high up in the trees

Little particulars

{All as it should be. (Click to enlarge just a little.)}

A few little particulars...

Sometimes I mix up the order I add in my vegetables to the big blue soup pot and I almost always regret doing so. The turnip does not go in before the sweet potato neither does the leek.

I know the visual difference between a turnip and a swede but I’ve no idea taste wise as to which one I prefer.

When Louise isn’t home I make my coffee spoon-could-stand-in-it strong. Straight to the heart it hits me and I feel as though I am in a song with a country guitar twanging behind me. A song featuring the lines “Serve me eggs over easy, Ma'am”, I think.

I often think Shari and t will be appalled at my kitchen when/if they come over to visit (all the way from NC). I say this as I cut my veggies with a plastic handled picnic knife. No easy feat when shopping and slicing carrots and Spanish onions.

I trap my ideas just before I fall asleep or whilst under the shower rose. The further I am from a piece of paper and a pen, a camera or any other such recording device, the more the ideas annoyingly flow. There surely must be a Charlie Chan maxim for such a little particular thing?

I often write sentences in my head that seem to me perfectly formed only to pick up a pen and find my fingers and brain telling me otherwise.

It is exciting to see ones work as a poster on a clean connex train (as part of the Moving Galleries spring 07 programme). It is even better to bump into a dear old chum from Primary School days who has her rooku (haiku sans rules) on a poster.

The city shines wet like a tennis ball
dropped from the mouth
of a dog
(Emily Zoey Baker)

Brilliant, eh? I think so too.

I often meet by chance dear EZB and when I do it never fails to gladden my soul.

{My dacha is 13 storeys higher than yours, watercolour, pencil, collage, 2007.}

{You know this isn't the way home, don't you?, watercolour, pencil, collage, 2007.}

{LJ (with little plastic name badge and all) & EZB on a stationary train.}

{Walking homeward bound behind several folk dressed in red.}

Wishing you a happy eve wherever you are...

Alas, mouse cannot cast shadow like elephant.

{To collect any number of things.}

Ah, yes, "Alas, mouse cannot cast shadow like elephant" (a Charlie Chan aphorism from The Black Camel) and it is true, "Soap and water never can change perfume of billy goat" (also from The Black Camel). Watching a few too many Charlie Chan films of late has me sprouting many sayings when at home, though only when my memory serves and lately that is not as often as I’d like.

Here are a few favourites of mine, from Charlie Chan in Shanghai, so that you, too, can sprout such wise pointed sayings.
Smart rats know when to leave ship.
Owner of face cannot always see nose.
Talk cannot cook rice.
Cold omelette, like fish out of sea, does not improve with age.

And from Charlie Chan in Egypt, another recent watch.
Waiting for tomorrow waste of today.
Theory like mist on eyeglasses - obscures facts.

Curiosity piqued? Here are a few more from films I have yet to see. Perhaps they will help put a little pepper on your conversations toady?
When money talk, few are deaf. (Charlie Chan in Honolulu)
When all players hold suspicious cards, good idea to have joker up sleeve. (Charlie Chan at the Olympics)
Useless to sprinkle salt on tail of time. (Charlie Chan at the Olympics)
Tiger going away from village is never feared. (Dangerous Money)
The geese who laid the eggs deserve the credit. (Charlie Chan's Chance)
Only very foolish mouse make nest in cat's ear. (Charlie Chan at the Wax Museum)
Man seldom scratches where he does not itch. (Charlie Chan Carries On)
Curiosity responsible for cat needing nine lives. (Charlie Chan at the Circus)
Way to find rabbit's residence is to turn rabbit loose and watch. (The Black Camel)

It’s true, I have been procrastinating, stalling, putting off what needs to be done. Detective Chan would no doubt say to me "Begin at best place – beginning" (Charlie Chan in London) and that is just what I shall do.

(Psst... for those who may have missed it. New things have, over the course of the weekend, been added to our store. Works on Paper has ballooned considerably and you will now find nestled in its wings all manner of lithographic offset artists' proofs, drawings, thaumatropes (or turning marvels), collages and limited edition artists' books. Take a peek for yourself here.)

Ever forward.

Name: Jenifer Altman - photo taken by my father of my mother {baby brother in her belly} and I
Vehicle: 1977 Jeep Cherokee Chief
Date: 1977
Street/Suburb: Cape Hatteras, North Carolina
Country: USA

{Thanks, Jenifer.}

Another small unintentional blogging absence, but I am back again and happy that so many of you are keen to play along with my new car themed zine. I have already received many brilliant contributions from near and far, and I am eager to see more. Thrilled beyond words that it appeals to so many of you.

