fiveandtwo

Notes

I look at all the things my family and I write on the notebook next to the computer and phone (both live in the same place).Today I imagined a large artwork collage made up of notes and messages from that notebook. All stuck together in a random way. Here is a small example.

 
Pasted this together quickly. I might, or might not add some paint for contrast. I'd have to make one to see.

Do I need to save more bits of paper? In addition to the old maps, pictures of doll clothes patterns  (they are weird and creepy, particularly the knitting ones), those pattern thingys used with knitting machines (going to make something with them any day now), my Mother's anatomy and physiology textbook from 1953 (amazing illustrations printed in "olden days" colours), Mum's student notes from midwifery, old B&W photos come across in op-shops and at swap meets - so much inspiration, so little time.

Griping

This may be why your car insurance premiums are high.

We were at the end of our first day driving up north for the funeral when we get a phone call from Linsey saying she's had a car accident. She needs the insurance details - third party property is on her car because it's 1992 model. "Linsey, are you ok?". Yes, thank goodness. She'd rolled into the back of the car in front at a stop sign.

Bumper damage on the car in front - a new back bumper. We consider the cost of a new bumper will be less than the excess on the insurance policy ($1400 because Linsey is only 20) and instruct her to tell the owner of the damaged car to get a couple of quotes and we'd pay for the damage.

No go, the situation was sent to Litigation Lawyers. WTF? OK, we contact the car's insurers, pay the excess, put it in their hands.

The owner of the little Holden car that Linsey ran into has claimed nine thousand dollars for her new bumper. Got her a newer car more likely.

The next car in the row is now also claiming $$$ for a bumper. This will probably spin out to about  fifteen thousand dollars. That's insane.

Lesson? The youngster's cars do need basic insurance, if only for situations like this. But how has the insurance company been ripped off?

 

Where Was I?

Where am I? All over the shop.

After a rapid slide downhill, Dad died on the evening of 21 August. He was home from hospital for four days, home in his own bed, the final wish. I guess he could let go. My Mum and my sister were with him. When he came home an agency nurse was employed to provide physical assistance. My Mum was a nurse and it was intensely frustrating for her not to be able to care for Dad herself, she has the skills but not the mobility or physical strength.

Phone calls the next day saying the funeral was Thursday generated a frantic organising - going in to work to pay bills and set up wages, trying to contact Leah, searching for and buying accommodation, buying airfares for Linsey and Giles. trying to contact Leah, packing, working out travel food, trying to contact Leah - such a rush. Monday we were off on the trek to Qld. It takes us three days. I know people do the distance (approx. 2000km) in 1.5 or 2 days. Even with two drivers we just can't. We need to stop and eat, have coffee and let Clare and Ally out for a spin on the various playgrounds we encounter. We need time to go for a walk and stretch our legs (in daylight) when we stop to stay the night.

So we arrive Wednesday almost in time to pick up the elder two from the airport. My sister was there to do the honours. Question from Linsey and Giles, "How will we know what Aunty Cathy looks like?". "Much like me but her hair's longer". They haven't seen Aunty Cathy for a few years.

 
In Buderim Forest Park. Linsey's photo.

Dad's funeral was good. In his last days he was able to make decisions about the service, the hymns and prayers, pall bearers, even nominating the priest (there was one he really disliked and didn't want to preside at his funeral service). My brother wrote, and read, a splendid eulogy. A good meld of the  personal, anecdote and general fact. Linsey did the reading, Giles was a pall bearer. We all cried.

 
Linsey and Ally, Buderim Forest Park.

Dad's been cremated (his wish). Mum isn't sure what to do with his ashes because of the looming nursing home thing -her failing eyesight and severe mobility problems. She's undecided whether a place in Buderim or a place in Bairnsdale is the best option (assuming she has an option). I will put out feelers next week. She wants to have her ashes "interred" next to Dad's, hence the indecision.

 
Rear view, Buderim Forest Park.

About Leah. We texted, we phoned. No reply. The excuse was, "My phone was out of range". Hmmm. When she finally came home she wasn't interested in going to Grandpa's funeral. I was willing to buy another airfare but got, "Naaah". It didn't seem right when the rest of us were up in Qld and not Leah. An incomplete family.

I am sad and concerned that a boyfriend holds so much sway over her. With his influence (he's 20) I wonder if she'll go to uni. as she says she wants to. This whole thing warrants a post of its own but I doubt I'll write one. So torturous.

 
The little house over the creek. On Quorn Close. It really is over a creek. On a massive concrete pillar that has markings made on it to resemble scribbly gum. Linsey wants to live in this house. It's beautiful, probably too high for mosquitos...but I would need a little bit of ground to grow some herbs and vegies. This lovely house is too shady for that..

