'Great God! This is an awful place'*

Felting needle

Even though it happened 98 years ago; even though I've known the ending of this story most of my life; even though I have read,watched and heard dozens retellings in the past decade of pursuing my passion for Antarctica; I still find myself sleepless with anxiety for Scott's Polar Party.

A thin layer of undyed wool roving between the blanket contours

The past few days I have been immersed: in the mornings stitching the great empty waste of East Antarctica onto the contour that meets the tops of the Queen Maude mountains; in quiet times at work in the afternoons leafing through reproductions of Amundsen's lantern slides; in the evenings reading Apsley Cherry-Garrard's literate, harrowing, defensive and deeply sorrowful account of the Worst Journey in the World. Cherry is the most quoted of Antarctic explorers, for good reason, but this is the first time I've read his book in the original.

The tops of the Beardmore Glacier (Scott's route) and the Axel Heiberg Glacier (Amundsen's route)

There is something immensely moving to be stitching over the miles covered by the final five who went to the Pole with Scott and never returned, at the same time as I am reading about the support parties who were battling their own awful journeys and ultimately waiting with fading hopes for Scott's return; with my minds eye illustrated by Amundsen's snapshots of his own 'dream run' to and from the Pole a month earlier than Scott.

The dark basting marks the South Pole (Amundsen 14.12.1911; Scott 17.1.1912)

I am so cross with Scott (no doubt influenced by recently reading Huntford's attack on him) as it seems unforgivable to have made so many poor (sentimental, impetuous, arrogant and ignorant) choices that led to the death of such fine men. I identify much more strongly with Amundsen, being more attracted to pragmatism than romance. Amundsen's triumph (always seen in the shadow of Scott's tragedy) was the result of careful considered planning and decisions at every stage.

A nice smooth contour of East Antarctic ice dome- no worries there

Some of my current Antarctic anxiety may be related to the challenges of adding a new contour. My technique, although trialed on with reasonable success on Ross Island, is by no means a reliable approach for this much larger work. I am constantly questioning my methodology and trying to improve the results. It's not as hard as man hauling through blizzards with scurvy, but it's still a challenge. I want desperately to live up to Amundsen example, but I fear I share many of Scott's weaknesses.

* Robert Falcon Scott, on reaching the South Pole, second

Home, and Away with Antarctica

My new home/studio is really just a single bright, light, room (plus bathroom) that I've divided with a couple of large pieces of furniture. I was given a set of open shelves that are keeping the kitchenette separate and not too cluttered; and I've used the giant book (You are Beautiful) I made for the Domestic Pilgrimage exhibition, to screen off a sleeping and storage area. Surprisingly, dividing it up into three small 'rooms' makes the whole space seem bigger than when it was just an open-plan box.

My stitching chair shares a cosy corner with a bookshelf and some sentimental treasures..

I've unpacked everything that needs to be unpacked, and while there's still some judicious sorting and arranging to be done (along with picture-hanging and acquiring some drawers for my clothes), it feels homey enough for me to turn my attention elsewhere again. Finally getting the phone and broadband connected have made all the difference!

For the first time all my bits of bleached coral are together, on the bathroom windowsill

I'm back at work on my stitching. I have a comfy chair just the right height and depth for working on my tapestry frame. The lighting is just right, my solar radio sits nearby on a sunny window sill so I can listen to my beloved Radio New Zealand National (while I still can), or I can watch movies on my laptop (I have neither room nor inclination for a tv).

At work on Antarcica, on my granny-square-covered chair

In the past few days I've made good milage in Antarctica. I've almost finished the 3000m contour, which was virtually halted for more than a month by a blizzard of distractions and demands from the outside world. Finishing this contour is an exciting landmark for me. So far I've been embroidering my way concentrically outwards from the centre of the ice dome's smooth curve. My hours of repetitive blanket-stitch are about to be interrupted by an off-the-tapestry-frame flurry of measuring, pinning, needle felting, before I take up my steady slog through the snow again. The next countour will bring the first taste of the jagged peaks that form the rim of the continent's ice filled bowl.

