at Ardtornish were so chuffed to have us, that we are already confirmed to return in 2020. the gardens there reminded me so much of my parents' lovely garden at Mount Lofty, before it was blackened by fire. and the house itself reminded me of Arthur's Seat, the towered house just a bit further up the mountain from us...where Nancy Harford taught me how to wash Persian carpets with velvet soap and a garden hose, introduced me to the joys of gin+tonic and told me the secret of everything... "whatever happens dearie, never lose your dignity".  I'll confess I'm not always good at keeping that in mind, but I do try.

after five glorious days expecting at any moment to encounter the Dowager Countess Crawley and her withering words around a corner, we left Ardtornish behind us in the wee hours :: driving northward to catch a ferry to the charmingly named port of St Margaret's Hope, Orkney. it was a magical sail across to this gorgeous archipelago, arriving in time for a brilliant sunset. the next day was taken up with serious (double-trolley) food shopping in preparation for the arrival of our participants.  

the Ring of Brodgar

  and so began a week of 13 hour working days, beginning with the morning porridge prep and concluding after the last dessert plate had been cleared. happily we had a cheerie helper (a rare luxury) who smiled through piles of plates and wrangled the ancient dishwasher into submission. 

thank you, Caroline! 

when she isn't disguising herself as a dishie on a far-flung island, she actually runs a clothing company. (and lest the reader thinks I've begun taking interns in return for dishes, no. I have not. both the shared workshop and the assistance will remain unique events. no applications will be received!!)

if you'd like to know more about the actual class...Jane Wheeler has described it in great detail.

and now I'm in my last week here, boiling up a cauldron at the Inverewe Gardens. I came here with the intent of focussing on the eucalypts, but the story seems to be changing as windfalls drift on to my path, squirrels skip across it and herons soar gracefully overhead.  

next year holds four in-person workshops, three solo exhibitions and a number of research trips planned to add depth to the classes I offer online. thank you for your support, whether you've come to a workshop, joined an online class, bought one of my books or simply taken the trouble to sit down and wade through this blog.

let the season of twinkle-lights begin!!

when only mac and cheese will do

I love cooking

so last night I went to see 'Burnt'

mostly because I wanted to loll in a beanbag at Mansfield's Armchair Cinema

and partially because I was curious to see what fresh horror had been brought to the table (pun intended)

...remembering what had been done when one of my favourite food movies, Bella Martha, had been translated into Hollywoodese and become a parody of itself in No Reservations

anyway Burnt began quite well with the hero hopping onto a streetcar in my beloved New Orleans (and the movie trailer kept cutting back there so I had nourished high hopes) to go to work as an oyster shucker (I'm an oyster shucker, I'm an oystershucker's daughter, I like shucking oysters cos....well, ah whatever) but after he scribbles 

1,000,000

in a lovely suede notebook, he storms away from his station (leaving his workmates in the lurch) and is then for some unfathomable reason filmed walking across the Crescent City Connection (formerly the Greater New Orleans Bridge) towards the city (from Algiers) when there's no way he could have taken a streetcar to the West Bank

 it's all downhill from there, garnished with far too many hairy borage flowers, plastic mandolines and a lot of plate throwing (though I must say it was fun to listen to Bradley Cooper speaking French - if indeed that was his voice it was most commendable) and I do hope they paid the divine Emma Thompson a LOT of money to appear in that ridiculous tent dress

but in the end all it did was make me crave mac and cheese for dinner. 

so this evening I boiled up some gluten-free penne, made a sauce using potato flour, butter, garlic and milk.

slung in a lot of cheese and a whisper of creole+Cajun flavours, sprinkled the mix liberally with well-buttered gluten free breadcrumbs and slung it into the oven to think about the sins of the whirled while I wilted some greens with garlic and brown butter to serve as a side. 

damn fine stuff, though I say it myself. sadly I was too eager to dive in to remember to photograph the plate. 

but here are the dregs. tomorrow's breakfast. nom nom nom.

