Bigger than I could blog

Hi.  How are you?  Isn’t it amazing?  It’s 2011.  And I meant to write this post yesterday to mark the New Year but as is the fashion in my current life as never before: here I am , late again.

So what happened here?

Last year became enormous as did I.  As my pregnancy progressed, I got slower and tried frantically to fit in more and more before the baby arrived.  It was a time for doing, not time for reportage.

And now Matt and I have a son, Arthur who is nearly 8 months old.   He was mostly born at home, in our kitchen with a quick dash to hospital in the last 40 minutes where a careless (lady) obstetrician pfaffed about too much and too roughly with a ventouse and in the end my midwife says I pretty much pushed him out myself at 20 minutes past 12 on the morning of May 8.  He is a tiny Taurus Bull, born in the year of the Tiger who we refer to as the King of the Bears.  Grrr.  Snort.

Parenting is every joyous cliche I have ever heard and more and Arthur is a funny, exquisite, calm, stoic and generally delightful little boy who likes books, drumming, dancing and rabbits.  I think I speak easily for both Matt and I when I say our lives are far greater with him in it.  It has been so enjoyable I simply haven’t wanted to tear myself away in order to put into words something that might simply be indescribable.

I have decided not to return to work and instead, stay Mama-at-home/Artist-at-home and am slowly starting to make that combo work.  It means financially life is rather slim but I have been here before when I first found I needed to retreat from the cycle and I find I need and am happier with less and less as time progresses.   The investment in spending my time growing vegetables, ideas, images and a person is proving infinitely more gratifying.

Around me in 2010 people were born and people died.   I welcome all you fascinating creatures who have arrived with open arms and to those who left, I just dearly wish I had the opportunity to say goodbye or to ask you to reconsider your journey before you set off.  Everyone leaves a ragged, raw hole when they go.  Everyone.

Despite these sadnesses I thank you 2010 for witnessing me turning 40 , for the 10 year marker for my marriage but most overwhelmingly for Arthur.

Soon I will post some brief catchups on what DID happen after I stopped recording but looking ahead, placing one foot in front of the other, and despite my tendency not to, this year some resolutions became clear as I showered away the last dust of 2010: to remember fun and how to have it; and to put an end to waste – wasted resources, money, emotion and time.  I can and will cut back on all of them.

I wish you all the best for this year, whoever you are.  Be as happy as you can and remember that aching void that would exist if you did not.

Happy New Year.

x

Hey! HNY!

Can you believe it’s 2010?

If you’re in Hobart, could you believe or imagine more spectacular New Years weather?

I melted in the heat, ate watermelon for dinner and watched the New Year roll in with the lightening on a blanket on the shore of Cornelian Bay.

This picture is from The Mercury’s little ‘crazy NYE weather’ album.

It’s unusual for me not to blog a Happy Channukah/Christmas/Kwaanza or a New Years Eve wish list but core thoughts tend to stand from year to year:- I hope you’ve all been happy and safe and that life looks brighter, rather than darker, from where you stand right now.

I’ve been quietly enjoying a couple of (scheduled) weeks off formal employment and a couple of (unscheduled and very naughty) weeks off any other form of work at my desk.  Pregnancy is bliss and family and old friends are too, so I decided after the busy-ness of the end of year to just wallow in this place for a while where I tend to my garden, groom my rabbits, eat watermelon and sort tiny donated clothes into season and size while generally just being enormous.

But the turning of the year begs to be marked so here I am.  There are catchup posts to do waiting in the wings and early 2010 is full of exciting work and exhibitions which I will tell of soon enough.

BUT what is truly incredible is that:

In 2010 I will turn 40.
In 2010 I will celebrate my 10th wedding anniversary.
In 2010 I will have a child.

What a year it’s going to be.

our house is the easter house

more about "prancing", posted with vodpod

I got a Terry’s Chocolate Orange which goes magnificently with my morning coffee. Health care routine be damned (yet to write about that but I’ll catch up).

Working very hard on something but soon all will be revealed.

Enjoy your loved ones, your holiday and your chocs.
Love from my house.

xxx
p.s. excuse clicky vid sound. Shot on my still camera and test driving Facebooks video application. I love how impressed Matt is with Gino’s ‘prancing’.

What I did with my December

…and a bit of November too.

These were the gifties and things I was making for my family and friends for Xmas. My pal Pip taught me how to use the virgin unwrapped Gocco print system I’ve had sitting in its box in the studio back in November, so that got a pretty good Xmas workout. Expect more Gocco fun in the future!

Clockwise from top left:

1) My solution for what to make for small boysie-boys – wrestling action figures (Gocco print on recycled fabric – stuffed). One little fella I know crams them into the driving seats of trucks and trains and pops them astride plastic dinosaurs. Hmm… maybe boys don’t get enough dolls…

2) New Year cards (Gocco print on recycled card) – I’m just not sure about ‘Christmas’ as such but I was more than happy to see 2009 roll around and a new year is something EVERYONE recognises regardless of faith or lack thereof so New Years cards it is! Please also note the NY motifs of crabs and moths. Underused until now I feel…

3) What my brother, Chris has dubbed ‘Flankys’ since receiving his. Recycled flanny shirt hankies with hand rolled hems and gold chain stitch monograms. Some have still yet to be given to their noses-to-be – sorry noses-in-waiting.