Big weekend

Reading poems to the big blue folk

Waikato Times 13 February 2010
Don't be misled by the headline.

Click on the article and it should zoom in big enough to read.

I'm packing today, moving house tomorrow... will post properly when I settle in.

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.

A special book

The book comes in a convincing faux-tin slip case, representing the real tin box in which Dreyfus stored his journals to protect them from the paper-ravaging conditions on the island.

I was lucky enough to get a close look at a very special limited edition book, recently acquired by my father for a great sum. Cahiers de l'isle du Diable presents the journals of Alfred Dreyfus written while on Devil's Island. The book is in French, so I can't say anything much about its content, but Editions Artulis/Pierette Turlais have made a beautiful book object as a limited edition of 30o (published in 2009).

One of the most fascinating aspects of the book for me is the exposed spine, visible even when the book is in its slipcase. Usually a book's spine is only deliberately exposed to show off fancy hand-stitching. This book appears to have machine sewn signatures with a slight sticky memory of book glue, the sort of spine that is inevitably hidden inside a cover.

The practical advantage of this kind of spine exposure is that the book can easily be opened flat, without any damage to the cover.

I'm guessing that the designer included this feature as another representation of the original conditions which Dreyfus was writing in 1898. Was it usual then for blank notebooks to have an exposed spine? Although the spine does not conform with popular book arts ideas of a spine worth exposing, it appeals to my post-modernist sensibility, and in combination with the faux-tin slipcase, offers a strong, edgy, industrial first impression.

Easing Cahiers de l'isle du Diable out of the slipcase, my industrial first impression of was immediately countered by the soft faux-vellum cover of the book itself. The front pages are also transluscent paper, allowing multiple pages to be perceived simultaneously from the outside, inviting one into the book. The paper's transparency is deceptive, as my father tells me that the contents of the journals are opaque, enigmatic and contested by scholars (not unlike the life of Dreyfus himself).

The cover, and the first section of the book are fascimile, photographic reproductions of Dreyfus's actual journal pages. These are heavily decorated with repetitive images, doodles mostly based around an X, embellished with more or less symmetrical lobes and curves to seem organic: as in pictures of brains or intestines or other organs/organisms.

Even the edges of the pages, on all three sides, have been printed with the doodles.

Some pages are entirely filled with these doodles, while others have Dreyfus's neat copperplate handwriting and occasionally an engineering or mathematical diagram. Dreyfys was imprisoned on Devil's Island for five years, and filled thirty-odd journals during that time, but only three of them survived to be included in this book.

Dad invested in this book as reseach towards a book he is writing about how the Dreyfus Affair transformed the collective imagination at the turn of the twentieth century. Early in the twenty-first century, this publication exemplifies a contemporary phenomena transforming our ideas of books from neutral technologies for storing/dispersing words and images, into art objects which embody imaginative technologies for sharing complex experiences, memories and projections.

Gully Intrigue

Hamilton doesn't really have hills, but instead is riven with many gullies, like hills in reverse. One of these is near my present home and across the road from my old primary school. When I was little, my friends and I used to play on the edges of its impenetrable wild, weedy, scrub. More recent walks along Grey Street have allowed me tantalising glimpses of the gully transformed into an impeccably groomed lawn, cut by crisp, white concrete paths on which I've occasionally seen people walking.


Curious, I've wandered all the nearby streets trying to find an obvious way into this half-hidden park but with no success. In yesterday evening's sultry heat I was determined to solve the mystery for once and for all. On Beale St I found a path leading down to a small, scruffy, clearing smelling of sewage or dead things, between Boys High and Marian School. Not the right place or the right ambiance, so I retraced my steps and then entered the grounds of Boys High.

I've avoided that Beale St shortcut to Boys High for my whole life, even though it was the obvious short cut to my intermediate school. Back then I was too self-conscious and scared to walk through teenage boy territory, so for two years took the long way round. I wonder if something unpleasant did ever happen to me there, because I continued to avoid it even as an adult. Yesterday I told myself I am too old to care what anyone, let alone unknown teenage boys, think of me and finally used that track alone.


