high up in the trees

fringe benefits & small rodents

My fringe has returned once more. The fringe, a godsend to those lacking dark, defined eyebrows or neatly styled, tweezed and plucked brows, has returned to my crop and I couldn't be more chuffed. After making do with a fringe that grew so long it took up residence behind each lobe, I now have a fringe once more. A long fringe which caresses my fair eyebrows. Welcome back from your hiatus, fringe! Oh, how I’ve missed your protective screen. Never again shall I wait so long between hair appointments, leaving you to languish. Never again shall you disappear in waspy strands behind each ear, my friend. My fringe and I celebrated its homecoming with a new, second hand owl pendant from a favourite haunt in the Royal Arcade. He came on a long gold chain which caused him to hang just shy of my navel but I think I prefer him suspended from a ribbon. How about you?

Two women not in need of a fringe trim anytime soon (from If we stand very still, no one will notice, Mailbox 141).

{The longer I stood there, the less I understood.}

{They gave me no chance to reply.}

When not singing the virtues of a trip to the hairdresser, you'll also find me here. I can be found hiding in the crowd, in front of Preservation Hall. Can you see me, I’m in green, and I don't have a white bird perched high on my shoulder nor an umbrella either. (The Jazz Funeral of Tuba Fats, New Orleans, 2004.)

And so it follows, from finding myself unexpectedly in a crowd scene to finding the smallest of small rodents, the harvest mouse, in recycled tennis balls from the tennis courts of Wimbledon. In place of homes woven from shredded grass and reeds, it is hoped these agile little ones from the Order Rodentia will take to their new fluorescent homes. Read and see (oh! the photos!) a little more here.

This mouse is not a harvest mouse. She is exploring Montevideo, with nay, not a tennis ball in sight.

{Which way to the Emerald lake?}

This rabbit also, is in need of a home. Have you, by chance, lost a big rabbit? (Poster seen, Clifton Hill, 24/02/07.)

Before I flee, why don't you head across to Blanket Magazine to read our hammer & daisy interview in the fourth instalment of the Urban Issue. You can download it here. Find us (and our owl pinnies) sandwiched somewhere between the urban photographs of Steve Parker and Gordon Kinloch.

{Thanks everyone for kindly offering to "set up with me" in my previous post... I'll know just where to find you all, should I need your assistance and words of wisdom and encouragement. Thanks again, g ♥}

Want to set up with me?

Once more, come with me on a visual journey, we’re off to install our work at Mailbox 141 in Flinders lane. It’s humid in the stairwell so be sure to wear something light and loose fitting… and don’t forget a water bottle, we can’t have you getting dehydrated and wilting in the heat. I have my African basket packed with a container of vinegar and a favourite striped tee that has since become a cleaning rag, blades, pens and pencils, an old brush (for sweeping out the inside on each mailbox), the many keys for each small door, and a folder full of Louise’s watercolour drawings and my postcard collages (which you’ve been seeing here in recent months). Do you think you could carry the takeaway coffees and strawberry & pistachio flavoured macarons? I’ve only so many hands… merci.

And now, if you fancy, let's head out to the wilds of Braeside, to factory land, to Redwood Prints, Jarrah drive, for we have some four colour lithographic offset prints to cut down to size. Once more I advise you wear short sleeves, it can get mighty stuffy in there.

Please, dart across to Louise's blog where you'll find plenty more installation photos as well.

Some mid week links awaiting your perusal:
Old law tenements, from Forsythe and E. Houston Streets, Manhattan.
Library for the Blind: Man with bags of mail, "one days mail, free service, May 1926."
Arrival of the winter mail.
Belgium post & Parisian mailboxes from Crescent House.

Must stop...
dreaming of winter
& planning to spend my pennies on...
Mr. Rabbit (oxidised silver) & Mr. Diamond (large resin diamond) pendants from Deadly Ponies (from their Kingdom of Loneliness Autumn/Winter 2007 collection),
A Chip Chop! Designs canvas tote,
and stud earrings from made by white.

hot stitch foolery

A speedy Friday afternoon post in visuals, for it’s too darn hot to do anything else. All the hot day long, I could hear Miss Marple in my head saying, “You’re a lady, Elspeth. You don’t perspire you’ll glow". I am regrettably not glowing. I am wilting. I have wilted, wilted and expired. I am a melted, tired heap, complete with bags so purple under my eyes from a few too many late though enjoyable nights. My name isn’t Elspeth, as Jane Marple well knows, I’ve never caught the 4.50 to Paddington, and I have remembered to wash behind my ears.

