HIGH UP IN THE TREES

A perfume for scenting gloves.

{A folded drawing of an Australian Pelican, one of three new zines by Louise.}


{A folded drawing of a Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo to perch on your shoulder.}


{A folded drawing of a Southern Boobook to perch in nearby tree.}

There are few things that bring as much green joy as reining the garden back into some semblance of shape, order, and planting new cuttings from which you hope good things will grow. This is what I have done with a small portion of my today. I have cut back the olive that tickles the clothes as they dry on the line, trimmed the banksia in hope all new growth will be closer to eye level, and placed in sandy mixture three green and large frangipani cuttings, so large they are almost tree-like. I have read you can propagate from herbaceous stems, woody stems, softwood, semi-hardwood, or hardwood, and I am hoping this is something I can achieve. Last Saturday I found three large sections of a frangipani ripped off a big old tree and left on the nature strip. I picked them up and let them dry out for a week (to allow the wound to heal over) and now I hope in time they will bloom, showing me their perfect flower white when the season is right. Their fragrance is best at night, and it serves to lure sphinx moths that I am hoping are as grand in nature as they are in name.  The reference to the winged monster of Thebes from Greek mythology and the carvings of Egypt, part lion’s body, part human, all serve to make it sound fantastical to me, this sphinx moth.

Blood and bone sprinkled by handful (much to the delight of Omar as I cuddle him afterwards), tomatoes trimmed back, now I am ready to put finishing touches on an artists’ book of Louise and mine (This evening, however, I am thinking of things past) for the forthcoming 2010 Libris Awards: Australian Artists' Book Prize.

Hope Sunday finds you similarly at peace.

frangipani

ORIGIN mid 19th century: named after the Marquis Muzio Frangipani, a 16th-century Italian nobleman who invented a perfume for scenting gloves.

Overhead birds fly.

{Who are you? spins round and round.}

I have high hopes for the white-flowering mandavilla recently planted. High hopes that it will grow tall and thick and green, that it will cover the fence that separates my neighbours and me. High hopes that it will grow into a thick green screen that will shield my nest from view of the new tall neighbour for an exposed nest is no nest at all. Of the four new tenants living next door I know little, but one is tall, so tall that I can see his head and neck when he gardens or sips beer and I find I don’t wish to think about these habits of his yet I am keenly aware. Therefore, the mandadvilla must grow tall and quickly.

+ Thank you for your kind words emailed and left on Alexandra's post featuring her interview with me. There is a new sprightliness in my step as a result, and initially a little colour in my cheeks.

+ Thank you for your recent zine orders too. It's heartening to be sending our zines to places near and far, to faces new and new faces dear.

{Who are you? and other new zines are wrapped as Silla sleeps on and on and on.}

Looking up, I see clouds in loose formation.

{Views in my pocket is a new zine of little views of wonder for your pocket. It can slide into your pocket too.}

Transition from night owl to morning lark all but complete when it comes to working at home on collage creation, zine preparation or words on a page in reply to a question. In the quiet of the morning, with a head full of sleepy visions and thoughts, there is a magical half-and-half moment when, with grace, and perhaps ease, things come to fruition or beg for completion. The net I have referred to previous catches things easily. It doesn’t last all that long, that half awake, half in sleep still moment, but if you work quickly it is golden. In the household quiet, in new neighbours increasingly rare quiet, it is good to be awake, quietly working. Cats curled in snooze, birds twittering in trees and garbage truck lurching forwards then stopping, forwards then stopping, in the distance I can hear the sounds of construction and further still traffic. I am indoors by a window and the day ahead is pleasingly long.

+ A little while ago Alexandra asked some questions of me, and this, on her blog, is my reply. It is for her Art as Business: Interview Series and I am utterly delighted to have been invited to play a part in it. (Thank-you Alexandra.)

+ As mentioned earlier, Louise and I have seven new zines for you to see and all are now available in our store. Views in my pocket is one. Closing my eyes, it is possible to imagine myself anywhere but where I am (I); Closing my eyes, it is possible to imagine myself anywhere but where I am (II); A folded drawing of a Sulpher-crested Cockatoo; A folded drawing of a Southern boobook; A folded drawing of an Australian pelican; and Who are you? are its companions.

+ Like to stay in the loop?

Of seaweed specimen and postcards collected.

They had collected 121 specimens. An odd number for those with interest in numbers, I expect, but as I am someone not with interest in numbers, I cannot say if this is so. Perhaps it is one of those perfect numbers, perhaps it is a number divisible by prime numbers, really, I would not know, nor do I care to. Perhaps the number is of no import; perhaps it is the amount of specimens found. Specimens of seaweed, that is. Specimens from the Sea of Japan. Collected perhaps by Lauriston B. Hardin, on the Perry Japan Expedition in 1853 to 1855. These specimens are what I have been looking at. Not in person or in printed book in own hands, but on the screen before me this morning. Pale, spidery, and delicate they appear. Rosy, sometimes, too,

Of relation to neither Japan nor morning art of taking one's time, stalling, this is a new zine. As mentioned earlier, it is one of seven. It will be available through our store as soon as the fog of procrastination clears.

{A look at Closing my eyes, it is possible to imagine myself anywhere but where I am. (II)}

Closing my eyes, it is possible to imagine myself anywhere but where I am. (II) is an edition of sixty. All present felt as though something exciting was about to happen; Ready to give help; Have I stood still all this time?; I can almost touch it; and With attention drawn elsewhere are the five postcard collages featured. I hope you like this zine.

