high up in the trees

Dear you,

{Please, click to enlarge if needs be.}

Wishing you all, those near and those far, a wonder-filled Christmas and a giddy start to a new sparkly year brimming with potential. May 2008 afford you happiness and wellness in equal proportion, and may it continue to make glad your heart.

I am so happy to have been able to share this year with you and I look forward to seeing you all in the brilliant year ahead. I'll be returning to this space one long and hot January day. Until then, many hugs to all, and fond wishes to you and your dear ones.

take care,
gracia xo

No luck on paper, best pen a list.

{Herbs growing on the shelf by a postcard from Hannah Waldron.}

In my head in equal proportion, a handful of ideas in visual and word form. On the paper before me, absolutely nothing save for a black inky mess of crossed-out markings, scribbled text and half-drawn wolves with masks. It seems those ideas for future collages, drawings, titles and sentences will not make themselves fully known today. Ideas gathered in a room but my hands are failing me. I’ve tried all manner of coaxing but to no avail. In their place I offer you a list, a Five Senses (Wednesday) list as befits a mind that is frustrated.

To see:
Two prints given to me by the good machinery and Lisa resting on the bookshelf in wait for their trip to the framers in January.
Red calla lilies in a vase for a long time coveted (a sylvac vase with a small mouse).
Two candles flickering inside two brass owls.
Goldfish swimming happily and nibbling at what remains of the duckweed.
A felt mobile moving in the breeze.
Presents wrapped.
Presents still to be wrapped.
A greyhound on the loose crossing a busy traffic-heavy street.

{Remember me? Spied in Ballarat long ago, this vase later turned up as a surprise birthday gift.}

To hear:
Omar mewing for another chicken wing from the market.
The pen scratching across the paper (disobeying all instruction).
Light rain falling and landing gently on the large upturned leaves of the ivy.
Papers blown from the tabletop.
Mister moonlight, Piano Red
Yellow Coat, Screamin' Jay Hawkins
When I Was A Little Spy, J.U.F
Prospect Hummer, Animal Collective and Vashti Bunyan
Two territorial blackbirds in the trees out back.

To taste:
Coffee with chicory drunk from a new iittala mug from L & P.
Homemade apricot jam spread on day-old still-crusty bread.
Cats tongues from the Gelo Bar.
Green grapes.
Red cherries.
Dolfin milk chocolate with green tea & jasmin from Morocco.

To smell:
Candles recently blown out.
Star jasmine from the fence line near to the window flung wide.
The fragrance of fresh herbs on my fingertips.
Rain.

{Christmas all over the house.}

To touch:
Faber-Castel light-fast ink pen meets brush.
Mail to open.
Mail to send.
Champagne bubbles tickling my nose as I sit in the garden of a former neighbour drinking, chatting and celebrating in the afternoon light.

And now it is off to see Jiří Menzel’s I served the King of England for I have won two free tickets. I'll be back one more time before 2008 is here, to wish you all the very best for a wonder-filled and joyous new year.

{Keeping still ensured no breakages.}

Now and a head.

{Three heads are better than one. Please, click to enlarge.}

Saturday finds me admiring the random pattern of little wet paw prints on the veranda and listening contentedly to the sound of rain falling on the tin roof above.

It finds me unsurprised that yoga poses I saw the Hawthorn Football Club players performing with seeming ease and grace yesterday afternoon at Waverley, were a challenge to perform in class this morning. I have neither their balance nor strength, though, as mentioned, I am unsurprised by this.

{Stumbling in your absence. Postcard collage.}

December has been marked by the pleasant arrival of Christmas cards and parcels from overseas to wrap and give to dear ones (thank you, the good machinery, especially... xo). It has found me rediscovering the Leningrad Cowboys Go America and watching, in addition, their Total Balalaika Show at Helsinki’s Senate Square on the 12th of June 1993 featuring the Alexandrov Red Army Choir and Ballet. It has found me in sleepy though high, on the whole, spirits, bottling preservatives and making apricot jam with the fruit from the tree in my parent’s back garden. Jar upon jar has been filled and I am looking forward to berry season. This January I expect to be making mixed berry jam, to be sorting out the ripe loganberries from the too mushy. I am looking forward. Looking forward to all things that make glad my heart. Looking forward to a new year and to the giddily appetising Christmas day which falls before it.

