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Monday, May 21, 2012

My goodness

Forgive me lovelies, it's been far too long since my last confession post. I do think about posting, but then I get back to whatever I was doing and vow to catch up later. The last few weeks have been so busy. And then yesterday the whole 'busy' excuse got ramped up to 'emergency panic' status as a number of projects that had been ticking along in the 'one day I'll get it to you' category all landed on my doorstep to be done ASAP. So here I am, writing to you while my Book class do their own projects, between helping them with their problems, because once I get home there will be NO time to blog.

In the meantime, I've had a few little adventures, like the day my iPhone fell out of my bag while cycling in a tipsy manner and I found it a few hours later by retracing my route, only to discover that it had fallen on the road and had been repeatedly run over by cars. It was lying in a little pool of glass, as sprayed as blood, and would quite obviously never work again. NOOOOOOOOOOOOO was my first reaction, and panic as I thought of how much information was on it, and how I hadn't backed up for (thankfully only) a day or so.

But then I went to my phone provider and did a new contract that involved slightly more money and a much newer iPhone, and now I'm all 'that old thing, tuh'. No grief, just wonder at how much technology has improved since the iPhone 3. Yay!

Bumblebee found a beautiful flower to hang around with, and they are now like Siamese twins, connected at the hip when in each other's presence, and by non-stop telephonery when not. He's discovering what it's like when someone REALLY digs you, rather than just merely likes you, and he's totally hooked.

I have been busy in my studio, printing and planning and making, plus teaching at Megalo. This weekend I'll be taking the final week of the class promoted in my last post, showing the children how to sew their books together and make covers.

I think I've finally shaken the cold that has been bugging me since Easter, although it's still lingering a little bit. I'm seeing the doctor this week, just to make sure everything is hunky-dory.

Gym and I broke up, which is probably why I keep getting snotty, but he just put too much pressure on me, and he had weird friends that stared at inappropriate bits of my body. Now I go for hour-long fast morning walks around the border of our suburb, which takes me up around the base of Mt Majura, complete with rabbits, kangaroos and lots of birds. If I miss my walk, I don't think 'damn, I'm wasting money', which is much nicer than when I skipped gym. The walk makes me very happy, and my brain gets all juicy and creative, so that when I get back I'm raring to get into the studio.

I've seen a few movies, one of which was 'Iron Sky', a film so silly it's genuinely hilarious, about Nazis living on the dark side of the moon and trying to re-invade the Earth. It was made on a very low budget, and has to be seen with absolutely no expectations of quality. The piss-take of Sarah Palin is worth the price of admission alone. Bumblebee just didn't get it; I think you have to be an adult to understand the humour. I think it will be a cult movie eventually, it'll grow on people.

What else has been happening? My mind is a blank. All I can see is the print I'm working on at the moment back at my house, awaiting me. It's for a little show coming up in the Photospace Gallery at the ANU Art School to mark the Transit of Venus happening on 6 June. I had a simple idea, but it's turned into a complex process that's taken a lot more time than it should... and will look like a simple print. *sigh*

OK, I'll leave it there, but I will return soon, I hope. If not, imagine me buried under a pile of marked-up pages as I lay out the definitive scholarly edition of Henry Lawson's 'While the Billy Boils', which is what landed on my desk yesterday...

Tuesday, May 01, 2012

children making books



A bit last-minute, but there's still time to book your creative youngster into a totally awesome class every Saturday afternoon in May, learning how to write, storyboard and draw your own illustrated book.

Featuring the amazing talents of burgeoning illustrator Annika Romeyn (you will know that name in a few years) and roping in my kid-wrangling bookbinding skillz, the class will use the SLV's travelling exhibition LOOK! The Art of Australian Picture Books Today (showing at CMAG right now) as a resource and make their own incredible works.

Your child will learn SO MUCH from Annika. Get thee hence to the CMAG website and at the very least put yourself on their mailing list, because they offer so much to the ACT community. Please pass on this info to anyone who might be interested.