Abundance

Eating from the garden every day. Is it possible to overdose on leafy greens? Because I've never eaten so many in my life before, I'm sure.

Oh dear, I keep forgetting to blog. And then remembering but not knowing what to say. Or having some idea but not feeling ready to share it here. The growing and changing is not all in the garden right now.  There are lush developments inside and out that are still too new and tender to expose to the harsh environment of the internet. Also I'm really really busy and not often by my computer.

before (a polyculture of carrots, mesculun and red onion;
with dill and beans coming on in the background)

after (a month later, thinning for salads every day)

Growing things (seriously) is still enough of a novelty for me to feel like I am witnessing miracles daily. I am awestruck by seeds germinating.  Every leaf and tendril is a wonder. The humblest blossoms delights me. Fruit forming from flowers is amazing.  Consuming food that I've grown feels like a sacrament.

Pretty pea flowers by the borage

I love sharing my yield with friends and family, nourishing them with the unqualified goodness I have nurtured.   If you come by, you will find a bag of salad pressed upon you, as the race is on to harvest before this unseasonably hot weather makes all the greens bolt.  Soon there will be peas, beans, zucchini and tomatoes to share. But the strawberry harvest is just (almost) enough for me (and the birds and slugs). Only my beloved father gets to also eat one now and then.

One of the daily salads of 15+ different leaves and flowers, all picked a minute ago.

Poems of the Plateaux

I'm sorry that the blog  is being neglected even more than usual. I'm moving right now (well I moved last weekend, but its taking a while to sort myself from one room into a whole house). So no time to blog.

Besides I'm not making any art at the moment, just making home which is itself an art. When things look a bit nicer I promise I'll give you a tour. Right now there's not much to see but piles of boxes and stray bits of furniture sitting forlornly in odd places waiting for their new assignments.

While you are waiting Bibliophila to resume regular posting I highly recommend this collection of poems about Denniston and Stockton Plateaux by the late Leicester Kyle. I have to thank Bronwyn Lloyd for letting me know about this site because the poems really resonated for me.

Spring programme

Poor neglected blog! I've been navigating a delicate recovery from existential angst, not a process I wanted to expose to the harsh light of the internet. I'm not angsting over 'what's the point of trying to be an artist?' anymore. Now I'm just getting on with it; which is much more fun.

But I'm too busy to try and craft a narrative about anything, instead here's a partial list of what I've been up to:

• reading Ranulph Fiennes' biography of Scott and thinking about the Scott poem I want to write
• un-installing 'Punctuated Equilibrium' from the Vitrine at Waikato Museum
• finishing preparing two years' worth of tax records for the accountant
  
• watching with despair as my 'money-put-aside-for-taxes' goes for yet another dental bill
• eating rice bubbles
• avoiding Twitter which I find oppressive and confusing
  
• experimenting with kefir milk grains
• enjoying bicycling in fine weather for a change, the air smells so sweet
  
• cleaning dirty old letterpress type
• cuddling alpacas at the A&P Show, also viewing bunnies, horses, sheep, goats and cows
  
• finishing the icebergs for the Shelf exhibition later this month
• finishing a present to take to Melbourne at the end of the month
• reading Pie#02
• reworking 'You are an Agent of Change' into two 'new' pieces
• reworking 'Breathe' into costume jewellery
  
• growing a small vegetable garden in pots (dwarf beans, cherry tomatoes, spring onions, lettuce, parsley, coriander and calvo nero)
  
• hanging out with my parents
• sewing with Anna
• my day job which is really an evening job ie the non-arty stuff that pays the bills, or would if the bills would stay under control
• starting a commission for an edition of two handmade artist's books
• watching the Beatles Anthology series and listening to a lot of Beatles music
  
• wearing skirts most days, and getting sandal tan marks on my feet
  
• moving 'My Antarctica' into storage
• planning an 'Open Studio' day on 12 December, everyone is invited to my place to come and see new work (including 'My Antarctica' which I will bring out of storage for the event), enjoy birthday cake and hopefully buy some handmade books and stitched pieces
  

Distances are deceptive in Antarctica

Many Antarctica observers remark how the extraordinarily clear dry atmosphere, white on white environment, and months of nonstop daylight, combine to make it very hard to judge distances. What appears to be a mountain range on the horizon turns out to be a crevasse a few steps later. The welcome sight of a tent or hut seeming only an hour's walk away, is in fact tomorrow's destination.

