HIGH UP IN THE TREES

We watched them from safe distance...

 

January?
1976?

Dear you,
 
Of course the joy of it was that they thought they’d not been seen. No idea we were there! None at all. We watched them from safe distance. Saw their comings and goings, and marvelled, they’re much like us.
 
Lights out, sleep now,
X

+ This particular postcard tale features in volume three of But I just got here a minute ago. (The title of today's post seems a good fit given this.)

+ In support of that fine feline, Pinky Leon, From Orchards, Fields, and Gardens can be yours for $15.

Without an envelope and a care in the world.

{On fictional search for Charles and Sebastian.}




{They were never alone.}




{I can see the appeal.}

A trio of postcards I thought I had already shared. I had not, as it seems. They are from tail end of 2010. They are from Italy. Found after the delicious period of much Easter lolling and feasting.


{Still peckish after the Easter break that rolled into Anzac Day?}

Here is my Grandmother's recipe for Anzac biscuits. (Or pretty close to.)

Ingredients:
2 cups of flaked rolled oats
1 cup of plain flour
¾ cup of butter
1 tablespoon of honey, golden syrup or treacle (preferably golden syrup)
1 teaspoon of bicarb soda
2 tablespoons of boiling water
1 cup of desiccated coconut
1 cup of sugar (preferably brown)

Method:
Mix flour, coconut, sugar and oats in a bowl. Put the butter and golden syrup together in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the butter has melted. Remove from heat. Dissolve the bicarb soda in the 2 tablespoons of boiling water and add immediately to the butter mixture. It will foam up instantly. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. Drop level tablespoon of mixture onto the trays, allowing room for spreading. Gently flatten each biscuit with your fingertips, and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until just brown. Leave on the tray to cool slightly, then place onto a wire rack, and then into an airtight container ready to later enjoy.

(Presumably, I need not tell you that you will need a sheet of baking paper on your tray and that you will need to preheat your oven to 160°C before you begin. You are a clever bunch. You know such things already. (I hope the recipe worked for you and M, CS. Since your request for this recipe, several more have followed suit.))

An enchanting rocky coast...

[on front]
Feeling quite at home… breaking all the rules
 
Dear you,
 
When here earlier this year, I saw the place through the eyes of my then travelling companions. Now that I have returned on my own, I see it as I remembered it to be. An enchanting rocky coast populated chiefly by gulls. Thank heavens for that.
 
Yours in anxiety no more, and watching those with wings take on the sea from distance safe from harm,
X

+ On this brilliant grey day before the Easter holidays take flight, thank-you, friends and family, for your recent greeting card and zine orders. xo

+ Speaking of gulls, A Ross gull presents...

One more tail.

{Please meet Percy.}
 
There is one more tailed creature in the house now that we have adopted a dog. He is a lovely old dog and his name is Percy (or Percival, if formality is called for, a Knight not just of Arthur’s court but mine and Louise’s too). He is some ten years of age, and his muzzle, as befits a senior gentleman on four legs, is suitably greyed. Rescued from a rural pound by Melbourne Animal Rescue, before being cared for by doting foster carer, he is settling in well to life here.

Reading and viewing:
+ Sarapirat
+ OLD CHUM
+ paju

+ Thanks Tracey.
+ Thanks also to everyone who has given us delighted cause to head to the post office. Thank-you for your recent orders of our new cards and other things made.

Sending good wishes by card.

{These new cards of ours are ready for you.}

Orange-bellied parrots make their nests safe by having them so easy to spot they must be a mirage in Potsdam. It’s true, I tell you, for Louise and I have collaged it so. Shark bay mice make the crossing to Dresden’s Old City in glass pieces from Islamic lands, and African palm civets prove most adept climbers and suitable guides in Switzerland, should you trust them. The Himalayan tahr is waiting to whisper in your ear, the Greylag goose is in fact smaller than the Citrine canary flycatcher, and over there trips a Lesser Malay chevrotain if you squint. All true. Look above. Look below. I’m telling no fibs and inventing no new fiction. Pale kangaroo mice can make safe passage through mantelpiece loopholes and Brown bears, some, sport Mexican headdress of highest order. Come, friend, I tell no lie. There are Tufted deer awaiting your company in Palermo, tiles from Morocco and waves from San Francisco. Let me show you Paris illuminated by no less than 5000 incandescent bulbs for the Exposition Universelle. Such is the grandeur! Such is the landscape we’ve conjured for you.

