{In my ear and most unwelcome.}
Today as I walked home something small and winged flew right inside my ear. Giving me a hell of a fright, it made a terrible frantic buzzing noise as it thrashed and flapped. It may have only been a tiny thrip or something insecty-similar but how awful it felt as I ambled down the street. Whatever was it thinking darting in there!
{At rest.}
These three collaborative collage works are from the series - Pointing my feet in the direction of home. A recent series made with Louise (which you have seen in various stages of dress), some will make their way to the press to become lithographic offset prints (about A4 in size), and others will be printed (for the now) postcard size (for you to send to your nearest, dearest and sweetest).
Catch sight of the other two here.
Happy Tuesday eve to you wherever you are, and may your home be cosy and filled with all manner of goodness. I have been at my parents’ place, filling each of their new iPods with hundreds and hundreds of songs. I have transferred Dixieland jazz and Gypsy and Cajun cds onto impossibly small shiny gadgets as minestrone soup simmered on the stove, its smell filling the house. Thoughts of home and what makes a home are on my mind; may your home be a happy one.
the road home
sunday morning ritual
tuesday breakfast
away from home nº2
...
{Talking to me in a long forgotten tongue.}
Filling my eyes and ears with beautiful haunting visuals and song, plenty of song. I have been to acmi cinema to catch, as part of their recent focus on a century of Russian cinema, Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), a philosophical fable about a mysterious Zone that is believed to contain a room which can grant your innermost desires. I have also been to see Transylvania (Tony Gatlif, 2006), and in my ears at the moment Yo La Tengo, Blues singer Bessie Smith, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Calexico, Dolly Rathebe and her dangerous good African Inkspots and more. Visuals and sounds these past few days set out to win my affections, and easily succeeded in doing so. It was not tricky for I bent easily to their will, such good things to tumble headfirst into whilst working on a series of new collages and a forthcoming collaborative artists’ book with Louise. There’s inspiration and stimulation to be found everywhere; I only hope I can capture a thin slither of what I can see and hear in my mind on the page and screen before me.
Enjoy your Monday; mine has almost gone.
{Casting shadows longer than the trees could ever hope to.}
I buy books sometimes based on cover alone. Otto de Kat’s The Figure in the Distance however, I bought for both its black and white photographic cover and its first paragraph.
The Algonquin lay in New York like a small island. “The names of towns and small islands are feminine,” sprang into his mind as he drew the comparison, a rule from the book of Latin grammar resurfacing after many years. Over and over again his father had gone through the book with him. Hours spent face to face, weeks of testing, and all that had stayed with him was a couple of exceptions.
Translated from Dutch (by husband and wife, Arnold and Erica Pomerans), it would be a tremendous understatement to say that I am enjoying this book. The world he describes, past and present, I want to walk in it. In the constant and relatively quiet company of my cat companions, I hope to return to it to read a few more pages. Unlike most, this Monday morning I am keeping deliberately quiet and slow; last night I cut out collage pieces until it was almost 2am. The red indentations on my fingers tell me I have cut more than enough.
Today the room smells of mock orange blossom. One small branch of flowers snapped from the tree in the front garden, it doesn’t last long in a vase indoors and its petals drop almost immediately, but it smells of sweet citrus. It smells of idyll Sundays spent reading and tinkering and drawing and nattering, and that is just the effect I long to recreate today.
Thursday proved stressful, Friday productive, and the weekend sped by. Today is full of promise.
++ An afternoon edit, A skulk of foxes have arrived. ++
{A new beginning suddenly seemed within reach.}
It seems I can’t hold off any longer.
I have something new to share with you, and like all new things, I can think of little else.
I have carved out a new blog space. An additional space, but rather than tell you too much, I’ll let you take a look for yourself.
*** A skulk of foxes and a husk of hares ***
(I think this new project has its roots here ("Our neighbourhood boasts a local lead of foxes – although I think I prefer the alternative ‘skulk’ of foxes. Our fox friends skulk.") and here.)
{A loose collection, falling.}
{Lying down, looking up.}
Monday morning, on paper.
If today could wear a look it would be one of quiet satisfaction. It promises to be hot, it is a public holiday, and I have purposefully made sure I have no plans. I am going to stretch out and read. I am going to use my neglected moleskine diary to jot down favourite sentences as I read them. And I am going to cut out collage pieces until I long to do something else.
{On the back of many little coloured strips of paper (73 in total, some of you twice) Louise and I wrote each and every name of all those who entered our linen bird giveaway. Written on the reverse side of orange, yellow, pink, purple, green, red, blue and black coloured kindergarten squares, in pencil and pen, all the names and accompanying birds, if mentioned.
The two lucky souls, would you like to know who they were? Okay, congratulations Veronica (Petunia) and Lisa (Lisa’s Musings). Your names, written on yellow and black respectively, were pulled from a little tepee of cut paper strips huddled on the floor. A small and colourful paper mountain of hopefuls that later afforded Omar and Olive a little tumbling-about-in joy. Congratulations to you both. And look to your letterboxes shortly. One or two addition folk may find a smaller little something also heading their way soon, should we be organised.
Thank you, dear friends and new faces, for your interest in our handsewn birds, playing along and for listing favourite feathered friends.}
{One too many.}
Omar likes to follow me around the house. From lounge room to bedroom to bathroom to kitchen, he follows me. Often a few paces behind, near to my side as if glued there, a very vocal companion is my Siamese cat.
Post trip to the dentist, to have plaque scraped from the teeth (my teeth, not my cat's), he desires me to make myself comfortable not by the computer but in the warmer room where the washing hangs by the bar heater. Autumn is nearing and we are making cosy nooks in every room of the house. Blankets have come out of cupboards and herbal teas are prepared and enjoyed in the evening where once we feasted upon pineapple pieces. Farewell summer, here comes autumn.
And so I must obey, for he protests loudly, and arrange my limbs in a cross-legged position on the couch with springs that lie on the floor. There I can cut out future collage pieces as he sits in a tight ball formation on my lap.
Tomorrow those wooden animals with an appetite for zines are to be removed from the cabinet they have called home for the month of February. We’ll unpin the two large drawings and box up our animals for the journey home. It is always best to have something new simmering quietly on the stove when an exhibition draws to a close. A night spent cutting out tricky paper forms is just what I need. My Omar, he is wise.
{It really was true, you could, for a time, count upon the kindness of strangers.}
(Today's collaged photochrome lands show you Niagara Falls, as seen from the Canadian side, and Sinaia, Romania. The tree house was the Crown Prince Charles of Hohenzollern's hideaway near to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains... as that was some time ago, new inhabitants have since moved in.)
(To all those seeking to continue your journey from the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, how does the Arctic region sound to you? Louise has a new zine out, Before it's too late, and it features seals in repose. What sight could possibly be better? You'll find it available both here and here. Those first in my find themselves rewarded with a little something extra.)
(To all those dear souls who shared their neighbourly woes and grumbles, thank you. To Brydie especially, the news of a possible six month lease is sweet music to the ears.)
