lost for words

the terrible situation in Tasmania has me almost lost for words
i'm grateful to have established that friends there are safe
deeply saddened for the losses that have been suffered.

watermarks and whizzBizzers

some years ago [2008] i had a show called watermarks

for which i made rather a nice catalogue

yesterday's mail brought a publication with the same title

sent by IAPMA

i'd submitted a couple of images for it

but was surprised to find that my captions had been altered.

the captions should have read 'ecoprint' but were changed to 'eco-dye'

and eucalyptus was altered to 'gum' [clearly the editor does not appreciate my penchant for plant nomenclature]

unfortunately, given that 'eco-dye' has now been trademarked, even mentioning it here [on the blog] leaves me open to litigation. use of the term in conjunction with my work could also suggest that i am using or endorsing a specific product. 

i am not.

the filthy hot weather we are enduring here in the driest state on the driest continent clearly wasn't helping my normally sunny mood

so

i went and played with boats on the dam

and then

because it was too hot to cook food

[or to chew anything]

i made a smoothie

and felt a whole lot better

there's no picture [too yummy to mess about with the camera]

but if you'd like to make one for yourself, here's how

in your whizzBizzer * place

a chopped frozen banana

some frozen grapes

frozen strawberries

a peach [chopped and minus pit]

a big handful of icecubes

a couple of dollops of greek yoghurt

icecream if you have it

and

a whopping great spoonful of peanut butter

fill the gaps between the lumpy bits with cold juice

[i used pineapple]

then put the lid on

and process until smooth

pour into chilled glass and consume. 

ticks all the nutritional boxes and restores good humour at the same time.

unless

you have a peanut allergy, but let's not go there.

*some people call these instruments "blenders"

muttering and fondling the crystal ball

i've been roaming the whirled and teaching many many classes since the publication of Eco Colour [2008] and Second Skin [2011], the two books into which i poured my dye knowledge so that

+ folks out in the whirled could make fabulous colour without the need for toxic chemical mordants

+ the techniques wouldn't get lost and so that in the event my children [or who knows, potential grand-children] ever wanted to know what Mumsie was brewing out the in the shed they could look it up

+ there'd be some kind of record that, although i didn't rush out and patent the ecoprint [something many people have since told me i should have done], it was actually me who realised that when Latvian Easter Egg Dyeing techniques were married with Shibori-zome and blessed by eucalyptus then extraordinary magic would happen.

musing on life in this crossover limbo time sliding between one calendar and the next,  i'm beginning to wonder. foremost in my mind is that you can't have a dog and keep wandering like a fly in a bottle...and i am very much missing the daily delightful companionship of a dogfriend [thank you all those kind folk who let me have dog therapy with their friends last year, especially that lovely chap in Washington Square, San Francisco who let me spend time with his two polar bears who were pretending to be Maremma's]

doing my 2011-12 tax [a little late] on New Year's Eve the numbers were scarily clear. there i am rushing around the whirled, disseminating techniques that took me years to develop but there's not that much over after paying bills. it may sound glamorous and it can be wonderfully satisfying but in the end it's also really, really exhausting. [even though i've never had jet-lag]

 i try to distribute transport expenses by setting a flat fee whirled-wide but despite this very often when i am asked to teach a class somebody will want to haggle about the cost.

 a person in Alaska actually had the audacity to suggest that i consider a teaching gig there as a holiday.

what?

on which planet does that make sense? how is it a holiday if i am working? how will it benefit me to pay $4000 in airfares from Australia plus accommodation plus plus plus. oh yes, i forgot, it will be a holiday. thanks so much.

to cut a long story short, i'm letting y'all know that while workshops have been planned for 2013, there may not be so many in 2014.  there'll be a West Coast series [Washington, Oregon, California] in the northern fall this year [2013] and a gig in Vancouver, Canada 

none of which is listed on the website yet

but

other than the yet-to-be-posted West Coast Wandering, what's on the workshop page is IT for now.

if you would like to learn something from me in the Southern Hemisphere there are only three options available. one in West Australia in April and the other two in New Zealand [one on each island] in a few weeks time.

the workshop in the South Island will be held at the Keylock family property in the Lud Valley. we might even manage an excursion to Cable Bay [the scene of our wonderful "wade in the water" session the year we made reconstructed garments and immersed them in the sea prior to dyeing]

we'll be making a wayfarer's wanderbook. stitching a beautiful wrapping cloth. dyeing paper and fabrics. telling stories, doing a bit of writing - penning poems as well as prose. we'll be paying close attention to a very beautiful part of the whirled - enjoying nourishment for the spirit together with very practical dye techniques.

