HIGH UP IN THE TREES

Two by two.

{Omar and the zines.}

Omar has a particular penchant for napping tucked in my armpit whenever I lie down. His small chin resting upon my upper arm, he becomes displeased if I move too much or refuse to settle at length. He has a weakness for chocolate (Camilla’s Friday bear with a sweet tooth reminds me of him). The very smell of an egg recently boiled is capable of sending him into a delirious tailspin. And he has a certain fondness for paper. He likes little better than to investigate a pile of paper, to nuzzle and kiss it about the edge with his little black lips, to claim it as his own. With two new zines to photograph he has been kept happily engaged of late. My factory foreman with a long black tail and a howl like an infant oversaw the production and documentation of these new zines. He can attest that all pages are in correct order. As can Louise and I.









Good evening, good evening. So nice of you to have come all this way.
Edition of sixty.
October, 2008.

~ Lay claim to this zine ~

This zine features many of the collages and texts from my occasional Postcard Travels series, as well as various photographic ephemera from Elisabeth Söderberg's life received by post from Alexandra, and a few other hidden surprises. The title of this zine has been borrowed from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited. It is a line spoken by Charles Ryder's father, and in my copy of the book it falls on page 82.









Postcards from…  But for the moon nobody could see us.
Edition of sixty.
October, 2008.

~ Lay claim to this zine ~

This zine is the third in a loosely grouped series of postcard collage zines. Of the first two (I and II) only one copy remains available.

See additional page details here.

Thank you once more for taking an interest in what I make and what I do. I am delighted to share it with you in this space. Good evening to you.

A drove of Berkshire pigs, a flush of ducks. I know where they hide.

{Blending in I found all was revealed. A recent postcard collage from one of two new zines on the way.}

Near to the city, close to my home, there is a Children’s Farm in Collingwood, and a visit to it this weekend past proved the perfect tonic. We met C and her little one for a Saturday morning social with hungry Anglo Nubian goats and their kids, and fed them as an ostentation of Blue Indian peafowl paraded past, leaping and bellowing. We saw chickens of all descriptions, Brown & Black Leghorns and Salmon Faverolles, all sporting varied plumage. I favoured the amenable Black Orpington – it was their luminous black-green feathers all a-shimmer – and vowed to one day have room enough for a chook house in my back garden.

We patted guinea pigs on a bench in a warm shed, and spotted one of the resident cats asleep in a straw bed. We soaked in the morning sun and were at leisure, completely. Leaving some three hours later, covered in dust about the ankles and big grins upon our faces.







+ Two new zines are very near to completion. Good evening, good evening. So nice of you to have come all this way. and Postcards from…  But for the moon nobody could see us are stacked in a tall pile as their sticky spines dry. With luck perched on my shoulder, I ought have them available for you this Wednesday. They are each an edition of sixty. Thank you for taking an interest in them.

+ Have you been to Ritva’s new store? And, have you seen Thereza’s books?

POSTCARD TRAVELS (XIII & XIV)

{Mind how you scamper, postcard collage.}

October 20th, 1904

Dear you,

Been travelling through the unfamiliar of late, visiting Zoological Gardens and conversing with Polar bears who, for the main, are both agreeable and in possession of keen wit. A minor injury incurred along the way – scrambling at speed across slippery rocky surfaces – but I am on the mend. With an injured paw to show for my troubles, and a bruised ego that thankfully cannot be seen at a glance.

Salted fish sticks and faux icebergs,
X


{Feeling gigantic, postcard collage.}

October 22nd, 1904

Dear you,

Small monuments seem the order of the day in this place that I am happy to call, for the moment, home.

Fully grown trees the size of shrubs, would you believe? I feel a giant here.

Spending my days up to the kneecaps in teahouses and a rather sorry gluttonous state.

Pining for your company,
X

{The thirteenth and fourteenth postcards in this sporadic series of correspondence were received in their original state from my partner in collaborative crime, Louise. Postcard Travels is happy to resume after a long hiatus. And, soon a Fox and Hare will appear on the horizon.}

(Apologies to those of you having trouble leaving message for me here. Seems that a few comments are being nibbled at or swallowed whole by a typepad system rendered a little haywire. I’ll look into it my end and see if I can find the ones that went missing.)

+ Coming soon, two new zines featuring some of these postcard collages. I hope you will like them.

Friday's trail.

{Where did you spring from? (Thanks, once again, goes to Alexandra for providing such a source!)}

Today I am working at home this late afternoon and enjoying the quiet sounds that come with it. I have A.M.Homes to serve as my guide when I seek a break. I have discovered that my reading spot in the back garden takes you direct to LA, and now I am wishing Anhil would serve me a doughnut, his best doughnut on a secondhand plate. My afternoon sits in delicious contrast to my morning and makes for my favourite kind of day. I have a spring in my step thanks to a serve of Hungarian casserole laced with paprika for lunch. I have discovered that I rather like cooking. I have the whole night before me.

Here for you, to usher in your weekend, I have a feast. Homemade lemonade and sweet and savoury eats all courtesy of the folk at MINE – Kids in Olinda, where you will find our linen-fronted birds gathered in front window. Tuck in, don’t wait.









+ Let EZB be your guide into the weekend. Or Louise. Or perhaps take a walk in the rain.

+ Especially for Valeda... that red and blue bird you admired in the previous post is a Crimson rosella. It call sounds like this and it looks like this (in reality) and like this (on paper, thanks to Gould) and sometimes like this (on a Arnott's biscuit tin).

Watching over me, washing over me.

