wandercards

goodness me.

I blinked, and now it is November.

It's been another extraordinary year.

I've had exhibitions in New Orleans, Scotland and England.

Taught in Canada, Scotland and France,

and taught myself a lot about small-scale

film-making for my online school.

The weather is still

awfully dry here in South Australia

in fact

the dams look a bit like that

lovely rusted image above.

I found a pile of dried eucalyptus leaves

in a garden in Mexico

which was a brilliant excuse

to acquire this lovely blue enamel pot.

It's beautifully light and fits

nicely into my suitcase.

The River Tay welcomed me back

(or so I like to think), and several

happy hours were spent filming

bundles drifting on the tide.

Now I'm home a while,

happily dancing with indigo,

teaching myself as much as

I can about that particular magic,

while also working on new projects

for the

School of Nomad Arts.

One of which has been released today.

Some years ago I published a very limited edition

of 'wandercards',

inspirational cards devised to offer ideas for

the exploration of the poetics of place.

There were rather a lot of enquiries about

a reprint, but in the interests of sustainability

I thought it best to make the texts available

online (saving the costs of printing and

mailing) so that people could make their

own unique sets, using repurposed materials

if they wished.

You'll find them here

here and there and everywhere

it's funny how the zeitgeist thing goes.

scanning the interpixies to see "who is doing what" these days reveals that 

P L A C E

is the current favourite workshop flavour.

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i think it's always been mine.

i have fond memories of my wonderful class teacher at Shelford Girls School in grade 5, who sent us outside to randomly choose a foot square patch of ground and then

after we had made our choice

explained that we were to study it closely

map it

draw it

write about it

count the insects walking across it

imagine ourselves to be their size

see the grass as a forest

make rubbings of it with pencil and paper

i'm pretty sure that Mrs Pownall has long gone to the dogs above

but i don't think i will ever forget her

the classroom was always filled with flowers and seeds 

and bones and other assorted found things

a couple of years later my love of language was nurtured by the redoubtable Mrs Williams, a flame-haired and passionate Scot who read us poetry and made history come alive.

my father instilled in me a love of maps and wandering

while my mother had me drawing plants almost from when i could hold a pencil

 i have been trying to remember the first time i offered a class that brought all these things together and i think it must have been 'mapping country' at the Kapiti Summer School of 2009

which evolved in various ways, stepping sideways into fieldwork

and eventually blossoming as being (t)here or being t(here)

it works either way.

 similar workshop titles are sprouting around the whirled

"where is here" and "you are here" are two that i found this morning

both with subtitles about mapping place

for me it's less about mapping, these days

and more the practice of

paying attention to where we are

finding beauty in sometimes surprising places

considering the poetics of place, even in the parking lot

and each time i offer this class

whether it's in the heart of a city

or deep in a wilderness

or somew(here) in between

i find my life wonderfully enriched by the people who join me.

T H A N K    Y O U

all of you who have been on the journey with me.

i'm so grateful that you give me work.

work that i love.

running red lights on memory lane

so i was looking for something yesterday 

(which i didn't find yet)

and while i was rummaging 

i found some old photo albums

from a time when pictures were regularly printed

when i made collages by cutting and pasting

not Photoshop (which hadn't been invented yet)

i found pictures from nearly thirty years ago

when my friend Yasmin (with whom i also shared a house) and i

co-taught for the former Arts Council of South Australia 

(which has now been reincarnated as the Country Arts Trust)

and went out on the Tea and Sugar train

with an exhibition of T-shirts

hand-painted and screen printed by South Australian artists of the time

(don't ask me why there are Flake bars sticking out of my ears

i have no idea)

 we went to Cook, Barton and Tarcoola

Hawker and Maree

(all in the arid lands of South Australia)

 and taught workshops in lino-printing and hand-painting t-shirts

at Tarcoola, the teacher of the 15 student school

happily dumped them all on us

and went off to the public house

that was the day we realised we should have packed a first aid kit. 

all we had for cut fingers was masking tape and toilet paper

i fancied myself a new David Hockney

sticking pictures together

which is why Yasmin appears twice in this one

back then i also had a dog with a spirit eye

and a very silly haircut.

we were too young to know better

threw mad parties

drove too fast

danced too long

sang too loud

they were very fine times

and

we are still friends

i'm glad i was there

flight patterns

one of the pieces i worked on while in residence in Portland last year

is now showing in Flight Patterns at Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Atlanta, USA

it's a little hard to see the detail of my work in the photo below

but it gives you an idea

L-R:
India Flint, Night Flight
Mary Ruth Smith, Flowers in the Clouds
Bounxou Daohaeung, Bird Kingdom
Michael James, The Long Flight: Sanctuary

image by Dot Moye

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this is what i wrote at the time about the making of 'nightflight'

-->

in memory of Dr Peter Schwerdtfeger
Professor Emeritus
Meteorologist, Glaciologist and Pilot
23 December 1935 - 20 August 2013

the making of 'NightFlight' was generously supported by the Joan Mitchell Center in New Orleans through a two week artist residency, co-facilitated by the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and also by the Oregon College of Art + Craft through a subsequent six-week residency. 