Buderim Forest Park walk was the right interlude between funerals and family. We've done this walk a few times. Giles was not keen at all. After we'd arrived back at the car he said, "Well, that was quick. I remember it took hours". I think last time he walked here he was maybe 8 years old. The walk takes about an hour, there and back.

So...I'm back in Bairnsdale. I've unpacked and put things away. I've done many loads of washing. I've been and spent hours at work generating income (aka doing accounts) and sorting other paperwork, generally catching up. I've bought more animal food. And milk (for humans).

And now...where was I?

 

On What To Keep.

So much roaming around the countryside this year. To Sydney, to Lancefield, to Wangaratta and now to Buderim/Maroochydore. I stayed at my sister's flat in Maroochydore, my parents live in Buderim.

The weekend just gone, plus part of the Friday and the Monday was spent sorting my parent's possessions. My Dad is dying and his tools and books needed going through. Mum wanted kitchen stuff sorted as well as the bathroom and laundry cupboards. Neither parent is able to do this themselves. Dad is practically bedridden, Mum has very poor mobility and is approaching blindness (macular degeneration).

My brother, my sister and I started with the garage. My Dad must've kept every piece of wood, every nut/bolt/screw/nail/piece of wire that passed through his hands in the last fourtenn years (the time they've been in the retirement village). A product of the Depression years definitely. I do know that bits and pieces can be very handy for fixing or making things. It's actually good to have a stash for this purpose. I don't know about every bit and piece though.

My brother was in charge of sorting food: packets, tins and jars. The package that eventually won the how-long-has-this-been-kept competition had an expiry date in 1995.

 

Dad, AIF in Palestine 1941.

Plenty of "name the mystery object" happened in the garage sorting. The garage amounted to Dad's shed. They haven't had a car for years. Dad wanted all his hand tools kept. Lots of them, as he was a carpenter by trade. The power tools are to be sold or given away.

Suitcases of photos, slides and 8mm films (plus an ancient film projector). Dad had the films put on DVD several years ago, the film was deteriorated even then. Sorting the photos and books will have to wait, we ran out of time.

It was bittersweet, this sorting. The registration and name tags that belonged to Mum and Dad's last ever dog (she died about six years ago). Coming across yet another tin of screws. The worn end of a chisel - many hits with a mallet - reinforced with a metal band. The scarred saw horses. Ever more jars of nails. A plastic bag full of neatly rolled pieces of rope. Dad's work apron (made by Mum). A block of beeswax from Dad's and his family's days as migratory apiarists (I prefer this to "travelling beekeepers"). The discovery of another cache of wood, just when you thought there couldn't possibly be any more. Exclamations: "I remember that from the shed in Katherine!".

But...as much stuff as we tidied and kept we put in boxes for the op-shop or tossed in a bin. Some things were too imbued with family history to go, not family heirlooms, more "family relics". As an aside, heirloom is pronounced hairloom in my family, aspersions is nasturtiums as in' "I hope you're not casting nasturtiums on my taste in shoes". There's more, but I won't bore you with them.

Nothing written on the back of this photo but it would've been taken after the end of WWII, probably somewhere in outback Qld, maybe around Charleville. 

During all this Dad was in hospital, desperate to come home and die (he is home now). We visited every day, my siblings and I. Mum can't get in or out of any sort of car, she is essentially housebound.

Over the few days of visiting I was somehow able to let go of anger that I'd been harbouring for many years regarding particularly nasty things Dad had said to me on a number of occasions. I think it was because there, in the hospital bed, he was diminished. A frail old man wearing a nappy. And being a parent myself I'm well aware that you do the best you can. My brother and sister are single.

It was liberating.

How I Create

I've been doing loads of sewing lately, posting about it and all. A commenter "enjoyed seeing what I'd made" and wondered if I'd been painting.

This is is something I've been wrangling with over the past six months or so. I am someone who concentrates on, works on, a particular theme - painting , sewing clothes, handmaking toys/bags/other stuff, gardening, researching subjects of interest (academic-style), embroidering by hand and side projects like the Map Toilet and the Broken China Hearth.

Lots gets done but I only work well in bursts.

Two or three months, at most, on each area of interest.

I'm on the tail end of a sewing clothes binge. Forcing myself to finish the pants, and some other garment UFO's.

Making the dog coat caused me to re-examine my wool fabric stash. Now I'm inspired to make more patchwork, ummm stuff, using the wool fabric which I love. I've cut many squares (and not-square pieces from the rest). I am also sewing many of my vintage buttons onto some very thick felt which will become a bag, eventually.

So, very little painting and minimal gardening for the last several months. I now have a strong urge to get the garden in order.