A couple of weeks ago I had a little frisson of almost finished anticipation. I was sure that by the weekend I would be attaching the white continent to its background blanket, and soon after that I'd be lacing the finished embroidery to its backing board. I purchased what I thought would be the final dozen skeins of DMC blanc. I rushed around to get the mounting materials in place.

and then

I remembered that the reason I work from the smallest, highest contour out towards the coastline, is because it's really tricky handstitching in the middle of unstretched fabric. And so I decided to delay attaching Antarctica to the Southern Ocean until the last possible stage of stitching.

and then

I noticed the extent of almost invisible basting done six months ago to mark the boundary between coast and shelf ice and remembered there are still nation-state-sized land-masses to cover in blanket stitch before I reach the sea.


and then

I worked out that not only am I not nearly finished, but I have to put aside Antarctica (where? how?) to complete some other work with deadlines looming, which I had thought I'd knock off once Snow Queen was out of the way.

You would think that here in Hamilton I would be safe from Antarctican distance delusions. But it seems that my total immersion in the Antarctica of my imagination and my creation has unanticipated verisimilitude with the real thing.

I may be some time

My paid job goes full time for a couple of weeks.
I'm not sure I'll want to do much blogging in my own time.

Good news and bad news

Two lots of good news to report; but briefly, due to the consequences of my bad news. Please do follow the links to find out more details than I have been able to include.

Breathe, my mangrove piece, has been selected as a finalist in the Uxbridge Estuary Art Awards 2010. I made the French knitted pneumataphores especially for the Awards, which encouraged research into the environmental issues facing the Tamaki Estuary. I was excited to have an opportunity to finally realise some of my ideas for representing mangroves in my art.

The Estuary Art Awards exhibition open on Thursday 11 February at Uxbridge gallery in Howick. I encourage Auckland readers to go along and see all the finalists. The exhibtion runs until 10 March.


The other bit of good news is that one of my poems, Two Kinds of Time, has been nominated for the 2010 Rhysling Awards. This poem just seems to run and run! Written for, and first published in the Voyagers Anthology, it also inspired me to make a (very) short film and a limited edition artist's book (which has sold out).

Tim Jones, one of the editors of the Voyagers Anthology took the initiative to write a media release about the nomination, which you can read on his blog, as well as on Scoop and Beattie's Book Blog. I'm very grateful for Tim doing this, since I am still devoting all my energy to my temporarily fulltime 'straight' job.


Bad news: yesterday on my way to work I was knocked off my bicycle by a driver opening his door suddenly. Fortunately I was riding very slowly so no great damage has been done. I am shocked, shaken and a bit bruised; my knuckles took the brunt of the collision of handlebars with door. I'm taking the accident as a sign of having reached my limit for full-time work, so intend to negotiate down to part-time hours by the middle of next week. Next weekend I'm moving, and then once ensconced my new studio-home, I look forward to blogging progress on my own, actual, creative practice again.

Mexican Train Dominoes

I'm having a bit of a break from stitching and other creativity while I focus on generating some reliable income to support future art activities. For these few weeks I'm doing fulltime work at a computer which means that the last thing I want to do in the rest of my time is more computer- so blogging, twitter and facebook are all neglected. And while I would love to do some stitching and making, I can rarely summon the energy and focus to trust myself on anything that matters. Plus I need to rest my hands from all that typing.

Thus I am finding myself at an unfamiliar loose end in the weekends. I understand it's what's considered leisure time: this non-productive, unstructured couple of days, when my sole goal is to stockpile energy, clean clothes and easy food for the coming week.

Besides cooking ahead and doing laundry; taking lots of naps on the bed, the sofa or the hammock (thanks Matt); and daydreaming endlessly about the live-in studio I move to in a couple of weeks; I have also been playing games. For example, Mexican Train Dominoes with Anna. Very good fun. Almost fun enough to compensate for having been airlifted out of my Antarctic adventures for a few very hot and humid weeks of regular working life.


NB Full time work will give way to part time work later in February,when I will resume my usual activities, and blogging about them. Meanwhile, you can look forward to the occasional post about something unrelated.

i'm not sure i can do this right now

In the past week I have started as the Hamilton Girls High School/Waikato Sunshine Rotary Writer in Residence; sewn another 100 books on commission, attended a friend and student's funeral, attended the National Contemporary Art Awards, moved house with my two flatmates, discovered that the gas isn't on at the new house (no hot water or cooking), went to my parents' for dinner and a shower, and thankfully was there to help them deal with a spectacular burst pipe flooding three booklined rooms ankle deep in water. The incredible outpouring of water and consequent indoor lake was like a physical manifestation of feeling overwhelmed by the pileup of major events in the past 8 days.

