high up in the trees

Grow dark.

The soft glow of twilight giving way to dusk, surely this is my favourite time of any day. As sun sinks below horizon I wake up. The rooms of the house grow dark and slowly, one by one, lamps are turned on or candles lit. A little artificial illumination so as to make things cosy but not too much so as to interfere with that soft and longed for glow of evening approaching. The corners of the room no longer distinguishable, sharp forms rendered fuzzy, I doubt there could be a more romantic time of day.

It is said that one operates and likes best the time that they were born. For me, at least, this is true. I was born in the early evening, at thirteen minutes past six some three and thirty years ago in the month of September.

{From light to dark, small scenes from my home.}

Read this morning,

It was quiet and dark — only high up in the tree tops a vivid golden light quivered here and there and transformed spiders' webs into shimmering rainbows.
(A Russian Affair, Anton Chekhov)

Yes, I’ve said it before…
Of luminous intensity.
The onset of night.

+ Thank you for your comments on the previous post. It meant a tremendous deal to me. Really it did.

Nest.

{Where I spend a great deal of time.}

Some days are golden only I do not seem to realise this until they draw to a close. Afterwards, standing back, I can see that they were dripping in honey and bathed in light, but always, always it comes ‘after’. A realisation after event, yes, seems a constant thread.

The first half of this week has been like this, nothing especially spectacular but wonderful all the same. That it found me once more at the ballet helped shape my feelings so. That it found me in the company of good friends added to its magical allure. That I have spent time hanging out with the little ones of friends. That it is winter.

The lure of a cheap ticket found me seated at the ballet on my own, and, to my shame, I cannot recall the last time I went to something in the same vein on my own. I have made vow to do similar again. Perhaps the international film festival soon upon Melbourne’s doorstep will give me chance to make good my promise.  Perhaps it will not.

All things in proportion, with work counterbalanced by play, such a string of satisfaction to tie about the neck. If it were always like this, would I grow tired of it? Probably, I would. I like my choppy seas on rotation with smooth. My soaring highs followed by inevitable lower periods.

{Where Olive spends a great deal of time, too.}

+ Uppercase magazine comes out on the 2nd of July. Fantastic! I am particularly excited. Watch this and you might see why. Keep an eye out for ‘postcards’.

UPPERCASE magazine: Issue 2 preview from UPPERCASE gallery on Vimeo.

Thanks to Bob Dylan for the inspiration.

‘They all seemed to have left their cares and anxieties with their hats in the porter’s room…’

Too quickly did the weekend pass, but this week promises good things, I am sure. Gardening has helped to free my mind of niggling worries, and laughter, too, the best remedy of all. New sights, new finds, I played tourist in my own town and discovered that Brunswick both East and West is mighty different to when last I paid visit. Winter sun on the face seems ever the cure-all to silliness and fretting. Excitement grows and new things are on the way, and my winter coat is returned from drycleaners smelling no longer of African spice.

Here are a few postcard collages from autumn days. Better late than not at all, is not that how the expression goes?

{I cannot connect the two.}

{With attention dawn elsewhere.}

{Wrapped up in an unaccountable feeling.}

{I cannot find the place where they are going.}

(Thank you for your comments left on the previous post, each and every one.)

“Please, for my sake,” she wheedled.

{Blocked. This is how it looks, fragmented and peculiar.}

Seems an age since I last penned a post and now that I sit down in order to make right an absence I am faced with a problem I have no immediate remedy for. I am faced with a problem familiar to many: I have not one singe thing of note or otherwise to say. I have been busy working and doing all manner of things from the exhilarating and the taxing through to the more pedestrian but not one of those things can I fashion into a sentence. Nor collage either, for that matter. I have seen lots, done lots, read not nearly as much as I would have liked and I have… is it (blog) writer’s block?

Yes, for every giddy high there is a low, for every time when ideas and creativity seem in full force there is a lull. Such things we all of us know, but I am always caught unawares by just how frustrating a lack of ideas can be. Best set my energies to coaxing them from their hiding place, wherever that may be. A large net is needed, I think.

How to proceed? Perhaps a planned African feast will provide me with both answer and inspiration.

(Waiting to be reinspired, in November of last year.)

Wintry.

{With attention drawn elsewhere, victory was all too attainable.}

Awoken this morning to the repeated bleating of my alarm clock and Misha scratching at bedroom window desiring to be fed, I seem in full grip of winter hibernation. I am rugged up in hand-knits, I am lolling near to heaters and I am enjoying occasional serves of buttery toast. I am in the familiar embrace of all things winter as I note the summertime fancies of my friends far away. I am enjoying the aroma of Louise’s hot chocolate indulgence in the evening, watching Olive knead the woollen-covered hot water bottle as though it were another cat (it is pale pink like the silken pads of her paws and the tip of her nose), reading whilst wrapped with rug about shoulder, and cutting out new collage pieces. The days may be shorter but the long nights more than make up for that. They stretch pleasingly before me, and second only to its predecessor, winter is a beloved season of mine.