What better time to share a few photos taken behind-the-scenes as it were; on a cut crystal blue sky sunny day Louise took my photo by a car whose owner I do not know. A yellow car spotted in a quiet suburban street not all that far from where I live. Yes, I thought, this will do nicely. With a hop, skip and a cautious jump I approached the car trying to drum up all reserves of comfortable casualness for I have no ready supply.

Here is a little of the process, it may prove handy for those of you thinking of what to submit. I hope so. Louise, practiced in the art of taking my picture for I am notoriously shy in front of the camera, took close to thirty quick digital snaps.

1) Find a car you fancy (in a quiet street if you are lucky) and approach the vehicle as though it were your own. This is somewhat tricky to master for those like me who do not drive. Normally I approach a car from the passenger side.

2) Check to see if owner is looking… or anyone else for that matter. It is rather hard to pose by a parked car and my inner exhibitionist is evidently holidaying in Barbados.

3) I stuff up yet another photo by repeatedly turning the head to see if anyone is looking. Avoid this if possible as it only makes an impromptu photo shoot out in the open last longer.

4) After posing by car/motorbike/horse/cart/cardboard box with wheels drawn on with black texta/shopping trolley etc. etc. vacate the crime scene and don’t look back.

Easy, really.

And finally, in answer to your emails and comments, it is not necessary to drive a car. I, myself, do not possess a licence for a car nor a motorbike either. I don’t drive and I know very little of cars, I just like cars that look like this yellow number (a Triumph Stag from Diamonds Are Forever). You can submit a photo of yourself by your child’s pram or stroller, alongside a tricycle or a go-cart if you prefer. You could pose alongside a car in a second-hand dealership or by the family caravan resting on bricks in the long grass. You could pose by a pony or a sheep dog, by your BMX or a supermarket trolley. Old family photographs may also prove a handy place to commence your search. Here is a beautiful one received from Isobel.

{Thanks, Isobel.}

It can be a drawing or a collage, a photomontage or a tram ticket, or a newspaper clipping for a sea green jaguar for sale at auction. You can be as literal or topsy-turvy as you choose. I’ve yet to receive a photograph of someone being carried by another, perched high on their loved ones shoulders. Maybe that’s one you can do? You can lace yours with a green message or untether your inner hoon, really, I do not mind. As mentioned before, I am not fussed, I’d just love, love, love for you all to be able to play along if you so desire.

{Thanks for all your enthusiasm and kind words in regard to our new store, too.}

Invitations & Announcements

I have two things for you (very late) this Wednesday evening, an announcement of new things and zine invitation to extend. So, which one first? Lets go backwards and start with our brand new, mac friendly, storefront.

Seeing beautiful Mav’s new store for her always enchanting letterpress cards and prints couldn’t have come at a more fortuitous time for Louise and I as we searched for a new shop system, one that was of clean appearance and simple to operate. As keen Card Society members, we, like many, find both Mav’s blog and her work completely inspiring (to say the very least), so to find big cartel with its fussy freeness through Mav seemed like a pile of chestnuts to a squirrel; super appealing and almost too good to be true. With Mav’s okay, we jumped across to big cartel, and haven’t cast our square eyes back since.

So, without further wordy ado, I pronounce our new store OPEN! Completed this afternoon, we marked the occasion with celebratory serves of thickly sliced watermelon, our first of the season tasted and enjoyed (purchased from the local greengrocers, not, I might add, home grown).

In our new store you shall find a couple of Thelma’s stuffies (under All things sewn), artists’ proofs (see Works on paper), 11.5 fossils (resting naturally in Zines), and all of our recent cards are far from resting on their laurels (filed under Paper goods). Along the way you will spot, if lucky, a Silver Stag, and (hopefully) other delights.

If you would like to be added to our mailing list please leave either a message in the comments section or via email with “Please add me to your little wolves in the know mailing list” in the subject line in order to receive updates on hammer & daisy, Thelma’s, and zines, and all things closely or loosely related.