Silk for the project was donated by Beautiful Silks in Melbourne, Australia

'NightFlight' was dyed firstly wrapped around a piece of driftwood, using windfallen leaves as the initial colourant. The nocturnal shades were added by grace of an organically fermented indigo vat.

those of you with a copy of 'fieldnotes' may already be familiar with another piece of related text which also appears 

here

renew and re-use

as y'all know i'm a firm believer in using things that are tried and true rather than buying new stuff - with the exception of underpants. nothing will induce me to wear second-hand bloomers.

so when my son discovered a 1967 Landrover for sale i pricked up my ears. for expeditions to the bush i'm much happier in something that can be fixed with a piece of no.8 wire than something that requires its computer to be reprogrammed if the battery has gone flat.

rumour has it 90% of Landrovers ever built are still on the road; like the original VW they're a good basic piece of kit.[and yes i AM aware that some people think they need constant repair. i'm of the view that good maintenance and respectful use contribute substantially toward vehicle longevity]
 
so let me introduce Edgar

named for the late writer [and former Anglican monk] Edgar Woods Castle
gorgeous, gaunt, tall and snowy haired,

who used to greet me in the main street of Mount Pleasant with
"darling... how are you!"
and then pronounce to any hapless passer by "i've been in love with this woman for thirty years!"

a slight chronological exaggeration
but most warming to the heart
especially as his voice was rich and deep [imagine Leonard Cohen with a British accent]
i miss him.
[i missed his funeral too, by one day, returning too late from goodness knows where]

Edgar the Landrover's engine has just such a comforting rumble
and i bet Pa would be pleased...he had a soft spot for old Landrovers

night flight to lost angeles

about the lost one

in memoriam

today i gave a talk at the Glasgow School of Art

in the Mackintosh Lecture Room

an architectural gem

redolent of the forests from which the timber panelling was sourced.

i dedicated my talk to the memory of my father

Professor Emeritus Dr. Peter Schwerdtfeger

B.Sc. M.Sc. (Melb.), Ph.D. (McG.), F.T.S.E., F.R.Met.S.

who was born December 23, 1935 at Gӧttingen, Germany to Hans and Hanna Schwerdtfeger
and departed this life in Adelaide, Australia on August 20, 2013.

my father taught me a many things

including that it is better to allow an extended pause in transmission

than to say

'um'

when giving a lecture

and

that the show must go on

which is why i stayed on in Scotland and completed my engagements here.

tomorrow i will be returning home for his funeral

and for the record, i didn't say 'um'.

time out

after the giddy excitement of having my work accepted 

by a rather lovely store in Los Angeles

it was good to retreat 

to the woods and shores of Haystack in order to be a quiet student

thinking about traces and marks

under the guidance of Helen Carnac

the weather varied from almost tropical

to cool fogs and mists

there was time to walk barefoot in the woods

and to eat wild strawberries

i will admit to cooking up the odd brew after hours

there were lovely rust marks on the steel plate

that appeared overnight after i left some fern fronds 

resting on it

light-and-shadow drawings

and the enchanting Maine coast landscape, those rocks

perfect for drawing and dreaming in the daytime

and

at night, the best place to lie back companionably

gazing up at the heavens and the shooting stars

or marvelling at the fireflies below

all the while listening to the lick and curl, slap and splash 

of the incoming tide meeting the small waterfall

that chuckled its way down the hill

through the bog

and out from under the tree roots

to the rocks and the shore

+  +  +

i filled an entire journal

stitching in extra pages

and

even having to let out its waistband

the last 9 hours before the pond hop

on the beach at San Gregorio

no stones, so i piled driftwood

a favourite winding road

California poppies wild in California

Pacifica

i spend my last nine hours in California revisiting favourite haunts

driving familiar roads that take me back in time

stacking wood and then some stones - that pale one on the top

came in my pocket from Drakes Beach, near Point Reyes

and 

the third one down

was found perfectly split

i had a perfect and ridiculously cheap lunch

at the small taqueria that occupies part of the gas station

at Pescadero

across from the thrift store where i found a number of cashmere sweaters #

my friend Claudia gave me this white stretchy dress

one of a new series she is working on

it has great shape

and fabulous pockets

i stitched around the neckline while waiting for flights

[it won't stay white for very much longer]

there was an all too brief stop in Auckland
followed by a fabulous view of beautiful Awhitu

and then after a few more hours i was home
where someone was waiting
[and immediately took up her position on the suitcase]

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#  to be transformed into a big sloppy-joe/hoodie arrangement

with a big pocket across the front for my hands to meet in

and perhaps a tiny silk pocket on the back, just in case of notes.

i need something warm and soft and comfy for cool evenings