if the prospect of five days doing this interests you, do please drop Judy Keylock a line here  

     judykeylock[at]mac[dot]com

or give her a tinkle on +64 [0]3 545 2176 as there are a couple of places left in the class

if you made it to the bottom of the page, thanks for hanging in there.

and have a fabulous year.

stillness.

preparing to travel to New Zealand

preparing for my journey to New Zealand, i am re-reading 'Backroads' by Sam Hunt
and looking at
paintings by Colin McCahon & Doris Lusk
Ralph Hotere

going through my notes
of time passed there in times past

rummaging in notebooks i find this sketch
made with pencil at Te Papa museum [no cameras allowed]
and later embellished with watercolour
while taking coffee at Midnight Expresso
up on Cuba Street [Wellington]
the colours far wilder than the original

and then i make a few other notes. a bit closer to home.




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CLOUDLAND, OR SMOKE ALARM

I’m not yet quite sure which.

LONG BEFORE PA FORGOT REMEMBRANCE

HE MADE THE CHOICE TO LOOK AWAY

NOW HE WANDERS, SMOKE AND MIRRORS

ASKS MY MOTHER IF I AM RELATED TO HER

NOTICING THAT WE LOOK LIKE PEBBLES OR

SOME DAISIES IN THE GRASS

PERHAPS TWO PLASTIC BAGS

BLOWING IN ON THE BREEZE

ON HIS BIRTHDAY I TOOK A CAKE

TO THE CELL HE NOW INHABITS, MONASTICALLY TIDY

ONE SHOE, A TOOTHBRUSH AND A VIEW INTO TREES

A PHOTO OF MY BROTHER

THEY WOULDN’T LET ME BURN THE CANDLES

INSUFFICIENT CAKE TO FEED THE FIREMEN WHO WOULD COME

RUNNING, CALLED BY RINGING BELLS

NOW PREPARING FOR A JOURNEY TO

CLOUDY ISLANDS EAST OF HERE

I READ BY THE SMOKE OF RESIN

GATHERED ON A WESTERN COAST

CYPRESS FOG DRIFTS ACROSS THE PAGE

GOOD THING I GUTTED THE SMOKE ALARM

December 27, 2012

apocalypse

i thought i'd wait and see if the apocalypse blew away the cobwebs.

it didn't.

so i had to deal with them myself.

they're quite sturdy

and probably spinnable

but for what might lurk within

and for your amusement, a list of suggestions from New Orleans for ways to spend the last hours pre-apocalypse. 

[guess if you followed the instructions now

you could bring on an apocalypse of a more personal kind]

excavations

i have been attempting to declutter

while searching for long lost stuff

adrift in the knee-deep chaos that has arisen

over a year of coming home to empty and refill my suitcase

and am embarrassed to reveal

that things were found dating back to the last millenium

[let alone century]

these unearthed images are of work from 2001

the first year of the current millennium

not much colour

except for a ball of red wool

dyed with Eucalyptus cinerea

that squiggly intestinal installation

was created from a continuous length of English Leicester roving

it was one metre wide

and whatever long

the other side

i was looking for an excuse to quote the Grateful Dead

and say

'it's been a long strange trip"

but it's only partly true. has indeed been a goodly while since i've been home

but

it hasn't been strange. wonderful is closer to the mark.

+  +  +

moments after the suitcase was dumped on the floor

it was claimed by its rightful owner

who promptly fell asleep on it

indicating it would not be going anywhere anytime soon

i'm back in the land where magpies gargle at dawn

sheep totter past my bedroom window complaining about nothing in particular

and strange new life-forms have taken over a cauldron

left to its own devices for nearly three months

happy holidays, dear readers

enjoy the Solstice

 slip gently into that New Year

and maybe i'll see some of you on the other side...

9

i've always been most fond of the number 9

which is one of the reasons i didn't fly straight home from Arizona

December 9 would have been eaten by the international date line

a shocking waste of a good day

so here i am in San Francisco instead. it's been my favourite city forever

[until New Orleans welcomed me with open arms last month]

now i have two favourite cities

[and a host of favourite wild places]

but i'm straying from the story.

i'm in San Francisco, in the slightly grotty Buena Vista Motor Inn.

the walls and floors vibrate and working girls go up and down the elevator

[and probably on a few other things too]
however

from my position on the sofa in my room

i can just see the red lights on the top of the Golden Gate Bridge

earlier this evening i called past an old friend

a Jasminum polyanthemum that lives near the top of Greenwich Street

whose fragrance both real and remembered has been a delight to me for over thirty years.

my most recent tattoo was [literally] drawn from my memory of this particular plant

some kind person has adorned it with twinkle lights

making the visit especially sweet