{Our etsy store is still very much in action, and unlike our new store, it shows the prices in US dollars.}

{Name: Mum, Dad & I | Vehicle: MG YB | Date: Mid seventies | Street/Suburb: The Avenue, Belmont | Country: Australia}

Now, to something a little more fun. I would very much love for you to be a part of a new collaborative zine I am putting together operating under the shoddy working title, Have Wheels, Will Go. A zine all about vehicles and modes of transportation; a zine harking back to the days when people posed alongside their set of wheels, a proud expression etched across their face; a zine made up of photographs of you or someone you know, or your cat or dog, or a relative stranger on the street. Anyone really. Anyone posing alongside an automobile of your/their choice.

It was Hayley (back in July of last year) who, equipped with needle and thread, proceeded to sew this idea into my skull. On a post featuring a photo of my parents and I by our green MG, Hayley commented “My parents have a stack of old photos of them, in front of cars they thought were cool [though they never owned one]. Most the pictures look exactly like yours, except mom has frizzy red hair, and my dad with a pipe in his mouth. Even my grandparents have photos like that too. Do people take pictures like that anymore, standing proudly in front of a great car?”

{Name: Gracia | Vehicle: A yellow car I really like | Date: 10/10/07 | Street/Suburb: Carlton North | Country: Australia}

Pressing on, to the zine particulars and what you need to do:

Send me a photo of yourself leaning up against or standing alongside your dream car. Or perhaps you might be a tad keener on propping up alongside a car you’d never fancy yourself driving. You could ask a dear friend or neighbour or acquaintance to pose whilst you stay behind the camera lens, it’s really up to you.

Pets, small children, big children, an Uncle in glasses, a friend in overalls, a whole bunch of people, a complete stranger or your good self, anyone posed, arranged, limbs artfully draped alongside a vehicle. I’m not fussed as to how you go about it or how many you submit; I’m just interested in pulling together a collaborative zine made up of photographs of living beings by cars. Naturally, I advise strongly against lolling across the bonnet of a stranger’s car and setting off their car alarm.

Bend the rules and pose by a scooter, or send me a copy of an old family photo already in your possession that you feel fits the bill, just be sure to send me a little something.

Please include as much or as little of the following as you’d like:
Name
Vehicle
Date
Street/Suburb
Country

You can email your photos to me at: gracialouise{AT}optusnet.com.au
Or if you’d prefer, you can send something by post.

All submissions are required by the 15th of November, 2007

Format: 9cm (H) X 13cm (W) approximately. RGB, 300 dpi, jpeg.
(This measurement is a guide only. Your file should be around 4.67 MB in size.)

{Name: Louise | Vehicle: A stranger's dirt bike | Date: 10/10/07 | Street/Suburb: Elizabeth Street, Melbourne | Country: Australia}

The end result:
I hope to make this into a printed zine, and if all goes to plan, one online too, so please only submit information you are happy to share.

As a general rule...
Crude, yes; lewd, no.

All submissions will be published, though of course, if by some miracle I receive a great deal, some may end up (by financial necessity only) on the web version rather than both.

All folk happy to participate will receive a free printed zine, and if you’d like a few copies to give to chums I can also organize mates rates.

Please email me (or leave a message in the comments below) to let me know if you are in and I’ll make sure to leave space for you.

This zine is open to all so please feel free to pass it on to all and sundry.

I look forward to seeing your wheels.

{A big thank you, Hayley, thank you, Mav… for two things in this post not possible without either of you. A big thank you to Misprinted type for the font lettering above.}

A series of little things from today.

Today I saw a woman dressed in a tight white top sitting at a café table outdoors, waiting for her friend in yellow to finish her conversation on her mobile and talk to her.

I listened to de Amsterdam Klezmer Band and the Galata Gypsy Band on the way to yoga, and Olavi Virta on the return journey (I have finally been able to track down a cd of Olavi Virta, the Finnish King of Tango and I couldn’t be happier... should you wish for a copy, I may be able to oblige).

I heard, pre class, Betty lamenting that her knee specialist sees her as just a knee. "I’m just a knee to him. That’s all I am!”

I picked up a gold buddha card, and thought it appropriate.

If you are virtuous and follow a proper life,
there will be no wanting in your life.
This is in accord with nature.

I went out without my mobile charged fully and listened to it beep and whine, alerting me to this fact.

I made biscuits with my Mum and LJ, and enjoyed tasting one moments after their removal from the oven as they cooled on the wire tray.