and here are some of the other things I've been photographing today : gorgeous work by my friends Audrey Fittal, Anne Collins, Jan Barker and Mary Heath
made here in Mansfield, Victoria

sniffing the wind

it's been an interesting month or two. life's bowled me a few wobblies including the unexpected passing of an old friend - i shan't bore you with the rest of them other than to speculate that i suppose it's the whirled's way of keeping us on our toes. in theory i should already be at the Observatory, cataloging the Solace pennants ready for installation but there are just a few more things to sort out here and then we can be off to the North in a couple of days.

in the meantime, for the first time in a very long time, i have actually cooked something from a recipe (as opposed to hurling various ingredients together and hoping they will be friends).

the formula for Lemon Delicious was kindly supplied by Mary after i tasted her fabulous pudding at dinner last week. i will confess to browning the butter in advance (remember I'm half Latvian) and to only having panela in the pantry (the recipe calls for white sugar) which threw the colour of the mix a bit but it tasted a good deal better than it looked. 

i served it with lemon butter, a translucent smear of marmalade (thank you Mary), a sprig of lemon verbena and a dob of sour cream. unfortunately when plating I wobbled with the spoon and covered the whole thing with sauce thus accidentally obscuring the lovely brown crust. it's not quite so light as the original but you know the old line about getting to Carnegie Hall...practice.

this week i also visited Treasure Ships, an enormous exhibition at the AGSA. after my recent foray into curating i was doubly awed by the work that has gone into deciding what should go where. happily for the curators, the makers of the works are long passed and thus unlikely to query the display of their work... some of the exquisite block-printed and mordant-painted cloths are affixed to the walls at well over head height and so cannot be clearly seen at all. 

but that's a small quibble. 

 

rather than paraphrasing the media release...i'll paste a bit of it in.

" The works reveal how the international trade in spices and other exotic commodities inspired dialogue between Asian and European artists, a centuries old conversation whose heritage is the aesthetic globalism we know today.

[...]

The exhibition commences with the small country of Portugal. Located on the periphery of Europe, Portugal re-mapped the West’s view of the world and created a mercantile spice empire stretching halfway around the globe during the fifteenth-sixteenth century. In 1498 Vasco Da Gama’s small fleet became the first European ships to reach India and landed with the famous words, ‘we come in search of Christians and spices’.  Within a decade the Portuguese soldier –aristocrat Francisco de Almeida (1450-1510) had ruthlessly seized control of the Indian Ocean spice trade and established Portugal’s permanent presence in Asia which was to last four hundred years.

Treasure Ships also presents the story of exploration and trade, discovery and shipwrecks, as well as illustrating the astonishing beauty of Chinese porcelain, known as ‘white gold’, and vibrant Indian textiles created for export around the world."

there's a particularly amusing Japanese painting of a group of Portuguese in which each one of the men depicted has the same enormous nose (as my companion pointed out with a small giggle). clearly the artist was fascinated by a prominently protruding Portuguese proboscis and painted it onto each face. practice makes perfect.

the relics above were retrieved from the wreck of the Batavia. the gunpowder canister at the top is made from copper and i can cheerfully envisage bundling cloth and leaves around it. happily it is under glass and therefore safe.

while we're talking of voyaging and wanderment i'm delighted to say the itinerary for the long-dreamed of wandering to New Mexico has been confirmed. i've been corresponding with Arts and Cultural Travel for some time now and it's looking as though some kind of adventure (but not necessarily the same story each time) with them may become an annual event. i certainly hope so.

here's the link to the very first one. (i'm told one eager soul has already signed up so that leaves 11 places)

and finally, for your amusement and because i've been getting the usual seasonal requests for internship (please let me come and stay with you so you can teach me everything you know during my summer break) and last month had rather a lot from students frantically trying to put together a conclusive body of work (i want to print leaves on my final collection, will you tell me how) and a couple along the lines of "i'm starting a fashion business please tell me which fabrics to use and what dyes and mordants you would recommend for them" (no, i'm not joking) i have been having to compose kind-but-firm letters in response.

as some of you know i do respond, albeit briefly, to questions where possible, but sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. Austin Kleon has gathered an amusing collection of letters composed by famous people facing far greater deluges of correspondence.