To work I return, I have my scissors at the ready and a slew of collected imagery to slowly cut away from page. This is a part of the process I greatly enjoy for it affords me time to think and for my thoughts to run almost out of view if I don’t keep up pace. 


{Underfoot.}


{Egyptian homage.}


{When not working on floor, this is where I tinker.}


{In the light my Omar's eyes are blue.}

+ By post today arrived a bounty of hand knits from the ever lovely and talented Kylie whom I have known since art school days. Tomorrow, or thereabouts, I shall show you what delights she posted to Louise, my Mum and me.

+ mlazenby's ffffound!

Animalised.

{A prickle of hedgehogs.}


{A volery of birds.}

Swinging by the zoo as near to opening time as I can possibly muster, I like being able to observe the Goodfellow’s Tree-Kangaroo and the red panda virtually on my own. Before the crowds arrive and busy themselves at nearby kiosks, walking around the zoo at such a time is relaxing. Hands thrust in pocket to keep warm, I converse silently with an elderly servel (she is twenty-three and remains seated with her back to me, her ears cocked slightly in my direction) and later a whiskered binturong.








{The extended family of meerkats bask in the morning sun. Such affable souls.}

+ The Tenkile Conservation Alliance are saving the critically endangered Tenkile, or Scott's Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus scottae) and Weimang (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus) from becoming extinct.

+ A spring of seals and other details. (A handful of new collective noun inspired collages for you to see.)

+ Thank you for awarding me a Beautiful Art Award, Natsumi; you are a dear. I shall follow suit and pass on the award to... Andrea, Marie-Louise, Alexandra, Lea, Sandra, Louise, and, well, all of you, really; it is Monday morn and I am feeling generous and there is such an abundance of clever people who make great stuff.

+ Something for Penguin lovers. (Thanks for the link, Lucinda.)

Delicate.

{A configuration of natural objects. A recent collage from A vagary of impediments & a sneak of weasels. (Available here)}

I went to the ballet to see the 115th performance of Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker – The Story of Clara for the first time and I, along with my Mum, marvelled at such a beautiful and clever retelling of a favourite well-familiar tale. A snake charmer became a line of men with a rope that was heavy and yet writhed like a long woven snake, the Snowflakes floated across stage as if derived from magic, an Australian summer successfully conjured, footage projected upon screens on the stage of the Russian Revolution, rats, and at other times, to fit hand in glove with charming reference to the links with the Ballet Russes, visuals gleaned from world tours. With a lump in throat each, my Mum and I watched this beauty unfurl, held transfixed. The references to nostalgia, to memory, for me, made it all the more touching. And of course, Kristian Fredrikson’s rats in their heavy coats with their thick tails too.

Seated so near to the back of the State Theatre the spotlight frequently grazed the tops of our heads, with such a scene before the eyes and that music so beautiful, so rich in its ability to draw a visual before the eyes upon hearing it, we were more than contented.  A rainy evening that followed a rainy day both of us had arrived damp and with soggy feet. Inside the red-carpeted and gold-trimmed warmth of the theatre, we added flame to our cheeks and enjoyed a complimentary drink. One sparkling and one house white so liberally poured that upon largely empty stomachs we felt giddy, all senses heightened momentarily. Side by side we watched the stage and listened to the orchestra and found ourselves, as no doubt intended by both composer and choreographer, transported to that very place presented. Should you get the chance to see this performance, I hope it gives you like all good sensations, prickles on the skin in accompaniment to a galloping heart.

+ Thank you Nathalie for both sharing what the postman delivered (it was especially fun for me to see) and giving me a Lemonade Stand Award.

+ Thank you... everyone. It is always a delight to see our post arrive and to receive your kind emails and mentions.

The Queen’s Birthday weekend passes like any other.

{A department of deer and a gang of elk. Please click to see slightly larger. (And as appears in zine format.)}

{A catch of fish. One of many new collages from my recent zine A vagary of impediments & a sneak of weasels.}

Long weekends make for gloriously short weeks even if you don’t do anything particularly different on your free Monday. My Mum ‘Made a carrot cake for the Queen’, she said, tongue firmly in cheek, whilst in our home Louise and I scanned images from borrowed books before returning them to the library. The Emperor’s Palace, set of Act II, a study in watercolour and gouache; Larinov’s Costume of the Sun (for Massine); Eskimo overcoats made from seal guts; a wooden box decorated with tiger motif; and a pair of silver horses from Oaxaca city strung on a necklace of red glass beads are among the many to be scanned and tagged and ready for use anew.