There is a lengthy/illustrated/entertaining/poignant blog post crying out to be written for each of the above items. But here's the thing, my internet access is patchy at best right now what with the move, and new starts and all. This visit to the public library's free wireless is possibly my only opportunity to rehearse and prepare for my solo performances of User Profile, in the 090909 Upstage Festival in a couple of days.

When my internet access is resolved and I have gotten through the next couple of days of classes, unpacking, and (hopefully) online performing, I promise I will make it all up to you, with posts, pictures, and maybe even a new poem.

090909 UpStage Festival Preview from UpStage on Vimeo.

User Profile is the blue image in the centre of the montage you'll see in the video

Where do I start?

Inbetween everything else I managed to finish this Daintree Journal(photographed as work-in-progress) complete with painted page stubs, fold out handdrawn map and a variety of papers within its multiple sewn signatures.

Sometimes I'm slack about blogging because there's nothing much going on that I want to share with the internet. Sometimes I'm slack because I have too much to say, but no time to say it. Last week was one of the latter, when ideally each of the following paragraphs would have made a carefully crafted post on their own but since I still haven't found time to do all sorts of other regularly scheduled tasks, like laundrey, what follows is a swift survey of the week that was... intense.

I started teaching both of my book making courses at Arts Post, and I have delightful students, every one of them. The first night I was so nervous I couldn't even talk properly as my tongue felt like a swollen, recalcitrant sausage suddenly squatting in my mouth. Thursday morning was much easier, partly I suppose because I know all those students personally. All the students in both classes successfully completed a few little books in two different structures, including the Basic Book Craft Skills pamphlet (on sale here). I still have to work on getting the flow better so that the class isn't too rushed nor do I run out of material too soon. But I learned so much from the first week that I'm sure this week will be heaps better. I'm certainly feeling much more relaxed and confident anyway.

I also did a one off session this morning at Hamilton Girls High School with the Year 13 design students who are doing a unit on artist's books. That was so much fun! What a neat bunch of girls, they really got into making the Basics book, after I did a show and tell of some of the artists books I have made over the years.

Another big event last week was my Pecha Kucha presentation. I got quite nervous about that too, in the final hour or so before my turn. But it went well and I got masses of wonderful positive feedback afterwards, including a new enrollment for my Thursday class! I was thrilled to meet so many people excited about artists books, like Alice Lo who has her university students to make artists books, and awesome book designer Alan Deare.

There was lots more going on last week in and around my public appearances, including welcoming back a friend from 3 weeks in Mexico and farewelling other friends off on extended overseas adventures. And I finished the embroidery on my big coral project and got very involved in my digital storytelling/video poems projects, but these last thrilling developments really do deserve posts of their own so check back soon!

Inside the aforementioned Basic Book Craft Skills which is selling like little hotcakes on Etsy, and proving a satisfying first book project for my students.

Bad Ink Day

Yesterday I decided, based largely on the unpleasant smell and the presence of many small insects, that it was time to drain the walnut ink. I've been soaking the walnuts for about 2 months in a large lidded pot on the back step. Now that it's definitely winter I'd quite like my soup pot back in the kitchen. None of these indicators (smell, insects and repurposing the pot) are to be found in the collective wisdom of the interweb regarding the making of walnut ink. If you have stumbled across this post in the search for walnut ink making advice, I suggest you keep googling: there's plenty of useful information around that will serve you better.

My walnut ink, unfortunately turned out to be much more insipid that my tests had suggested it would be. It does make a lovely golden brown wash but sadly is too light for writing, unless you want to forge documents from the Renaissance. I am disappointed and a bit surprised at how it all turned out since I am not a particularly impatient person, and when I started brewing my ink I was prepared for it to take as long as it would take.

I woke up feeling very out of sorts yesterday, which was probably why I impetuously decided to finish off the ink by straining it through cheesecloth (which I should have dampened first but didn't). Naturally the disappointment of having made such a poor job of the ink only worsened my mood, feeding into a spiralling miasma of frustration and failure that coloured almost everything I did all day.

Fortunately the only irrevocable mistake of my Very Bad Day was the ink. I had only invested a couple of dollars and a couple of hours in the project to that point, so nothing has been lost but potential. If anyone has a use for two litres of sepia walnut wash, let me know. Meanwhile, today I have begun fresh with a positive attitude and determination to try and do right.