I am looking forward to a sleep in, a day to do nothing, to reading more, to bright days, to small treats. Looking forward, this weekend, to an Indian feast with dear chums, to continuing my Aki Kaurismäki dvd festival with Lenigrad Cowboys Meet Moses and Lights in the Dusk… I am diving headfirst into that glowing palette and I may never return! Looking forward to making new collages, new work, and all in general.

{There are too many of you to accomodate. Postcard collage.}

1.
2.
3.
4. links for you, and a Thelma's Stuffie in small magazine.

More soon. I am missing my time in this space... I hope you are keeping well and that December is proving kind to you and your loves.

Happiness on the green grass.

Today I am enjoying having the house decorated for Christmas with wreaths, lights and festive plumage and trimmings. The tree is up and two presents are already wrapped and underneath, the chocolate advent calendar is proving a delicious early morning enjoyment and I am delighting in making presents (or buying handmade) rather than tackling the big store frenzy.

I am also enjoying, of late, the arrival of snail mail most splendid. Generous postcard love from Tommy (notes by naïve) and Shona (lala dex press) has made me smile ear to ear a big toothy grin.

{Beautiful scenes handpicked by Tommy.}

{In the Carlton Gardens on the way home pouring over snail mail from Tommy and Shona... xo (Please, click to enlarge.)}

Thank you both so very much. You have each shared and selected beautifully apt postcards and this weekend I am looking forward to using them for collage. I have a series in mind already, a Sometimes series of postcard collages to be made only on postcards received from others. Roll on Saturday, I have my scissors and a pot of fresh acid-free glue at the ready.

{Dappled light, the rest of the day stretched before me and a little shining pile of snail mail.}

{Sitting on the green grass with mail from Shona. (Please, click to enlarge.)}

The windows are flung open high and La Guacamaya (by los lobos) is playing.

Remember under the light of the silvery moon this eve to, as the saying goes, shoot for the moon for if you miss you will still be among the stars.

Papery ideas come to fruition.

{Have Wheels, Will Go now exists as an actual zine and I am elated beyond belief. (Please, click to enlarge.)}

Two days in to a new and promising week and I have two new things I am keen to share with you... two new zines recently completed.

Have Wheels, Will Go is now an actual zine in my hands. A request sent out in October yielded much happy interest and thirty-one brilliant replies. Replies from many of you whom I know and many I have never 'met' until now.

Thank-you Jenifer Altman, Dianne Beevers, Kelly Boucher, Kim Burrell, Anastasia Christou, Isobel Clement, Fliss Dodd, Abby Dubisar, Janelle Dunstan, Brydie Dyson, Jessica Eskelsen, Carolyn Fraser, Risa Friedman, María Fuks, Elaine Haby, Peter Haby, Louise Jennison, Alicja Kuzmycz, Priscilla Chung-Yee Kwok, Andrea Lampman, Daphne Louter, Glenn Manton, Veronica Torres-Miller, C. Nurkemala Muliani, Bette Poulakos, Kylie Robson + Hesse, Jurate Sasnaitis, Kay "Motorlegs" Shannon, Jenny Vorwaller, Rachael Weaver and Barbara Wolters.

It was more than thrilling to receive such wonderful photographs, and paintings, too, via email. Thank you to everyone involved for sharing your much loved family photographs and for posing so brilliantly alongside favourite cars... you've made this zine possible. MGs, Ford Transists, toy cars and dirt bikes, Fiats and Coronas, BMWs roadside at Red Hill Lookout, Topolinos in Milano and an old '49 Dodge... I am so delighted you decided to show me your wheels. Thank you.

Have Wheels, Will Go is an edition of 100, and, to all of you who took part, a free zine is winging its way to you by way of thanks.

{Postcards from... A trapdoor in every room, alongside its twin. (Please, click to enlarge.)}

In addition to this, I have just, with Louise's ever gracious help and increasing night owl tendencies, put the final touches on Postcards from... A trapdoor in every room. A 24 page zine, this one is an edition of sixty and it is a bookend to Postcards from... If we stand very still, no one will notice.

Expect to find a penguin demonstrating the Milano two step, and to witness a fine balancing act going unnoticed at the New York Zoological Gardens. From Beirut to the Canadian Rockies by way of Japan and Montevideo, I wish you only happy travels.

I hope you enjoy these two new zines, and thank you once again.

You will find these new zines, in addition to being available individually, in various merry groupings (to help you save on postage), here and here.

I have many more exciting things to share with you, but for now they shall have to wait. This post is getting a little too long and the garden beckons.