(To Lisa who inquired if green was truly my favourite colour, yellow is, on second thought, my favourite colour.)

When the things you’ve planned need a helping hand.

{Feeling my way and feeling more than alright. (A postcard collage that features in one of seven new zines made.)}

Sticky’s annual zine fair, held the day prior Saint Valentine’s and Chinese New Year, found Louise and me elbow to elbow with fellow zine makers in the Degraves Street underpass on a Saturday afternoon. It was a steamy affair and the Melbourne Tramways Band (formed in 1888 by the Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company) played I'll Be Loving You, Always, Lady of Spain et al. as zines were sold or traded or both. We made seven new zines for our half table allotted, and sometime this week we will list these new titles in our store. (For those Melbourne based, a few copies of each have been left in Sticky’s hands).

Captured with iPhone quickly, here are a few photos. Take a look, it’ll be just like peeping over my shoulder. 






{How it looked from where I sat. Sort of.}

Posted. Received.

{I caught sight of something marvellous. Postcard collage, 2010.}

Dear you,

Journeying further afield I was struck by a sight spectacular yet utterly normal: there on the tracks, as if in conversation, a butterfly spoke in tongues to a museum exhibit touring the globe. It was a curious sight thankfully captured and put on postcard front.

All my love and obscurity,
X



{We may not be able to see the moon from here but we know it hangs high above. Postcard collage, 2008.}

Dear you,
 

Spending time, once more, in Sweden, exploring their grand interiors with companion glued to my side. ‘We may not be able to see the moon from here but we know it hangs high above,’ she said, and I knew she was right.

 
All things persistent,
X

(These two collages I have sent to Uppercase magazine as part of their Postcard Project.)

+ Happy Birthday to you, dear Louise, Happy Birthday to you!

+ 15 Questions About Art :: Shari Altman (LittleBird)

Glimpse.

{Still in elusive pursuit.}

I saw costumes in motion I have only seen illustrated in books, exhibited on gallery wall, or caught in a photograph’s monochrome palette. I saw Nijinsky’s erotically charged Faun capable of creating scandal. I saw a bear with chain through its snout draw giant loops in the air, one of many in the coloured set of Petrouchka’s carnivale choreographed by Mikhail Fokine. I saw Picasso’s set painted and costumes all bands of colour and line. I saw all this in movement, in colour, dancing before my eyes in the Paris Opera performance of Le Spectre de la Rose, L'Apres-midi d'un faune, Le Tricorne and Petrouchka to mark the 100 year anniversary of the Ballets Russes. All this sighted late one morning when my own work was causing my brow to furrow. Stravinsky and Claude Debussy in my ear, and a hushed crowd about me in the cinema beckoned. Sometimes ideas are hard to court and when such moments land with heavy thud, and often they do, it is best to pack up one’s things and head out the front door to see something you’ve not seen in awhile if ever before.

 

A long walk, a film perhaps, or to the garden. See something else. Do.

+ When ballet stepped into the sun, the Ballet Russe and Le Train Bleu

 

+ Thank you for your recent Owl orders. They are on their way to new homes now, with the first five orders with promised extra giveaway tucked under wing.

Suddenly there appears an owl.

{Louise's new print. Louise's Owl.}

Having woken from sound sleep, vivid dreams still at my shoulder sit; a line from a poem by Siegfried Sassoon is on the tip of my tongue. The poem is the last featured in Graeme Gibson’s The Bedside Book of Birds: An Avian Miscellany. It is only a fragment I recall. Perhaps, in truth, it is more the image, the visual painted, a picture of once imprisoned birds finding their freedom.

 

Birds are with good reason on my mind for this morning Louise has a beautiful new print, Owl, to release. A single colour print and an edition of twenty-five, it features an owl made of gold, enamel and agate, and with a string of emeralds at the throat. This owl has, I like to think, escaped the ornamented confines of August the Strong's (1670-1733) collection housed in the Green Vault (Grüne Gewölbe) and taken up lodging in space upon printed page.

To celebrate Owl’s release we, Louise and I, are offering with the first two orders placed online a free print of The best cover still proved Egyptian artefacts and treasure from Troy.

 
The third, fourth and fifth orders will receive a free zine with their feathered owl.

+ Handsome owl can be sighted and made a companion of yours here.

EVERYONE SANG

Everyone suddenly burst out singing;
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.
 
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears, and horror
Drifted away ... O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

(Siegfried Sassoon, 1886–1967)

An excursion.

{Hot underfoot.}

To St Arnaud, the place of my mum’s childhood, the four of us went one hot January day. We drove up, we stayed awhile, we drove home. It looked, in part, as I remembered it but my memory is not always to be trusted. It gives way to fiction all too readily. I have woven the various stories gleaned of my aunts and uncles and cousins into one massive ball of tales, and my knowledge of the family tree is suited to my whimsy, shaped by the photos my great grandparents, whom I never met, and my own imagination. It seems both as I remembered and altogether different. I have grown larger and my eyes know different things. The house on the corner of a nearby neighbour looked, when I was young, ripe for exploration and exotic with its dense garden and large palm tree. Today it looks less of an enchanted tangle. It is odd how things shrink and alter until you realise they have not shifted, rather, you have.

{Here is but a fragment of that day. One day in surrounds different too my usual path. The dip in the pool was such cool relief.}

+ After a pause, A skulk of foxes and a husk of hares resumes

+ An owl printed, Louise has a new print soon to be available
+ Lumi, In other places it is cold