Gifts from de Nile

It's been a week of denial, or rather the gradual erosion of denial. Most startling was the realisation that a whole week has passed since my last post. Really, it felt like only yesterday...

Most famously I was in total denial about the need to do any shopping for the upcoming orgy of gift giving that I feel obliged to participate in. (I bought the most important gift online a few weeks ago and the ensuing smugness obliterated any perspective regarding the other near and dears).

Surrounded by office-mates covering their desks in wrapping paper and filling the air with the farting sounds of cellotape as it is wrenched from the roll still didn't make much of an impression. Until a colleague asked how my Christmas shopping was going. To which I blithely replied that "I'll just stop at a service station on Christmas Eve and pick up a few things on my way to Hamilton".

Goodness! I might as well have announced that I would be convening a devil worshipping ritual in the middle of the Christmas feast. Such outrage! Such incredulity! Such public shaming! Um, guys, I was sort of only joking. But at lunchtime I slunk out, blitzed two of my favourite shops and managed to purchase pleasing gifts for almost all the important folk in less than half an hour, while sticking (more or less) to my budget and my loosely applied purchasing policy of hand made/ NZ-made/fair trade/organic/good cause. And then I forgot all that self-righteous consumer- activism when I was suckered into a bookshop on the way back to work.

Rest assured, friends and family, no service station/liquor store/supermarket gifts will be inflicted by me! I'm afraid though, that on the whole I will be introducing more pretty yet useless objects into your life and so you will have to find somewhere to put them, and probably spend an extra few seconds a year dusting them or find a discreet opportunity for regifting (perfectly acceptable after you've read the books). Oh, and because I left it so late, anything arriving in the USA by post will be, um, more of a Purim gift in timing. Sorry.

I do wish I had been as organised as some of my workmates who are giving dolphins, goats and chickens away (as certificates of sponsorship for various worthy causes). If only I hadn't been in denial, I too would have had enough time to buy on line, and next Tuesday my family members would be trying to look thrilled with a card announcing that someone in the developing world has got a new goat thanks to my anti-consumerism. And so there's one less goat bringing prosperity to a dirt-floored hut somewhere. Sorry about that too.

Anyway, getting into the spirit at this 11th hour I am pleasantly surprised to find myself feeling more enthusiastic about Christmas than I have for a long time. I hope, dear readers, that you all enjoy the time off, the company, the gift giving and receiving, and the special foods as much as I intend to.

Chag sameach!

Learning Curves

Talking with my mother this evening I realised that in both my paid work and my creative work I am immersed in hugely steep learning curves. I spend six days a week in intensely challenging and rewarding learning environments.
In both the planning office and the print studio it feels like there are quite high stakes riding on my ability to learn fast and produce high quality work. No wonder I've been quite tired and a bit cranky lately.
Sometimes I just don't have the energy to wax lyrical about the good things I've experienced and even less energy for finding a good humoured irony to describe the inevitable disappointments and challenges of working at outer edge of my abilities. Sometimes I have to fall back on my policy of 'if you can't write something positive, beautiful, witty, informative or hopeful then don't write anything'. Sometimes blog posts never leave my imagination or have a chance to expand out from a scribbled sentence in my journal.
Just so you know I may or may not get round to posting about:

• an account of my visit to NorthArt Gallery and the Bookworks exhibition which is on in Northcote, Auckland until 3 October.
• the story of the runaway Ossi cat (now returned to the lap of luxury and catnip treats)
• a review of The Book As Art, my pick as the book-about-artist's-books book of the year
• the full body book I'm working on
• the paper bag proof subscription series
• my new mp3 player (another steep (though short) learning curve but so very very good)
• Spring Cleaning Day at TKPT (7 October, do come along and help if you are in town!)
  
• Deep Economy, electric cars and sci fi novels
• local body elections
• Magnolias, kowhai and port wine trees
  

If you like, you can use the comments function to vote for which of these posts you would most like to read, which might help motivate me to write it.

Pathetic

You know how good it feels to be not very sick anymore? That's me right now, revelling in the joys of eating chewy food with actual flavour and crossing a floor plowed clear of crumpled tissues. But I am also playing catch up because while I was in survival mode for most of the last week, moving house and starting a new job in a zombie state of phlegm and chest spasms, everything else fell by the wayside. Not only paying bills and responding to emails but the blog and any activities worth writing about on the blog. So sadly this is nothing more than one of my all too frequent 'pathetic excuses' posts. But I plan to go printing tomorrow and love bombing the town with chalk poems this weekend so I will have lots to write about soon- tune back in in a few days.