gooseflesh

Hemp and Driftwood

My driftwood collection is enormous and it's been expanding for the last 20 years. One day I knew I would know what to do with it ........ and so recently I started to embellish bits of driftwood with crochet in a beautiful hemp yarn from a local shop.

These pieces will be on exhibition and for sale in the studio in July. I plan to have my first exhibition in the studio with my friend and very talented painter, Phil Barron. 

Photographed in the late afternoon sun.

The post, Beach Detritus, has some photos of the driftwood collections.

 

The Significance of Little Things

Once a month I pick up my favourite magazine, World of Interiors, at the local news agent. It's put into a pigeon hole behind the counter. When I go to town to do the shopping I always look through the window to see if it has arrived.

The September issue has a story about an interesting French woman, Rose-Marie Crespin, who makes miniature flower garlands and birds with needle and thread using the technique of 'nouage', or knotting.

The lilliputian flower garland is designed to be worn as a collar and it's called 'liane'. It took her two years to make. It was exhibited with other pieces of contemporary lace at the Museum Baron Gerard in Bayeux.

The three little pieces of pink coral I made from thread I found in an op-shop.

The same little pieces of pink coral displayed on a piece of paper bark.

I've found that with time and experience my technique has become more refined and my pieces are gradually becoming more delicate. 

This is the whole collection of threads and other treasures I found. There are some very delicate pieces of tatted lace....... the knots are minute. The old labels and washing instructions are lovely too. 

I also crocheted some little flowers from the thread to applique over the holes of my favourite cardigan. It's old, worn and misshapen and Harriette added some holes by chewing it. 

....and gardenias from the garden.

Life in a rotten log

A favourite book title!

Fungi and other microorganisms break down the rotten logs. A giant web, branching in all directions, like mycelium. Cellulose...... a long chain made by nature.

 

Orange polypore.

The first clumsy attempt at making rope, from a weedy looking plant. It got thinner and thinner. A bracket fungi found on a rotten log. It's tough and leathery.

Beautiful Japanese rope used in bamboo fencing.

Water hyacinth cord.

Hemp cord.

Thoughts of branching of algae and coral have changed to thoughts of branching mycelium.

Inspired, frog, boulder

I have been visiting all the local libraries and have found some interesting books. One especially.........

Inspired. How creative people think, work and find inspiration. 

Dorthe Nielsen and Kikki Hartmann. BIS Publishers. Amsterdam 2006.

ISBN 90-6369-110-6

36 creative people each talk about: 

Inspiration

Working environment

Working process

Motivation

Reading 

Most inspiring person

You can flick through it here  

Reading this makes me ponder why and how I make stuff. A little cluster coral came off the hook yesterday.

Cluster Coral, 2009

Preloved tapestry wool.

8 cm diameter, 2.5cm high

Lots of incomplete little experiments came out of boxes and I sorted them and played with them for a while. It would be good to try and tie them all together somehow. They are all part of the same frenzy. They belong together.

Revisiting old friends.

It's about collecting and sorting..... mmmhhh!!!!!

This little green guy is less than an inch. I spotted him whilst watering my newly planted rainforest trees (about 250 of them). From paddock to rainforest... yes, in my lifetime I hope.

Found time to stand on a volcanic boulder too.

New tools and a nest

The newest piece is beginning to take shape. The final form it takes is not apparent at this stage but the same archetypal shapes come back to me again and again. Are they hard-wired or have they been imprinted on my brain after years of looking at cell structure through a microscope? The plastic bag yarn is becoming finer and the stitches more uniform. Lots of practise and increased neuromuscular wiring has made the medium and technique very familiar and the fingers are dancing quicker than ever.

Tentacles perhaps?

A little nest, the first found here. The eyes are rehearsed in spotting this delicate structure,

and dear Lucy (a sight hound) has spotted YOU! 

At the local market I found some old tools.......... 

a net making needle,

and a drawknife.

I want to learn how to make rope/cord from the abundant plant material here. How to lash sticks together and how to thatch. What shape the new projects take is anyone's guess.

Living on the edge.........of a crater

The portal to the universe has returned and there's so much to report. I've missed my connection with everyone. It's good to be back. The move was smooth but long and exhausting. Now that I have more or less settled in, my camera and plastic bags are resurfacing from a box.

 

I've left a temperate climate and now live in a subtropical climate. It's bright and sunny and warm during the day but very chilly at night. Sunflowers grow here in the middle of winter.

A friend, from a local sugarcane farm, brought me some beautiful orange plastic bags back from a trip to Berlin, as well as tangellos from his garden. Such sunny colours. 

Also new creatures....... strange calls at night and a certain amount of destruction after a nocturnal feeding frency!

This snoozy, baby red-belly black snake was in the compost heap. Yikes! I wonder where it's mother is. Note to self: start wearing gloves when gardening.

 

So much rain has fallen here in the last couple of years and the staghorn ferns are thriving. Two of my favourites survived the drought. I used to cart buckets of shower-water out to them when the water was scarce. Now the tanks are full.... and the showers luxuriously long. This one is growing on a big basalt boulder, shot out of the old volcano millions of years ago. The branching fertile fronds are full of brown spores.

 

In an attempt to retain the gene pool of the surrounding rainforest and revegetate the land, I have been madly collecting seeds and hope to be able to germinate them. 

These black seeds came from the loofas (in the vegie patch) I harvested last week.

Straight off the withering vine......

 

.....peeled and seeds removed. Ready for scrubbing!!

The kookaburras are laughing and the horses are being led out of the stable across the road. The sun will be up soon. I'd better catch a bit of sleep so that I'll be ready for another glorious day. It's good to be back here. 

Today's Treasures

There were lots of seeds on the beach today. Mostly seeds from tropical trees. Tropical cyclone "Hamish", off the Queensland coast, probably shook a few trees  a couple of weeks ago. 

 

The top seed (pea-pod) is from the Poinciana tree (Delonix regia). The next is a mango seed. I'm not sure what the other two are. Perhaps I should germinate them to find out what they are.

This flowering Poinciana grows not far from my little red house in northern NSW. It's native to the tropical forests of Madagascar. Endangered in the wild.

 Another treasure found on the way home, lying in the grass......

It's the first bird's nest I've found for some time. There's been a bird's nest drought. 

                         ***ATTENTION*** 

No baby bird was evicted in the making of this collection. The nests were all found on the ground.

Plastic to Print

So much fun being had printing the plastic bits. Not so easy to get a decent print though.

Plastic Detritus IV, 2009

Hand coloured Linoprint

19 x 26 cm.

This prints are available in my SHOP

Plastic Detritus (toothbrushes)

A curious thing happens........... for some reason there are lots of plastic toothbrushes washed up on my local beach. Have they fallen overboard? 

Plastic Detritus II, 2009

Hand coloured linoprint

19.7x27.4cm

The block

By the way, these prints are for sale in my Etsy Shop.