Crockett Cottage Studio, Mansfield

Philadelphus filling the air with fragrance

 

i loved my time at Crockett Cottage Studio this year

(students came from France and New Zealand; West + South Australia and Queensland as well as Victoria and, for the first time in my visits there...Mansfield itself)

so much so that i've booked it again for 2015

in November the local gardens are awash 

with roses, peonies, philadelphus and magnolias

- even a huge liriodendron in full bloom

and the diversity of eucalyptus species available in the region is quite remarkable

i will offer a couple of workshops

one of which, by popular demand, is going to be about bloomers

and scanties and soft things to wear to bed

and also a retreat to which you can bring your own work

(provided it doesn't require noisy machinery or potentially toxic materials)

and share it with like-minded souls in the joy of the sewing circle 

more details soon but essentially

we'll share stories, i will brew daily dyebaths for you to work with

and be available to offer guidance if you need

i shall also be preparing lunch, as the studio has a fine

centrally positioned kitchen area from which i can answer questions

while i happily chop, stir and season

thus combining two of my (several) passions

Julie Pearson looking fabulous in her gorgeous top

the tray of our ute came in handy

not just for opening bundles but also as a very fine cutting table

local colour

it is very important to be nourishing the inner bear.

in other news, applications to attend the Retreat to Tin Can Bay

in Queensland next year are being received until December 9

Roz Hawker and i will be taking turns at sailing the boat

there'll be dyepots (i nearly wrote dyepoets!)

the opportunity to make small things in metal

or make bigger things in situ from found objects 

some quiet wandering and gentle writing

(i'm thinking that a class book may ensue as a memento for participants)

 if you'd like me to send you the bits to fill in

please drop me a line via the contact page on my website

dates : April 19th - 24th, 2015 (arrive on Sunday evening, depart Friday afternoon)

cost: (including vegetarian gluten-free food, 

twin-share accommodation and some materials) $1300

and ONE place is available in the Bower Bird Blues retreat

in the lovely Lud Valley in New Zealand

the week that was (and the year that will be)

I returned home yesterday feeling as though I had been away for a month

when really and truly

I had been just two hours or so down the road for six days

working with my friend Roz

to make food for a class led by my friend  Sandra

in conditions that may not have been ideal

but were the source of much hilarity though they sometimes needed a good deal of ingenuity

and thank goodness (and the Dogs Above) for my lovely friends Sam and Janet White who positively encouraged us to raid their beautiful garden for greens, beans, herbs and flowers (and who put up with us staying with them for the duration and singing loudly in the evenings)

we constructed a workstation from a wheelie bin and an old door

luckily Roz had insisted on buying a waxed table cloth which provided a cleanable prep surface (I fought the purchase at the time thinking "no! Not more Chinese rubbish!" but I was very grateful for it I can tell you.)

we drew pictures on the plates. Roz conjured wonderful table decorations. 

and nobody reported any tummy aches despite having dairy, nut and gluten intolerances among our punters. we cooked vegetarian food that met those conditions and had a splendid time doing it

on Wednesday I'm off to the east...to cook and teach for my classes at Mansfield. sadly Roz has retreated to her paradisical Queensland garden and won't be coming with me

fortunately the kitchen at Crockett Cottage studio is well equipped and because I'm staying there as well I'll be able to prep in the evenings (without having to fend off magpies and wattle birds!)

and now to 2015

it looks like it's going to be a pretty full year, which is a jolly fine thing. so just to fill in the dots between what's already been announced :

in March I'm exhibiting in Tasmania for what used to be called Ten Days on the Island but is now to be the Tasmanian International Arts Festival and

teaching an associated masterclass

in April (because we had so much fun together in our camp kitchen) Roz Hawker and I will be offering something we have been musing on for a while now...a retreat to a quiet and beautiful place somewhere in Australia. 

we may well make it an annual event (and we are contemplating one in South Australia) as well but the very first one will be the retreat at Tin Can Bay in Queensland.

