gooseflesh

A flurry of activity

Time to spruce up the "gooseflesh" blog.

 I've been busy with life here in Northern NSW, the real world can be so all consuming. Moving to the country has been better than I thought possible. Friends in Sydney thought I would get bored here...... Ha! No chance. I've made many, many friends and been involved in lots of activities in the local community. The studio has worked out well and has turned into a little creative hub where people meet, connect and chat. Some work gets done too!

I recently learnt that the Tweed Shire has the highest concentration of "creatives" in Australia. Woohoo!! 

The flurry of activity means the "gooseflesh" blog has been neglected and I need to do some work here. Thanks to everyone who keeps visiting and leaving comments...... it means so much to me.

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.

Happy Anniversary

 

A couple of days ago I found this image amongst many others I have been collecting. It came from an old National Geographic Magazine and has been waiting for at least a couple of decades to be used. This is what it's been waiting for..... our anniversary.

Happy 30th Anniversary Tigger! 

(Photographer and lovely couple unkown).

Prussian Blue and interesting accidents

Using preloved tapestry wools can mean a limited palette. When I'm restricted in the colours I have available to use........interesting accidents happen. Colours I would not normally put together sing out to be part of the composition.

Linnaeus Project wip and quandong fruit (Elaeocarpus grandis).

Photo taken on my very dry bird bath with fleshy leaves of tumeric sprouting in the background.

Quandong fruit and its red leaves. That reminds me of a lecture I'm going to on Thursday..... Andy Goldsworthy  (the master of leaf arrangement) at the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane. Yippee!!!

Linnaeus Project wip.

Bench Monday and woolly polyps between the toes.

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.

Morelia spilota, the carpet python

It's very hot, dry and windy. No rain for three and half months...... no words today, just images!!!

My new scythe. 

So much grass everywhere.

 

My new skirt.

Yesterday's harvest.

Mounting components onto fabric. 

Highlight........ 2m carpet python Morelia Spilota  in the grass. Stunning!!!!!

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.

Ha!!

A little bit of progress has been made on this piece. 

Last week I went back down to Sydney to appear on "Mornings with Deborah Cameron", 702 Local ABC Radio. She was hosting the "Knit-in" and I did a demonstration showing how to make plastic bag yarn and talked about my work. 

I'm back and itching to finish a myriad of projects.

臥虎藏龍

We went for a drive on Sunday and passed this massive grove of bamboo. I stood in front of it to show the scale of it. It reminded me of the wonderful fighting sequence in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍).

 

On the topic of things Chinese, the special "Ocean" issue of little thing  magazine arrived from China today. It features an interview I did with Jie Zhou. I'm thrilled to bits. The images look very beautiful on the white background. I just wish I could read Mandarin. 

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.