Here, before all comprehension deserts me, a few things that have come my way…
From Julie, of handmaid, ‘A wall necklace: handmade for your home’ of beautiful blue. (Thanks, Julie ♥)

From Shari, a little while ago now, a postcard of The Large Cage, Bird Park, Santa Carolina, California, calling for a few paper additions. Can you spot the African Crowned Crane, the golden and silver pheasants, the Mandarin Duck? There are apparently some Australian Swans in there too, as well as others referred to on the reverse side as "interesting birds". (Thanks again, Shari ♥)

{All the thieves, they all tended to hide their jewels in the one spot.}

From Israel and America, across to Belgium, thank you, Frips. One of your loose pages today received a little embellishment. (Thanks again, Frips ♥)

{How ever shall I lift you?}

From gifts received in the post to gifts to give (avert your eyes C & R), a bear bunting for the nursery. Made by hand by Louise, my Mum and I from coloured felt, ribbon and fabric. I second Lottie wholeheartedly, how do they do it? Each little bear has been sewn with French glove stitch or something similar however by the final little bear limb what was supposed to be French glove stitch had morphed along the way into a distant, snaggle-toothed relative. I am hanging up my romantic notions of sewing for the day. I am sure it is what Jane Marple would have wanted me to do.

Take me to the beer garden!

Happy weekend all… I’ll be back next week with installation photos a-plenty.

always shake to waltz time

{They are discussing environmental policies.}

{There were giant feathers in the cabin.}

Last week found me craving new things. Well not new things as such but new routines, new days and new visuals, definitely new visuals. Perhaps that is the reason behind my recent craving to watch The Thin Man (1934) on dvd, followed by After the Thin Man (1936) and so on and so forth, receiving instruction from William Powell as to how to make the perfect dry martini, "Have rhythm in your shaking ... a dry martini, you always shake to waltz time". With nay, not a hint of the Depression in sight, I have watched Nick and Nora Charles, always with drink in hand, until my eyes would no longer remain open. Several tres daggy movie length episodes of the Italian drama Commesse, series II, have also got a look in, as has the entire back catalogue of Almodóvar films. Craving a little change of pace and mood, I can happily lie prone, barely a few centimetres from the telly, and slide into Myrna Loy’s shoes with a whiskey chaser at the ready, and Asta the dog at my heels. Whilst eating air popped popcorn, I can, for a spell, pretend I am Marta, the quintessential Italian seamstress with long dark hair cascading over my shoulders and several pins in my mouth as I tailor a garment on a dummy, swapping tales of woe with Roberta (who incidentally is being hounded by loan sharks and is considering entering a more risqué profession than working in a wine bar). Plenty of hand gestures for emphasis, to underline a point and accentuate the speech flowing from their mouths.

{hammer & daisy journals with large spots...}

{and with small birds.}

Unfortunately the subtitles of many of my latest dvd loves mean that I cannot work at the same time, knotting a pile of A4 journals and listening to dialogue in Italian are two things I cannot piece together no matter how hard I try. I had thought that perhaps I could plunge in and see what I pick up just using my ears but alas "Andiamo!" through to "Non capisco" ain’t going to cut it. As a result of not being as talented in the language department as I’d hoped to be, my dvd escapes to Sicily with Commissar Montalbano, and time spent guzzling gazpacho with Candela, Pepa and co, have all had to take place well past the witching hour, a habit for which the morning pays dearly. 7am, 8am, 9am, right through until lunchtime, I can be found bleary eyed from lack of sleep. Bleary eyed and a little short tempered. My alarm sounds and I do not spring from my bed. That my alarm clock is slowly but surely in the process of dying only adds to the whole anything but tranquil affair. New batteries have been placed in said clock yet still instead of a “beep… beep… beep” I am awoken to a slow dying electronic wheeze. Perhaps my alarm clock does not approve of my new routine of champagne sleuthing with Nick and Nora, perhaps it isn’t as keen on “moider” as I.

{Green tails.}

{Orange blooms.}

{Red flowers.}

This week, dvds aside, an antidote to my mood was found and new things once again abound. New neighbours moved in and with them two yapping, barking, howling, scampering dogs. New green sights have been (deliberately) sought after for a new collaborative blog project soon to be revealed. New songs have been sung and slices of sacher torte have been eaten in the back garden for Louise’s Birthday. New stuffies have been made, and new mail from Marieke has been received (thank you, Marieke ♥). My hankering to be bilingual, multilingual, all kinds of lingual, is also simmering happily on the stove. A friend presumed me to be Hungarian, on account of a certain fondness for Hungarian postcards, and in the dream of another friend, I turned up on their doorstep speaking fluent French (I also happened to be French in the dream as well) – ahh, there’s hope for me yet. Come spring I shall know more than "Qu'est-ce que c'est que ça?". I already know that there are two words in the Hungarian language for ‘red’, piros and vörös, and should the hounds next door see fit to cease with their barking, I may also know how to pronounce them too.

{Stamps all lined up... like pretty maids all in a row.}

{Mail from Amsterdam arrives.}

{Pins, drawings, gocco screenprints on photographs, magnets, stamps, calendar pages... treats and treasures from Marieke.}

Listen
The Thin Man and After the Thin Man
Lux Radio Theater
(June 8, 1936)

Read
The Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett
(If you like your fiction hard-boiled, think The Maltese Falcon, think "Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting V under the more flexible V of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another smaller V. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The V motif was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down - from high flat temples - in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.")