Once on the school grounds I followed the border between Boys High and the NZTC, seeing the elusive park more clearly than ever through the high barbed wire fence. My desired destination was obviously part of the NZTC grounds, and when the Boys High track petered out in a over-grown swamp I turned back. This time as I passed the NZTC the entrance was swarming with people, and I could hear choruses of amens coming from the windows.


Wondering if I would fail in my objective to enter the gully that evening, I walked back along Grey Street looking hard for any other access points. Suddenly, I spotted an open gate half way along a private right of way. I quickly ducked through the gate and down a steep gravel path and lo! I was in the park. A great expanse of velvety lawn stretched in front of me, broken only by lush flower beds, and beyond a beautiful orchard and vegetable garden.

I had the whole large area to myself, except for a few ducks behind a dam. In it's silent emptiness it reminded me of the description in Robert O'Brien's The Silver Crown (one of my favourite children's books) of the grounds of the black castle where Ellen rescued Otto from brain washing. The black footpaths in the book were one of the mechanisms of mind control for kidnapped children. That creepy association, and my fear of being told off for trespassing, somewhat spoiled my walk in the park. And now, with my curiosity sated, I'm not sure I want to go back again.

Mail Art Delights

I've started new job this week, a straight (non-arty job) that will eventually be part-time in the evenings but the intensive training is full time every day for a while. Regular office hours are proving a chrono-shock after a couple of years of unconventional and mostly self-directed timetabling. So it was a lovely surprise to come home at the end of my long day to find this slid under the door.

Feel free to send me interesting snail mail at this address, but soon, as I'll be moving (again)!

One of the pleasures for me of snail mail activities is that I retain no expectations in my short term memory. It can take a week or more to receive the swapped zine, the Etsy order, the promised present or in this case the mail art postcard... and I have inevitably forgotten about it, until it arrives.

The front of Asta's postcard

I found out about Asta's mail art project on Facebook, and sent her my address because I always leap at the chance of interesting snail mail. When her mail arrived, it was an extra delight to see my postcard is a microscopic photograph of some moss that Asta grew herself! As you know, I like making a bit of mossy art myself, and so does my flatmate Adrienne Grant who was brewing up moss-growing concoctions last year.

The back of Asta's postcard

Another nice surprise was Asta's warm and personalised message on the other side of the postcard. But when I picked up the envelope again, it felt curiously heavy and sure enough there was more! Cute stickers! ~which will embellish my next few outward-bound items of snail mail. And a PS note:

Because I really want to send LOADS more of these postcards, perhaps you could help me, promoting this idea to your friends. Addresses can be emailed to aska(dot) doll (at) gmail (dot) com Facebook Group Mail Art Project. THANKS SO MUCH!!!!!!! :-)

An envelope full of delight

Go on, you know you want to!

Shifting Margins

Antarctica: slow and steady

Ice flows
in long deep breaths
out of the mountains
grinding valleys and canyons
into boulders and dust
carried, eventually, out to sea.

I pant, I flood, I flicker
and soon disappear.

Ice melts, and sinks in the rising waters
hills become islands
and continents creep
driven by shuddering gouts of lava.

We fidget at the shifting margins
swatting new mosquitoes,
evolving new rituals,
engineering new brains.

Mangroves: finished

Mangroves- A love story

French knitted pneumataphores

Poor old mangroves are unfairly maligned and horribly threatened, even though they play an essential role in maintaining many food-fish stocks, and filtering out human pollution and sediment on its way to the sea. But they are neither as picturesque as we like our coastal landscapes to look, nor understood to be useful for the resource extraction model of capitalist economies. Yet I've long loved mangroves, since the summer of 96 when I was taken on a gentle tinnie* trip through some Coromandel wetlands: gliding calmly between these enigmatic trees at dusk felt romantic and soulful.