Eight new greeting card designs in total, and available in bundles of many or individually.
+ Single card
+ Five of one kind
+ A set of eight cards, one of each kind

Thank-you.


{Searching all mountains high and seas blue.}

I’m at the Palazzo dell’ Isola Bella, and it suits me well...

Italiana
1934
 
Dear you,
 
To the back teeth, I am fed up. I always knew it was a possibility to change. Well, I was right. I really can change my spotted coat. Tired of being the but of the joke, always, I am tending my superficial wounds in Italy. I’m at the Palazzo dell’ Isola Bella, and it suits me well.
 
Yours in gilded frame hung upon the wall,
X

+ Another Italian view for you, Lisa.

A great happiness.

{In hand.}

I have a copy of Water, paper, paint: exploring creativity with watercolour and mixed media by Heather Smith Jones in my hands. This beautiful publication greatly anticipated covers projects to help you “unearth your own strategies… blend tradition with new methods… combine what you know with a zeal for discovery and find new ways to approach the painting process.” Louise and I feature in chapter three’s gallery, and we are both beyond chuffed to be included. Thank-you Heather.

There on page 146 you can see details from our artists’ book, This evening, however, I am thinking of things past (2009). And there on facing page, Podlike vessels, abandoned but with recent modifications, a detail from our artists’ book And we stood alone in the silent night (2008).

Within the gallery section, Heather writes: “The collaborative duo of Gracia Haby, (a collage artist) and Louise Jennison, (a watercolourist), known as Gracia & Louise, create works of art, artists’ books and zines. Lightly painted watercolours of jewels surround depicted images saturated with colour, as if unearthed from history. Together they relay narratives of new and invented worlds. All of the artists [selected] delve into their imagination in one way or another…”. (I like the visual of us with archaeologist’s trowel in paw.)

+ You can purchase a copy of Heather's book for yourself here.

(More on this excitement soon.)

Feet move fast, so fast they are winged.

Because sometimes it is easier to express thoughts or opinions when masked, I am sending this postcard to you. This one is about Madame Butterfly, recently performed by the Australian Ballet. Would you like me to send you similar, from time to time? I’m happy to do so. I've plenty of ink.






Dear you,

It was in a hail of blossom and beauty executed to seemingly effortless timed perfection that I found myself deliciously drowning. Seated in the hushed red velvet stalls, the music it crept and then roared, and Madame Butterfly she unfurled her delicate wings so readily crumpled. It was in Nagasaki long ago; it was now with Love and Loss as our guides. They whisper and they boom a story orchestrated to reach into one’s very chest and grab at the heart. Not gingerly. I said, grab. Those dancers, they must know that they pull upon long giant and golden ropes from inside the fleshy trunks of all seated in the theatre. Pulling at heartstrings, literally, why, this is the stuff to make your forearms prickle. Goosebumps! These physical sensations, all part of the thrill. Not merely a heady experience, this ride is for the body too.

Swords gleam and lanterns glow, feet move fast, so fast they are winged, I am sure. Such delicious beguilement. Cannot we go again? Cannot we be woven into that tale where we are all sure of foot and our step light?

Yours blinded by the footlights and with giant soaring leap,
X

From when it was March.

{Yesterday. Last week. It was March still.}

Seems as though as soon as I pen a post, it is out of date. All seems to be going so terribly fast. Anything new I have to share, well, it was last week some time when it actually occurred. It’s only now that I’ve managed to find some time to upload those photos and resize them. Forever playing catchup, that’s me. And it’s been like that since the beginning. Here is something Louise and I posted to Leah c/o the Loved & Lost Society. It is a postcard collage of mine, Climbing to a safer place (2010), to accompany a certain artists’ book I’ve shared recently with you. Omar, why, he approves.