Such a lot needs to be done in the garden, Pruning (aka hacking back the jungle), starting seeds for Spring planting of vegies, mucking out the chook run  and so on. I am frustrated by my body's inability to cope with the work required (post-surgery). Note to self: get over it and do something else!

In all this I know that I'll never get The One Passion - that one, only, art/craft/garden...etc, THING that other people seem to find and devote themselves to.

I have to do numerous things. But the same numerous: sewing, gardening, hand-sewing, cooking, researching what interests, art, painting...

A part of me wonders, however, if this inability to focus on one thing is a kind of cop out. "Oh, I can't focus on just one thing so I can't reach that level of excellence, hold that exhibition, have that successful online children's clothes shop, write those gardening articles rah,rah,rah". Thoughts that gnaw and chew when I can't sleep at night.

I think this is the first non-picture post I've made!

Person All Dusty

Yep, that's me. I've been carving limestone today, for several hours. My hair is stiff with dust, my clothes are patchy with it.

Limestone is very soft, so easy to carve. Very much like plaster. The wonderful "surform" blades make easy work of this stone. This is good because the final maquette I chose to work with has very deep grooves and fissures. Consensus of other students is, "You're mad". It looks so complicated as a marquette (a small model made of a proposed large(r) sculpture). But it's actually a very simple design.

This is my marquette. It's small, maybe 10cm high x 6cm wide (on the square). The limestone is about a metre high by about 45cm square.

It's working really well, thanks to the surform blade, in particular the circular blade, which gives splendid curves to all my hollowing out.

Pics. next week perhaps.

I couldn't handle the camera deprivation (sad, I know). I trawled the internet for a stupid amount of time. Trying to decide between Nikon and Canon - yes, a new camera was my decision.

There's one place that sells cameras in this town - Harvey Norman. I knew trhat a supposed "camera sale" was on. So I went for a look. Now I'm the proud owner of a heavily discounted Nikon D5000. Yay the superseded camera (better than internet price). The hammering the rainy day account has had  is hard. I have guilt problems with that.

Oh, but I've got a new DSLR. I've got a DSLR camera, that's the most inportant for me.

Warm regards.

The Blog Awakes From Slumber

Must be around a year now, since my last post.

Water under the bridge and all that.

I find posting without images difficult.  Morning fog last week - the front yard.

Many times I wanted to make posts, to "show-and-tell" things I'd made, treasure found (increasingly rarely) at the op-shop, lovely/interesting places I'd visited , and stuff in general.

Had a good year at TAFE in 2009. This year, I'm doing Sculpture and Digital Imaging. So far not as demanding as Painting,Drawing and Art Theory was last year.

I had one of those "lightbulb" moments recently as I was agonising over doing large canvases for a proposed exhibition. They're very difficult to work on at home. I don't have an easel, and even if I did I wouldn't have anywhere to leave it set up. Nor anywhere to store large canvases. I sometimes wonder at myself, you know, the times the obvious eludes me. I've decided to work on what I call "kitchen table paintings". Small stuff, mostly around A4 size that I can sit at the kitchen table and do. I really enjoy working at the table and working on that scale. As I said, the obvious.

I 'm not sure that I'll still have an exhibition at the gallery I was going to, the owner much prefers to exhibit large scale work. Exhibition or not, I'm immensely relieved to be working how I like to. Working is the wrong word to use, I think, for something that is pleasure.

In addition, artwork is but one of a trio of things I love to do. Sewing and gardening are the others. All kinds of sewing, but garment sewing the best (frustrating as it can be for me) and it is very important to me to keep a food garden, and the whole garden to be abundant and beautiful.

My recent "sewing for the home" frenzy is a subject for the next post, perhaps. 

Greens from the garden for a salad. The onion comes from a shop!

Ha, it was good to make this post. I welcome myself back.

I'm Still Here...

Yes, still here, but completely out of the routine of blogging. For me, it does need to be slotted in, in some organised way. Spontaneous blogging is a rarity around here! I guess this is true for most people.

My routine has had a big shakeup (it happens every so often).

After a nearly twenty year hiatus I've returned to "formal" art study - Diploma of Visual Arts at East Gippsland TAFE. With a view to eventually gaining a degree in Fine Art, probably from Monash Churchill. The closest uni. to where I live but still a 2 hour drive away!

I've always wanted a tertiary qualification. I rejected a science degree at the beginning of 1982. I'm interested in many aspects of the sciences but Pure Applied Chemistry? What was I thinking.

Family consensus was "artists never make money", therefore studying art was a really bad option. Making lots of money is better than doing what you enjoy?

 

I'm only doing three subjects - painting, drawing and theory - which occupies two days, but it's anough to throw me out of whack!

Thank goodness paid work is usually only one day per week.