{New Thelma's stuffies. I may just have to claim that one with the black mask as my own.}

I marvelled at my Mum’s new stuffies with their tribal markings and, I suspect, a little bit of a voodoo influence. Hot pink lips, black diamond-shaped buttons covering exposed limbs, my Mum makes stuffies like no other. Several are even capable of being turned upside-down and making a new face. What initially appeared as striped legs now make for long striped ears. Ingenious, no?

I am hoping my garden produces such tasty treats as this even though I have not planted any hawthorn berries, rosehips and sloes.

I saw Omar curled up asleep in a ball with a little dark velvety paw curled over his eyes to shield out the light.

I have seen a green fluorescent monster in the early evening. A little polymer clay monster that glows in the dark by Caroline Gaedechens; it came with a recent etsy order of mine and I love him so. (Find her etsy store here, and drawings and a recent book, edda, here.)

{When the lights go out.}

I am enjoying “underneath the blue and the staples” here.

I am also enjoying seeing a penguin with heart, handmade by Fliss, over here.

Today I would have liked to go here, to this store in marktstraße, Hamburg. (I think I may need to re-read that buddha card one more time; I still want.)

I have seen many wonderful publications at Café Royal Zines and Underground Press (thanks, Smosch for the link), and it has made me want to get a wriggle on with my next zine with Shari & Louise, and to also announce another zine project on the boil. With fingers crossed ever tightly I hope to give you the details of the latter on Wednesday. It’s a zine all about transport and transport loves, and I would love for you all to be able to contribute and play along. This zine and the rebuilding of our online store from the ground up has lead me, once again it seems, to be rather absent in this much loved space.

I am hoping that come Wednesday I shall have an official zine invitation for you and that I shall also (toes crossed) be declaring our new store front O-P-E-N.

Best get a wriggle on with that.

The little post that could

|| The little post I neglected to hit 'Publish Now' on from Monday afternoon. Posted late on a Tuesday eve/Wednesday morn after a lengthy spell at rmit assessing the paintings of students studying via correspondence and an afternoon spent knotting the spines of and then wrapping several journals for orders to stores in WA and Queensland. More pics and things to come presently in what looks to be a mixed up week. ||

Today has been a good day. I have been a Gazing Deer, a Frog and a Pigeon in yoga, and I now feel all limber and relaxed. One hour to think of little else but the placement of hands and feet has done wonders for me. Lately I feel as though I’ve been in somewhat of a rut. The kind of rut that comes about when there is an immovable mountain of work lying before me; a mountain that I am ill enthused to scale. I have been inclined not to want to finish a task for fear of having to start the one that follows. As soon as one is completed another thing materialises. Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow seemed a pleasant (and short sighted) mode to operate in for a brief period. Not very sustainable I grant you, but then that, too, could be dealt with tomorrow. Piles of work to be done, and when finished, still more to be done.

Ah, but today is different. Call it spring in the air or the smell of pineapple sage newly planted, but today I feel eager to get things done so as to afford me more time to collage and draw.

Today I am loving the smell of turkey thyme, oregano, chives, basil mint and sweet basil. I have elected to grow a Grosse Lisse tomato in a pot in the sunny spot in the garden. I’m keen to enjoy my own mini crop this summer. My Mum has planted three tomato plants in her garden, too. Two grafted Grosse Lisse tomato plants and an Apollo tomato known for its globular fruit, and together we are locked in Tomato Battle. It’s a race to see who can grow the most, the biggest, the reddest, the tastiest tomato. I have fertilised said tommy plant and I have heaped mulch around its little green base. I have placed in four tall bamboo stakes and I will even talk to my plant if needs be.

{With china from Louise's great grandmother, Violet Victoria.}

I am also loving the lunchtime table setting at LJ’s grandmother’s place. The good china came out and we feasted on cold chicken, tinned pineapple, slices of beetroot and beans (“they’re good for vegetarians”).

I am enjoying watching The Eagle (Ørnen: En krimi-odyssé) on dvd and hoping that I will one day speak fluent Danish or Icelandic, no subtitles needed. I am also enjoying watching Charlie Chan in Egypt (featuring an appearance by Rita Cansino before her stage name Rita Hayworth) at the other end of the spectrum. Lunching with Honolulu detective Charlie Chan, my homemade veggie soup and hunk of bread never tasted so good.

I am loving watching collections grow under Camilla's watchful eye.

Yes, today I am loving a great deal. A whole handful of simple loves.

Here are two new collages as well.

{Put right again, I}

{Put right again, II}

I have this song in my head, and much to do... goodnight.