{A brief green walk. (Click to see a little larger)}

Trodden underfoot today, a largely carpeted and linoleum experience. But yesterday, yesterday was a thing altogether different. Yesterday Louise and I wove a path up a hill in a car heaving with sixty or so of our linen-fronted owls and birds.

We suspended them from branches in the window of MINE - Kids in Olinda. With Brydie’s help, we three managed to tie from fine thread a dissimulation of birds. Nimble fingers proved a must and the task, whist fun, was a tricky affair. I’d hoped it to be a meditative activity, sitting on the white ledge, tying in place the many birds. As it was, the thread slipped time and time again through my fingers.

See a little of our window display, Watching over me day and night, here.

After setting up our little faux nature scene, a stroll in the greenery was needed. Here, especially for you, a little pocket greenness.

Follow my path.

















(Thanks, B, for the muffins. So kind of you.)

Made by continual treading.

{Wisteria. How I love the very smell of it.}

From passageway to footpath and laneway, turn left, turn right, walk forward… here’s where my feet took me yesterday. Down the laneways and residential streets in the bright afternoon sun, I saw an old acquaintance, quite by chance; an elderly woman dressed solely in shades of dusty rose-pink walking her greyhound Freckles (a dog adopted through GAP); a ginger cat with ginger eyes to perfectly match; and much wisteria in bloom. I walked at an even pace and realized quickly that I was overdressed for such a day. The sun it was hot on the top of my scone and I was remiss in putting sunscreen on my forearms. It was one of those spring days that could easily tip over into summer. Short sleeves a must, and a shoe not enclosed about the toe was preferable.






{Down laneways, looking above, looking down.}






{Hello Freckles. Hello shadow.}






{Power lines overhead, a spot to leave a toaster and a spot to leave a printer.}




{The goose, the rabbit and the fox, why is it that they are not moving?}






{A tiny world floats high up on the wall.}

Shari's week of paths begins today. Are you going to join in too?


{Recently made.}

+ New collaborative drawings and several linen birds and owls have arrived in our shop... find them all here.

+ Louise and I are interviewed about our Archipelago window installation on Craft Victoria's Clog... you can read our interview here.

Crystal pendants mounted in gold and other visuals.

Recently I was asked to make a collage for The World of Interiors magazine to accompany an article about the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Taranto in Puglia, Italy.

Here is what I made, and here it is in print, featured on the very last page, inside the back cover of the weighty October issue.

Such a thrill, I tell you, to see these two postcard collages side by side in colour.

Most of the objects on show are small and all the more impressive for their diminutive size.
Alistair McAlpine, Greeks Bearing Gifts, Journal of a Collector, The World of Interiors, October, 2008







+ boy-with-a-ski
+ varied landscapes, wrong distance

With hammer and nail we shall cover this wall with many things.

{What hangs on my walls? All of these things hang on my walls.}

It has felt like a long day, but before I bury nose in book, here are a few photos of what hangs on the wall of a room I spend a great deal of time in. These photos are from one room, from my pale green walled lounge room. I have long wished I had a white interior to work with, a perfect snowy base, but really I know that this is not very possible for me. For the now I look at the white canvas base that others have and I think how beautiful it looks and I think one day, one day. I have a great many colourful things on my walls that are cracked and mottled and heavily hung. They feel like my walls, but really they are not my walls. They don’t belong to me. They’ve been here for years and years, and who knows what they’ll look like down the track when I am old.

{A window on one side is reflected on the other.}

What you cannot see from these photos is the space on the floor below. I sit on the floor and I work, for the main. Save for today. Today I spent the day both outside, making the most of extended daylight hours, and at work in the city, protected from the frequent though short spring downpours.

I am happy to be home.

{Perhaps later this week I will show you another room. Would you like that?}

Thanks for tagging me... xo

On the wall elsewhere.

+ You have until this Thursday the 9th to see Fictions at MUMA. Several of our artists’ books feature.

'All the things to take to our very own archipelago' is a long sentence. It is also the name of our latest window at Craft Victoria. This is also a very long title for a post also on long side of short.

{Deciding where to put an owl pinnie and trying to think myself out of a dislike of heights.}

Louise shimmied up the ladder with seeming abandon and brilliant flair, as did Katie Jacobs (armed with her army of ceramic Common wombats and Eastern quolls and Gouldian finches for the neighbouring window space). I, not so graceful, I climbed up slowly, clinging tightly to the thick wooden rail. I’m not a natural with heights, and installing our cards and Thelma’s stuffies in the window at Craft Victoria requires one to be familiar with more than the second rung of the ladder. One step at a time, I climb. In general, watching other people familiar with heights, I am always a little jealous of how very easy they make it look. It must stem from the circus, watching acrobats and tightrope walkers. Who didn’t want to be someone so fearless and skillful, if only for a day?

But today we are not at the circus; we are arranging  All the things to take to our very own archipelago. What shall we need? Yes, first things first, a big old chest and a wooden chair to afford us a small rest. We’ll need paper on which to write, and we have company in the form of stuffed creatures with elongated limbs and squishy bits and beaded particulars. We’ll need something to read and we’ll need owls to sound the alarm… they can do that, can’t they?






{sometimes it is the tails of my Mum's stuffies that I think I love the most. And the ears. And the startled expressions...}

You can see our window in Flinders lane for a fair portion of October. Head there and take a look for yourself.

All the things to take to our very own archipelago
29 September – 19 October 2008
Craft Victoria, 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne






{The window, finished.}

Please, see more both here (Elsewhere) and here (Pasadena Mansions).