It's very motivating being at TAFE. I didn't realise how bored I was. Of course, I had plenty to do with household/kid/husband stuff, and loads of projects in the offing. I think it's been the exchange of ideas that's been missing. Talking with like-minded people, talking books, art, reasons, ideas. Talking about what you're working on, why you're doing it.

Discovering blogland filled part of the gap here. Nothing beats face-to-face interaction though. It sounds lame but I think that stumbling on blogland a couple of years ago prevented me from going completely barmy.

 

I've come into contact with wonderfully creative, articulate and interesting women. I've even met some of them in real life!

So, I've done no crafting except make a paint brush roll.

It's based on the tool roll in this book.

  

I'm a fan of Lotta Jansdotter's style, I have two other books of hers. The printing one, and a Japanese one. I see she has a making-things-for- babies book out.

 

Pics of paintings - TAFE stuff I've been working on.

So, I'm working on slotting the blog posts. You'll probably be subjected to WIPs of TAFE assignments rather than craft/garden/op-shoppy things. You have ben warned...

Return From Unannounced Blog Break.

What have I been doing? Battling demons. With a bit of teen wrangling for light relief

What else? Walking. Changing the garden around - seem to do a lot of digging things up, moving them and changing the size and shape of garden areas when unwell. I think it parallels the changes I struggle to make within.

Two views of garden work in progress.

Doing what else? Sewing clothes for Clare and Ally to not wear.

From this book (ISBN 978-4-579-11132-9)

In a past life it was a linen shirtdress from the op-shop.

Used the same pattern for the "Lady" jackets  for the Book Day costumes.

Little top, cute bumblebee fabric (from Spotlight, as with apple fabric, below)

From this book (ISBN 978-4-579-11954-4)

Heh, could've ironed it! Lovely green linen from the op-shop.

Old Burda pattern (9995) with sash added. Fabric is two vintage pillowcases. All from op-shop.

Clare actually wore the one below..!

Used Ottobre Design's "The Best T-shirts" pattern for these, all op-shop fabrics. The stencil came from Stencilry, loads of stencils you can print and use (personal use only, of course). I used freezer paper for the first time and was very pleased with the result.

A couple more things to sew up and a couple needing buttons. I want to make some pants and skirts for summer. Thinking of making a duct tape "body double" to help with fitting, perhaps then there won't be so many duds - look terrible/don't fit properly.

The Japanese pattern books come from Yesasia. They have free shipping.

You're a Terrific Bunch.

The Satsuma is always the first fruit tree to flower in this garden.

This picture is for you lovely people who cared to comment on my last garbled post.

Sometimes I wonder if I should visit dark places in public. Heh, when I started this blog it was going to be all shiny, happy - none of that other stuff! Things went awry along the way...

However, I am feeling better. I'm thinking perhaps my feeling so "off" was a side effect of a new medication I started taking last week. I will persevere with it though, because it's having very much the desired effect otherwise!

My efforts to banish the demons have meant I shifted the enormous pile of mostly composted chook run stuff from the middle of the back yard: dug into the vegie garden, scratched in around all the citrus and filled into the hole (bear pit) that Suska the dog dug under the apple tree last summer.

Vegetable garden nicely turned & composted. I scooped out quite a few self-sown poppies, forget-me-nots and sweet peas and put them in the new garden out the front before hand. They may or may not take. These things tend to resent transplanting. My vegie garden was once much bigger. I suppose such a reversal sounds strange these days. I found that as our income improved to a point where we didn't have to provide/preserve practically everything scaling back a bit made it much more enjoyable. It was kind of liberating in a way, to buy some lettuce seedlings at the market for successive sowing, for example, rather than having to be on to it all the time. I still like to grow a lot purely from the eating point of view. Home grown tastes far superior especially the soft produce: stone fruit, tomatoes, herbs and lettuces. But even things like cucumbers! I think around these parts, however, I preach to the converted.

The tranquillity of these two was mightily disturbed not long after this was taken. After much resistance it was  yes, you are going to learn to ride your bike today! Off we went to a nearby oval and basketball court  where we had to bully them into the whole starting-stopping-riding business. Being seven years old they caught on very quickly and it was all over in an hour! Tears and trauma. Of course, now they love riding, and've spent vast amounts of time since in a cul-de-sac nearby perfecting their skills. On Tuesday we will ride to school (not tomorrow - appointment at 9.00). This resistance to cycling has occurred with all four girls, but not Giles. Stereotyping? Dunno. All I know is, it's an important life skill (like being able to swim ok)and best learnt young. Actually, I'd be interested to know what other things you consider to be "important life skills". Being able to cook is another that springs to mind. I'm actually thinking of things not usually covered in mainstream school curriculum.

Another in the "chair series".