4) Squeaky pigs. Stuffed Gocco print on recycled fabric (my old pyjamas actually) with recycled squeaky inside). For the little, little ones on my list. I like how these turned out.

5)A non-gift aside to use up left over ink in the Gocco screen – Wrestler cards on Chickenfeed card blanks. Black on black and red on red.

NOT pictured – I also made a couple of little personalised pencil cases for two of my nephews, Marcus and Michael, but forgot to take a photo ’cause I was working down to the wire (ie: Chris was on his way here to do the pre-Xmas gift exchange as I was still finishing embroidering Michael’s name – phew) but I then assume you know what a pencil case looks like…

As I said before – I thought about each person while making every stitch and it was a great feeling.

I really like youse.

HNY

My long awaited 2009 is here at last.

I wanted to be able to post a resolution but I’m still sorting through the threads of my current reality + intentions + desires and have yet to work out what I am aiming for or how to get there let alone a definitive resolve for change. Many things have to change – and I’m fast realising picking one or two out for special January 1st attention is impossible at this time.

So instead let me say – I hope 2009 brings you things that make you happy and that are good for you. It’s precisely what I want for myself.

Thanks for coming. HNY.

Twiggy Christmas

This is our Christmas tree made of fallen twiggies from the backyard. At night the lights in the twigs cast shadows on the wall as if we have an entire forest hiding in behind the heater.

It’s a bit quiet over here again, ’cause as well as ups and downs with the old brainbox, I set myself a goal to give handmade and recycled gifts this year. This means I have been furiously sourcing materials and making, making, making, and I can’t post any pix because the giftees are the core readership of this blog and it would spoil the whole ‘gift’ thing.

I have a bit more time to undertake such a task these days but am really feeling the value of doing it. I can’t help but think of the person a specific gift is for as I make each stitch (there’s quite a bit of sewing) and that makes me feel very…um… I guess connected is the word.

I hope I can find the time to do this every year from now on.

Keep it together through the silly season, won’t you?

Obligatory NY post

Happy New Year, anyone who reads this! 2008 – ‘aint it great.

I’ve been v. quiet, online at least. The end of last year was a whirr of activity trying to get everything done before I finished up at the gallery, then Christmas jumped right in on my ass with visitors, presents and all that that entails. I ran out of time to make things so the kids were all bought gifts while Matt and I made and packed boxes of peanut butter fudge and sugarplums for grownups.

I had a great last day at CAST, and wound up by making a new desktop picture for my replacement, Joy (the queen of all that is pink and sparkly) with a big pink poodle on it. I think he may have been wearing a tiara. Then I was wined and dined by my colleagues until we were joined by a party of ex-con ‘boat drinkers’; as good a time as any to pick up sticks and move on to more drinks with our office neighbours. We saw a man with his pants down on Warwick street outside the men’s hostel on the way back. He was leaning in a car window talking to some ‘ladies’. What a sunny, weird and funny afternoon! Bossy and I had some more liquid goodbyes at the pub after that and then I toddled and wobbled my way home all tired and emotional.

Some people get tattoos when they’re drunk. I however, came home and signed up for the Australia Councils register of peers. No terrible drama as I’d been meaning to do it anyway but I WAS impressed by my own ability not to fall into the clichés of boozing.

Visitors from the UK Martin and Britta rejoined with us on Christmas Eve after their Queenstown residency and stayed with us through to the New Year, bar a brief respite to Maria Island, at which time they were replaced here by Nick and Delta on the inflat-o-mattress.

Christmas was lovely, Family at lunch/friends into the evening which always turns me into something of a food-pushing mama. Britta kept suggesting I sit down and relax but I LOVE getting all festive and foodie and will keep producing plates of yum and eavesdropping on other peoples conversations until people pass out under the weight of all that fruit and cheese. It’s my idea of a good time. I make a very good Spanish salad with oranges and red onion and for Xmas I made it twice.

NYE was quiet with friends in the back yard too. Jolly, jolly times strapping glowsticks to Charlotte Lewis’s fat baby legs and spazzing them around (the sticks, not the legs) while Britta practiced her shutter tricks, as evidenced above.

We woke up January first with visitors flown away in the early morning. An empty house then, and back to real life. So now I am self-employed (or is that just a fancy term for UNemployed) and oh, so busy preparing for the first three shows of the year and Montreal. Actually, two of those shows and a grant application are due while we are IN Montreal… Wheee. Montreal ahoy.

2008, you might just be awesome. Boo, hiss, boo 2007. 2008 – right on.

EDIT: photos by the lovely Ms Britta Polmuller. Thank you, I love them! Safe travels, dear. X

Bye-bye little guy

more about "bye-bye little guy", posted with vodpod

thinking of you. please hang in there.