Blocking my mudflat (stretching while damp to dry flat)

A few years ago my intuitive appreciation was given intellectual reinforcement when I was asked to help give a talk to some school children about mangroves, prompting a crash course in mangrove ecology. Finding out about their extraordinary biology and essential ecological nurturing role turned me into an advocate for mangrove preservation and restoration.

And last year, in Queensland, I was aesthetically seduced by the other-worldly, diverse and abundant mangroves of the tropics: I often think about how, why and where I could represent their sinuous patterned tangle of buttresses, roots and snorkels. Mangroves and vines are the motivation for my burgeoning collection of french knitting spools, but I've been preoccupied with making other environments, so the mangroves had to wait for the right opportunity.

My newest, and favourite, french knitting dolly/spool

My motivation for finally making some mangroves now can't be revealed until next year. Suffice to say that for the past couple of weeks I've been french knitting Avicennia marina pneumataphores- the oxygen breathing snorkels that enable mangrove roots to survive in salt water- the only tree that can live in the sea. Avicennia marina are the only mangrove species in New Zealand, and their pneumataphores look like sticks poking up out of the mud at low tide. If you stand on one in your bare feet it hurts, which is enough to make some people want to get rid of mangroves from their local beaches. But I think mangrove snorkels are one of nature's wonders, and I want to make a piece to help people appreciate them as beautiful and remarkable.

Pneumataphores on the crocheted squares

Each french knitted snorkel is attached to a small crocheted square. All my yarn was acquired by chance; some left over from the coral, some gifted and some found in second hand shops. I am determined not to buy any new yarn for this project so luck determined the colours and textures I could choose from. Luckily I am delighted with the colours of my snorkels, and managed to find three odd sized balls (that had obviously been unravelled from some previous purpose before arriving at the Salvation Army store) of natural grey wool, the exact colour of mangrove swamp mud at low tide.

Today I finished stitching the squares into a small rectangle, and experienced the wonder of blocking: transformation from wonky and misshapen to flat and square just by wetting and stretching while it dries. My next step will be to wire each pheumataphore so it stands up straight and stiff, then to mount the whole thing for wall hanging. I'll show you the finished piece, and reveal its destination in a few weeks.



*rowboat

A triumph of new old technology

Tracks in the snow

I won't say I'm not a hoarder by nature, as I suspect that if there had ever been any geographical stability in my life I would love to accumulate things. But I have moved too far, too often, and too recently, for to have much of anything thing stashed away for 'just in case'. I am most definitely a reluctant shopper, generally loathe to acquire anything without an immediate, certain purpose.

Right now though, I am in an acquisitional phase as I set about establishing a studio and living environment which will enable me to achieve all I want to. My latest purchase is proving entirely satisfactory in support of my goals. I have bought a wooden standing tapestry/embroidery frame. This old fashioned and hard-to-find piece of equipment makes me think of Victorian, or even Elizabethan, ladies sitting around doing needlework all day. Just like me, but in less comfortable clothing and with servants.

Standing embroidery frame

My lightweight, adjustable stand, won on a Trade Me auction for a song, allows me to sit up straight and comfortably, using both hands to manipulate the needle and thread instead of hunching over a small hoop braced between my forearm and torso.

The tension can only be adjusted in one direction, by turning the top and bottom dowels

As soon as I brought the stand home, I stopped all dithering about the Antarctic journey. Quickly basting the highest three contours of the ice dome onto the frame, I threaded my needle with the first length of white cotton (already purchased in bulk) and set off. I'm also incorporating a bit of needle felting into the process, to make the contours more curvaceous, but (after endless agonising over various alternatives) the stitching is just the same as Ross Island's.

Looking down from the highest point on the continent, over 4000m of ice.

Snowscaping

Ross Island is mounted now, after some abortive attempts to add rocks. There are many steep slopes that are mostly bare of ice and snow, showing up in photographs as black marks on the white sheet draped over the island. But my various approaches to stitching rocks onto the already complete summit of Mt Erebus were just awful, and unpicking left me with a fraying fluffy volcano. Finally I just cut off the mountain top and remade it from scratch as it had been originally.