As we worked, we helped ourselves to a take-home slice of birthday cake from a first birthday party the day previous. A lurid and deliciously green cake made in the shape of a caterpillar teetering on the edge of suspect in form, the sweet green icing hit the right note as the scanner chugged from one side of image to the next. Eating the cake called to mind the magician who performed at the party. Clowns in particular, circus folk retired from main arena and magicians such as the one on Sunday often make me feel so terribly sad. I saw tired props and an air of thinly veiled sadness but this is not what other people saw. The children giggled and to their amusement received balloons in the shape of purple parrots resting on hooped swings or long-legged yellow rabbits. The adults, early morning, enjoyed the ease of, for a moment, being entertained.

Reading a situation differently to other people is something I find myself often thinking of. As I watched the magician wave his plastic wand in the air and wheeze into microphone as he bent over, I was reminded of a reflection of Levin’s, in love and feeling as though he could take flight, in the pages of Anna Karenin:

And what he saw that morning he never saw again. He was moved in particular by the children going to school, the silver-grey pigeons that flew down from the roof to the pavement, and the little loaves of bread, powdered with flour, that some invisible hand had put outside a baker’s shop. Those loaves, the pigeons, and the two little boys seemed not of this earth. It all happened at the same time: one of the boys ran towards a pigeon and looked smilingly up at Levin; the pigeon fluttered its wings and flew off, flashing in the sun amid the quivering snow-dust air, while from a little window came the smell of fresh-baked bread, and the loaves were put out. All this together was so extraordinarily nice that Levin laughed and cried in delight.

(Have a great Wednesday. I am off to the ballet to see Graeme Murphy’s Nutcracker – The Story of Clara one row from the back of the theatre. I could not be more excited but first I must tackle the work that sits before me. Things have been pretty busy of late and I am sorry I have not had all that much time to both blog here in this space and to visit many of your blogs. I hope to right that soon enough.)

Thankful.

{A crowd of onlookers, a diligence of messengers, and a string of horses too.}

{A collection of objects, a collage from my new zine A vagary of impediments & a sneak of weasels.}

It is common knowledge that what goes up comes down and what goes out comes in but some days, some days it is especially good to be reminded so. I head to the Post Office with a sack full of parcels to send, and post arrives from Belgium and Canada, from Frips and Nathalie.

Zines and cards sent out into the world seem to materialise into treasure from far away lands, and I could not be more grateful.

{Thank you Frips (fripsmailart).}

{A lucky win. Thank you Nathalie (nathalie et cetera).}

A chine of polecats carrying four new zines.

Yes, I do believe at Sunday’s Page Parlour gathering of assorted zine makers, small publishers and twins cut from same cloth, I saw the entire Kaskad and Optix coloured paper range employed to good effect. Sheets of Sparrow Grey, Bullfinch Pink, Parakeet Green and Plover Purple folded to form A5 or cutdown to A6, all A4 paper economy and emitting the charm of things familiar. Covers fashioned from sheets of Vada Blonde, Zuli Blue and Zoda Lemon, those familiar hues I am well acquainted with.

This Tuesday evening I have four new zines to introduce you to. Uncloaked at Page Parlour (as part of the Emerging Writers’ Festival), many have already made way to new homes. Two new zines by me and two by Louise, this quartet of zines feature wooden tools and artefacts of gold displayed in pairs, opera masks from China, Australian birds in neat formation, and collective nouns explored. I’d have brought them to you sooner had I been able to squeeze extra drop from the week past.




Tweak, Tweaked, Tweet
Louise Jennison
A six page B&W concertina zine with string tie well-supplied with Grey Currawong and a Brown Cuckoo-dove and friends feathered.

++ Available for purchase ++




Just the two of us: A fine pair
Louise Jennison
An A3 foldout full-colour zine replete with elaborate post-mortuary ritual masks from Papua New Guinea and other forms paired.

++ Available for purchase ++

 


A vagary of impediments & a sneak of weasels
Gracia Haby
A catch of fish, a spring of seals, a ticktock of clocks, an anthology of stories, a prickle of hedgehogs and other collective nouns captured for you in a 52 page colour and B&W zine.
(Can you recognise a Skylark Violet cover with a Sparrow Grey spine?)

++ Available for purchase ++
 



A Single Thought
Gracia Haby
A 24 page colour and B&W zine full of the gathered thoughts of other souls throughout a single day.
(With a band of Robin Red running parallel to Curlew Cream... familiar paper stock, no?)

++ Available for purchase ++

The first five orders through our online store shall each receive a free copy of Louise's Tweak, Tweaked, Tweet.

In addition to these new zines you will find some of our older zines are now on sale.

To those we met on Sunday for first time face-to-face, it was mighty nice to see you.