(but this time we shall be leaving all the cooking and the table decorating to our hosts)

attendance will be by application only - this doesn't mean we'll be weeding out anyone who doesn't have a PhD, it simply means that we will be doing our level best to gather a peaceful and compatible group with the best chances of having a lovely time together, because it is helpful to have a bit of background on you so that we can fine-tune the program and because we want this event to be nourishing and enriching as well as playful and also FUN.

drop me a line through my contact page if you'd like me to send you the fine print.

in June I shall be at the Observatory in Andamooka, working on the Solace project

and July sees me traveling to lovely Newburgh again

and staying to participate in a class led by Larry Thomas 

after which I shall hop across to France to join Les Soeurs Anglaises for a week

before heading to my beloved New Orleans for a bit and thence to the beautiful Pacific North West

but more of that later.

if you've made it this far it's time for a cup of tea.

I'm getting one myself and reading this wonderful story again

last two chances to fly

i love it when somebody puts their hand up to organise a workshop
it means i don't have to do it
my skills lie elsewhere, though i'm getting quite good at finding reasonable value airtickets

having already embarassed myself by emailing someone from the waitlist twice
and being slightly pink around the gills
i am not going to attempt another rummage there
but simply tell you that

a couple of places have become available for the Second Skin class at Mansfield, Victoria [Australia]
in November this year

November 11,12,13, in fact.

here are the details


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Join me at Mansfield in Victoria’s beautiful High Country for a three-day retreat during which you will make and dye a beautiful and versatile Silkymerino  secondskin to keep you warm while wandering, together with an exquisite hand-stitched bag in which to carry it with you on your travels.

Each participant will receive an  ecoprint silk goodie bag containing several metres of fabric and a selection of beautiful threads as well as a signed copy of India’s zero-waste dress-making workshop handbook ‘shapeshifter’ and a few surprises. Aesop, bless them, kindly provides us with fragrant cream to keep our hands soft while we sew.

A delicious gluten-free vegetarian lunch [dairy components kept separate to allow for dietary considerations] served with your choice of wine, juice or water will be provided each day, together with morning and afternoon tea and coffee, supplemented by fresh fruit and Haigh’s chocolates.

please send your carrier pigeon through the looking glass if you are interested in securing a place [it will be the last time i teach anywhere this year]


+++ update added July 26 : thank you my friends, the class is full again!

dye experiments

dye experiments don't always end in spectacular results...here's an example

Squashing slices of Lactarius deliciosus between the pages of a moleskine notebook the first reveal [above] looked quite promising 

but it oxidized quite quickly

and was even less exciting after cooking

Good thing I was using pieces from one that was a bit too decrepit to enjoy 

warmed in a frying pan with sour cream, garlic and a little salt & pepper.

sometimes good food is just good food...and that's enough for me!

so eventually i drifted into the home paddock

where i found a pile of mail
which included
a wonderful scarf from Hilde Blank in New Zealand
handwoven polwarth wool, dyed with eucalyptus

a precious bottle of my favourite scent, sadly no longer in production
when i heard it was to be axed i ordered some back up bottles and sent a note to Aesop bemoaning its loss...you could have knocked me down with a feather when i found a whole bottle had been sent me with their kind compliments

and magic dust! thank you Heidi, my sweet host at Titirangi. we had seen the empty space on the shelf marked "magic dust" when out shopping for gumbo ingredients in January and i'd expressed some curiosity as to what it might be. now i know. yum.

and although i had work to do
the forest was calling

there were mushrooms to be found
and picnics to be had

and later on
after a feast of potatoes and Lactarius deliciosus
to bed with some tasty reading

i love the way Nigel Slater writes about food.

hand and heart intensive at Bunya

This morning we got up quite early

I made lavosh

While Roz set the table

We laid another table with materials for class 

And we prepared some good food

It was a marvellous day. People sat about and stitched, then (when they were ready) they bundled 

And put things in this pot

With spectacular results. 

A good day was had by all, methinks.