I much prefer my imaginary version of Ross Island, a pale unblemished illusion, to my clumsy attempts at realistic representation. Mounted, between the dark open sea and the towering ice shelf, my imaginary Antarctic Island floats like a fantasy land, which it has always been for more people than can ever visit it.

So with that piece finished, I am tackling Antarctica itself. It's taken almost four whole blankets to cut out each 1000m contour. Here's my map pattern before I cut out the sea level and shelf ice contour. It's a little over a metre in diameter.

I only have the two highest contours of the ice dome at the centre of the continent left to cut, and that is where I will begin my embroidery, where the ice is over four kilometers thick, blanketing mountains that are taller than the Himalayas with a deceptively smooth surface. Meanwhile, I have been attaching isolated peaks and islands that stick out above the ice around the edges. See if you can spot a small peak pinned onto the blankets below.

As accompaniment, I'm reading Roland Huntford's controversial book, Scott and Amundsen. It puzzles me that in every single non-fiction book on Antarctica, the eulogising of Scott's tragic second place so utterly trumps Amundsen's efficient first. I have been desperate to find out more about Amundsen and his journey, and Huntford is providing all the detail I could want. I understand that Huntford's analysis of Scott cannot be taken at face value given the widespread and vehement opposition, but I have come across no criticism of his representation of Amundsen (who seems to be as unlikable a man as he was admirable in his systematic approach to polar exploration).

Sagittarian Retrospective and Giveaway

The year's turning begins for me at the start of December, with my own birthday that gives me a head start on a new year's retrospective annual assessment and goal setting. There's plenty to be pleased about looking back on 2009, and I am filled with anticipation for more progress in 2010.

Looking back over this year's blog posts, I see that in January I was getting 150-180 unique hits a week. These days there are more likely to be around 350. These numbers are no great shakes compared to many of the blogs I follow, but I have a sense of a loyal readership growing sustainably.

For those of you who are new to Bibliophilia, here are some of the highlights of my year that were documented here:
Making my first commissioned artist book edition, while moving between two towns and 4 studios!
Making a Hamilton park into a giant book of love poems
Developing a philosophy to teach book making
Sketchcrawling the Tron
You are an Agent of Change chosen as a Finalist in the National Contemporary Art Awards
Embroidering fossils and Mars gardens
Returning to the Daintree for a week of rainforest and coral reef
Another commissioned edition, this time in one place and collaborators
Spending three months as Writer/Artist in Residence at Hamilton Girls High School
My first live online cyberperformance
Hand stitching an island
Some public speaking

In appreciation of my new and long-term readers, I'm celebrating the end of the year, the end of the decade and my birthday (a prime number beginning with 4) with a special giveaway! December's prize is a bit bigger (and more expensive) than usual and there are more ways to win.

The prize is one of my early editioned artist's books, called Dislocation, still in stock in my Etsy shop.

You can enter as many times as you want in any of the following four ways. Entries will close on 15 and the randomly selected winner announced shortly after.

Ways to enter the Bibliophilia December Giveaway:
1. Comment on this post.
2. Link to any post on this blog on Facebook, Twitter or your own blog, and let me know (with a link) by commenting on this post (up to three entries per day).
3. Link to my Etsy shop on Facebook, Twitter or your own blog, and let me know (with a link) by commenting on this post (up to three entries per day).
4. Purchase something from my Etsy shop: every item purchased is another entry. It's a great place to do your gift shopping for mums, dads, crafty friends, philosophical acquaintances, economical budgets and extravagant spenders.. (NB NZ buyers can pay in NZ $ by bank transfer- select the 'other' payment option in Etsy's check out.)

