Its a good life

In my current obsessive search for blooming magnolias, I came across this bright puffball of a blossom tree, alive with twenty or more waxeyes feasting on nectar. I took a dozen blurry photos of uncooperative waxeyes before they were scared off by this fine poser of a tui.

The past few days have been relatively warm, often bright and sunny, and I've been bicycling a lot, which always makes me feel wonderful. It's too early for spring, but I feel that great loosening of tension that comes from not being braced against the cold all the time. As I persistently reset my emotional state to happy, I'm deliberately dwelling on all that is good in my life. The more I notice the qualities that define happiness for me, the more those qualities seem to dominate. I am feeling particularly blessed at the moment with a number of things that I have been working towards coming to fruition, and more opportunities opening up all the time.

Brain coral pin (bleached coral are essentially fossils- there's not much difference to a layperson's eye between ancient fossils and recent bleached coral- so stitching these patters are a happy link between my coral and fossil interests.)

You are an agent of change, my big coral work, has made it through to the finals of the National Contemporary Art Awards. This means it will be on exhibition at the Waikato Museum from September through to January 2010. The winner will be announced at the opening on 4 September, an annual event which, by all accounts, is one of the highlights of the social calendar in Hamilton. To take advantage of the long period that my coral stitching will be on show I am making some coral pins to have for sale at the same time. Some are sleek, elegant embroidery and some are wild and crazy crochet so there's something for everyone.

Rugosa Coral Pin

I was recently awarded the position of Writer in Residence at Hamilton Girls High School, starting soon, and lasting for 10 weeks. I think its got to be the best art gig in town, if not NZ, with a sunny studio, a generous stipend, and the opportunity to do interesting projects with students and staff as well as devoting time to my extensive to-do list of creative work. Watch this space, as I will be documenting the residency in words and pictures here on Bibliophilia.

I finally overcame whatever resistance was blocking me from taking my some of my work to a commercial gallery, after a break of a year or two. I'm delighted to be represented in Hamilton's Thornton Gallery who are currently showing Soul of the Sea (last year's Art Guild finalist) and some artist's books including Waipoua Forest, which hasn't been shown for a while. This is the last copy of the edition of two (the other one is held in Auckland City Libraries Special Collection).

I do like seeing my books in a glass cabinet.

With all this satisfying and fulfilling goodness going on, I don't really have time to pine for the Daintree, though I still think about it everyday. I'll leave you with this lovely little music video about the Daintree. There's gorgeous footage of the forest, birds and more.