Find
Your own wire fox terrier for potential sleuthing.

{New thelma's stuffies are here.}

{Three cheers for Louise. Hooray!}

in the distance glimmers

{In the works 1.}

I’ve been regretfully somewhat absent from this space of late and now I can shed a little light onto the whys… Louise and I have an upcoming exhibition at Mailbox 141, and you’re all invited.

If we stand very still, no one will notice.
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
20 February – 20 April, 2007

Mailbox 141
141 – 143 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Mon/Fri 7am-7pm Sat 12-6pm

{Come along. You are all invited.}

It seems only fitting that one of Louise’s polar bears (with her life saving yellow floatation devices) should be on the invite. After watching Ice Worlds (Planet Earth, episode 6), exploring the regions of the Arctic and Antarctica, with David Attenborough in my ear as my ever faithful, ever insightful guide, neither of us could go past the polar bear watercolour for this spot. Observing just the night before, beautiful footage of a male polar bear unable to find firm footing on the ice, was heartbreaking. He takes to the inky waters, his large white form viewed from above, surrounded by many small floating chunks of ice, a majestic polar bear in search of a suitable ledge from which to hunt seals. He later chances upon a colony of walruses only to be defeated by the impenetrable wall of blubber the herd form, as they attempt to shield their young. They evade his capture and head out to the safety of the briny deep. Without food, and injured, the polar bear is seen digging a small hole. He curls up, wounded and... and, thankfully the camera pans away. So you see, we really felt we had to put a polar bear on the invite!

{In the works 2.}

{In the works 3.}

When not watching penguins huddle or handsome arctic foxes on the sneak, we’re…

We’re also coming up in Blanket Magazine, Issue 2: the urban issue, in release 4. Released every Sunday in four appealing, bite sized instalments, you’ll find us interviewed in the final quarter, available for download on the 25th of February (we’re itching to read and see it).

Take a wander through Issue 1: the yellow issue and the first instalment of Issue 2 and discover a little more… and find out how you can contribute here as well.

And somewhere in the middle of all this, in the middle of a year that already feels as though it is escaping me, I am working on several new full colour (hoorah!) lithographic offset prints, some of which are littering this very posting. There may be a few familiar elements in there for some… the white rabbit with his aching back has moved his burrow to a new neighbourhood, Maditi, but still his back causes him bother.

{In the works 4.}

{In the works 5.}

More sooner rather than later, I promise.

(☆ Psst... it's Louise's birthday on the 11th. ☆)

a clouded leopard for the lady

{Please help me untie my eyelashes.}

From two ladies in Stockholm with owls they don’t trust (or was it the owls who were still a little cautious) to a ‘Dame Arabe’ from The Cairo Postcard Trust with her little Oncilla from South America.

And now please meet a lady intended, a little while back, for 242 Rue Royale. What nobody realised at the time was that she was missing her Clouded leaopard. Now they are complete.

{If we stand very still no-one will mind. (front)}

{If we stand very still no-one will mind. (reverse)}

These two in Slovakian costume are also standing very still. They, too, are keeping an eye out for their Clouded leopard companion.

Finally, mail sent for a penny to Miss Vera M.Gregory… “This is the sort of dress that the little girls wear in Lapland”.

{Red Fox Return. (front)}

{Red Fox Return. (reverse)}

It’s not only Miss Vera’s mail that has been tampered with and taken over by red foxes, but my mail too. All the way from Ecuador, from Risa… “Opened by Australia Post for inspection by Quarantine”. They did not like two tea bags containing allspice (pimenta), nor did they take kindly to two small potpourri sachets. For the princely sum of $42.50 I can have tea bags originally intended for LJ & I, subjected to heat treatment. And should I wish to get my hands on the potpourri from Quito, it will have to undergo Gamma Irradiation Treatment, also for $42.50. The Quarantine Officer in New South Wales, with a ‘Z’ scrawled in blue biro for a signature, has offered to “destroy” my mail items, much like an injured horse, though free of charge.

So, thank you, Risa, for what I am sure would have been a drink of tea flavoured with pimenta that would have tasted magnific, drunk in a room heavy with the fragrance of potpourri. Sadly it looks as though I will have to imagine this little scenario. Rest assured that the many sachets of yerba mate, jasmine and French vanilla tea bags tied up in a thin strand of green ribbon made it to our door, as did your handmade cards referencing your infamous, global tea party.

{Pimenta and Quarantine don't mix.}

{More Thelma's stuffies have landed.}

{Sunshine in my kitchen.}

Still keen to spread your wings a little further?
Why don't you head to...
Amsterdam
or
Environs d'Auray.
Just remember to send me a postcard
and
don’t forget your clogs.