Living a creative life in Hamilton

Some of my lovely camp girls

As if I wasnt already in love with Girls High girls, my Hamilton Girls High School Residency finished with a three day 'junior camp' for Year 9 &10 (13-15 years old). Students are offered about 30 options ranging from windsurfing or a train trip to Wellington to stay-at-home day camps with an arts focus. I was offering one of the latter, and had ten of the loveliest girls sign on, along with 4 teachers (three part-time)- an enviable adult:student ratio for such a low risk activity!

Unstructured studio time

My idea for the camp, called 'Living a Creative Life in Hamilton' was to give the girls a taste of life as an artist/writer in residence; and to counter the persistant image of Hamilton as a dull, stifling environment that people should escape in order to fully develop their creative selves*.

The first morning was an intensive workshop to make a blank labyrinth style journal to use for the rest of the camp. Everyone completed their books in time to take them along on our afternoon crawl around four exhibitions. Most students said their favourite of the afternoon was the Wintec 3rd year painting students, I think because the show was varied and vibrant, with work produced mostly by people only a few years older than my students and thus similar cultural perspectives.

Jessica inking up her comic, a long term project, nearly completed

On the second and third mornings we had unstructured studio time, which was when it really became clear that this group of girls had picked the right programme for themselves. I provided a variety of tools and simple materials for journalling and other paper crafts, made a few suggestions and let them do what they want. It was possibly the quietest and most productive three hours a group of teenagers has ever spent together. Beautiful, creative journalling emerged with many girls delighting in drawing cards from Keri Smith's 100 ideas** and using them to spark all sorts of wonderful pages.

A spread from Codie's journal

A couple of girls mostly just wanted to read novels and I couldn't see the point of trying to make them do anything else. When I was that age, novel reading was my preferred activity in almost every situation- if I had been offered a reading camp, that's the one I would have chosen! Novel reading continues to be one of the most significant external influence on my creative work, so I think reading fit right into the theme and purpose of the camp.

morning in the camp studio

Our quiet, self directed time in the morning was a good grounding for our afternoons of going out into the town. On Tuesday we participated in an arts event for World AIDS Day in Garden Place. My Fairly radical Crafty group and Hamilton Pride had prepared handpainted red lasercut hearts of card attached to bamboo stakes and provided a couple of tables of crafty supplies. People could decorate or write on the heats and then we installed them on the lawn in a loose heart shape. The camp girls took to this project with great enthusiasm, not only decorating hearts but recruiting heart-decorating passers-by, and collecting funds while giving out red ribbons. It was great experience of sharing one's creativity with community for a good cause.

making hearts and sheltering from the rain

I believe living a creative life must include some cafe sitting and book browsing, so after our efforts with the hearts I rewarded the girls with huge bowls of hot chocolate at Metropolis, followed by a leisurely look around Browsers Second Hand Bookshop. The latter was named as a camp highlight by some, and I think was an eye-opening pleasure for others who hadn't been anywhere like that before.

heart art for World AIDS Day

All week the spring weather has been grey and drizzly at best, and rainy and muggy at worst, so I cancelled my plans for our final afternoon of picnicking and ephemeral environmental art making by the lake. Instead, we had an indoor picnic feast and then went across the road to tour ArtMakers Trust, a training establishment for creative young people. Sylvie welcomed us warmly, the work of ArtMakers is interesting and meaningful, and the trainees are kindred spirits to my camp girls, so I won't be surprised if some return to ArtMakers in a few years.

While I was out getting our indoor picnic food, the girls made a thankyou mural on the white board

*If you've been following my blog this year, you can probably tell that nothing is further from the truth. Hamilton is alight with all sorts of creative opportunities for producers and audiences to enjoy and be challenged by.
** I printed out the pdf onto coloured card and cut them into little squares to be drawn from a bag. I've tried to get adult friends to use these cards for inspiration, but until the camp no-one had really liked them. I've done just a few cards myself, but I haven't yet been short of my own ideas and creative tasks since I've made Keri's cards, so I'm saving them for a dry time, which will eventually come. I'm also looking forward to kicking my butt out of some future slough of self-pity with Keri's Artist's Survival Kit.