gooseflesh

New York Highlights

Meret Oppenheim's Object (Le Déjeuner en fourrure), 1936, Museum of Modern Art.

Spring blossoms.

Home of Project Runway.

A gold peak seen from Madison Sq. Park.

Rockefellar Centre ice rink.

Squirrels.

Smoked salmon and cream cheese on a bagel.

Sharing a table with a Yoko Ono look-alike.

An introduction to two identical French poodles, dressed in blue, cabled, knit sweaters, by a man with a voice like Truman Capote's.

Cafe Mogadon, listening to Nick Drake.

Isamu Noguchi Sculpture Garden.

Secret Strangeness of the Ocean

Some of my books are treasures of secret strangeness. One in particular is old and was found thrown on a pile of rubbish on the road. It sits comfortably on my bookshelf waiting to be opened and admired at regular intervals. For at least 25 years it has been a source of inspiration to me, a portal to an imaginary world. Some of my favourite images are black and white and have a wonderful lithographic quality.

Two young Puffer Fish (Diodon histrix)

Coelographis regina

Elatomma juniperum

Lithocircus magnificus

Orosphaera serpentina (I love saying the latin names out loud)

The bottom four images are skeletons of radiolarians. Radiolarians are ancient microscopic traces of life dating back 600 million years. These secret little creatures are the precursors to all marine life. Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) studied their perfect symmetrical structures and did exquisite drawings of them.

These images are models of radiolarians blown from glass by Herman Mueller in 1940.

........ the degree of difficulty crocheting my crochet sea creatures fades into insignificance compared to these little beauties.

Wildlife of the South Seas, F.A Raedelberger, and V.I Groschoff, Verbandsdruckerei Ltd., Berne, 1967.

A Brilliant Day

Yesterday was a brilliant day.

MORNING
Breakfast with loved ones in a Balinese garden:
Poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon on sourdough toast

MIDDAY
Continue crocheting The Rubbish Vortex in the garden. Phone calls and visits from loved ones.

AFTERNOON
Swim in the rock pool. Ocean temperature 24 degrees Celsius. Walk back home along the beach finding sandstone abstractions.

Harvesting Habanero chillies from my garden.

EVENING
Continue crocheting The Rubbish Vortex and making plastic bag yarn.

LATER
To Bed. Dreaming of the brilliant 50th birthday I just had.

Congratulations Doris!

Just a few authors, whose books I have read, have changed my way of thinking and my life.
One of these is Doris Lessing. She has won the 2007 Nobel Prize for Literature at the age of 87 years.

On the TV last night, she was stepping out of a taxi after a shopping trip, when a journalist told her she had won. She annoyingly plonked her shopping bags on the ground and said "Oh, Christ!".

I especially loved "The Canopus in Argos: Archives" series. These books focused my thinking, made me more conscious and gave me a feeling of being part of a much larger Universe than previously.

"Laughter is by definition healthy". D.Lessing

On the Beach

Your thoughtful comments and kind words have touched me. Thanks.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Inspiration

What is it?

Stenocarpus sinuatus. Proteaceae family.

This is flowering in my garden. It's a rainforest tree from Northern NSW and the honey-eaters love it.
Each little ball and associated bits is one flowers.

Wheel Flower (c.1929).
Woodcut, handcoloured

Margaret Preston (1875 - 1963). Printmaker and painter.

A uniquely Australian interpretation of our flora.

Women in Art

Found this clip from this wonderful blog of artist Heather Smith jones
I'm speechless.

Spawning Coral

I cherish and admire the branching patterns of coral. A branching pattern is an efficient way to reach all the points in a large area moving along the shortest possible distance. Trees, river systems and blood vessels utilize the same patterns.

Images from a collection of tear-sheets and old books.

Coral for The Rubbish Vortex. Crocheted from plastic bag yarn. This is definitely an evolving piece. Thinking about a hanging mechanism....mmm... wire from ceiling and transport to U.S. for exhibition in January.

Tilda Swinton wearing a coral necklace that I adore. Must try and make one in wool. She's a fabulous actress. I loved her in the film "Orlando". She played an androgynous character who travels through time. Based on one of my favourite books....... Orlando, by Virginia Woolf.
I found this photo in an old magazine which I can't remember the name of.

Coral reproduce sexually. A polyp can be both sexes or either female or male. On the night after the full moon in November, coral polyps of the Great Barrier Reef release both sperm and eggs. The fertilized eggs float to the surface and drift with the plankton. Some settle on the ocean floor and start new coral colonies.

A lot of images again today and not a lot of words. Hope this post is a coherent record of my thinking and making. You get the drift.........

The Unity of all Things

Art Forms in Nature by Ernst Haeckel, is a book that's on my bedside table most nights. I lose myself looking at the bizarre sea creatures and wake up with lots of ideas for new work the next morning.
Ernst Haeckel (1834 -1919) was a German zoologist who was interested in the unity of science and art and the interconnectedness of living organisms. He loved jellyfish and microscopic marine protozoa and the book is full of his drawings. It was originally published in the 19th Century but has since been republished. His home, Villa Medusa is now a museum in Jena, Germany. It's full of furniture, chandalier rosettes and crockery inspired by his drawings. I found these images in an old issue of my favourite magazine World of Interiors.

Yes, I'm saving my pennies............. Villa Medusa, Lotus land, and Frida Kahlo's Museum....... what a great tour.

Encounters with aquatic wildlife

People often ask where I get inspiration and ideas from, and my answer invariably is....... the OCEAN.

It's no surprise my studio smells fishy............. I bring home lots of things from the beach. A tractor rakes and collects all the bits and pieces washed up on the beach a couple of times a week. I collect anything interesting before it ends up as landfill at the local tip.

The Rock pool

At the South end of the beach, a tidal rock pool was constructed in the 1930s. I swim laps here. It was built on a rock platform and contains a little ecosystem full of many different kinds of fish, weeds and other sea creatures. At high tide, fresh ocean water washes into the pool and fish get trapped until the next high tide. Once a little baby shark got trapped......needless to say, I didn't swim in the pool that day. While I swim, I look at all the little creatures and enter an altered state of consciousness with the help of the steady strokes and regular, deep breathing, akin to meditation. All my worries are washed away.

Colourful sandstone rocks

Once I was swimming along and a cormorant dove into the pool in front of me and caught a fish. Sometimes the cormorants sit on the edge of the pool and watch me swim (or maybe they are looking for fish).

Limpets

There is a natural plunge pool at the northern end of the beach which was made by one of the locals before the rock pool was constructed. Jo, who lives down the road, told me that her Grandfather used dynamite on the rock platform to make a hole for his pregnant wife (Jo's Grandma) to cool down in during the hot summer. I wallow in this pool when I just want to cool down and relax. I saw a turtle there last year, the first time ever. The rock platforms and reefs are now protected.

Lichen growing on the Sandstone

I was once rock-hopping, focused on finding treasures amongst the rocks, when a large rock in front of me came to life............it was a giant fur-seal woken out of his slumber and not happy. He clampered into the ocean with a huff as I tried to steady my breating and heart rate.

Kelp

Can you smell the ocean?