Yay! An Award!

Many, many thanks go to cusp over at L'Ombre de mon Ombre for this much appreciated award. I can't say how much this means to me... It seems to me that the generosity and goodwill generated by the internet is one of the most positive things happening around the globe at this point in history. And I'm really honoured and excited to be a part of it. Warmest wishes and heartfelt thanks to everyone who has visited my blog this year.

Some new toys, but otherwise not much progress

Yes, that's right, that's my new wacom intuos3 - a graphics tablet. And it is a BIG ONE! (A4 size - the active part in the centre). In case you don't know what these are for, it's like a cross between a mouse and an etch-a-sketch...you draw with the pen on the right and your little marks will appear magically on your screen. I've been wanting one for about 18 months, but fully expected it to be a 6 x 8 in, until I had a wonderful windfall a couple of weeks ago. (I own a very few shares in Coles Myer which I inherited from my great-aunt. Coles was taken over a few weeks ago and hey presto, as well as shares in the new company, $$$s appeared in my bank account....don't worry, I've told Centrelink.)

Anyway, this little beauty arrived yesterday and I am still working it out. I've got the software uploaded etc, but the pen operates very differently from a mouse and I'm not finding the adjustment is automatic. I suspect the proprioception in my arms (that's the position sense) has been affected by CFS, but hopefully with time I will get the hang of it. I'm not prepared to give you a demo just yet, but when I produce something I'm happy with you'll be the first to know.

The other piece of equipment/tool/toy I've bought myself (well Christmas is coming up!) is a Print Gocco. I don't know if you are familiar with this, but it is basically a unit that allows you to make your own (smallish) screens for screen printing. They're made in Japan and there are inks for paper, fabric and clay (he!he!). I've been wanting one of these for about 5 years, ever since a friend lent me hers to play with. They aren't cheap, so I've always hesitated, especially when I heard they may cease production. Then I heard there is an Australian supplier and at least out here, there's no problem with continuing supply, so I bit the bullet. So far I've only opened the box and looked at all the bits, but hopefully I'll get a chance to give it a whirl soon. If you'd like to see a little of what you can do with a gocco, check out Shu-Ju Wang's artists books.

Otherwise the week has been slow. It kicked off with a migraine, interrupting my plans for a get-together with feffakookan, and it really stayed in the slow lane. Also, I've had some news about my masters that has left me rather up in the air. Since I first enrolled, the course has been upgraded and an extra subject added. This means I now have to enrol in both semesters in 2008, but I don't know what I actually have to do work-wise....or how I'll do it from Brisbane. I'm waiting for the course coordinator to get back to me...

Inspiration

Above: Works by Anita McIntyre, Vicki Reynolds, Marisse Maas, Kirra Jamison, Robert Boynes, Anne-Laure Djaballah, Mary Sutherland, Nancy Selvin, Susan Joy Share.

I have started thinking about a book or perhaps series of books based on cycles in nature. The sort of things I am thinking of including are the lunar phases, day and night, seasons, insect lifecycles and the stages of a woman's life (woman, mother, crone). The structure I plan to use is the flutter book. If you are unfamiliar with this, it is basically a concertina book, with the covers pulled right back, so the book sits in a circle. Below is the model I made at a workshop I attended last year - of course it can have as many pages as you want.

I want the work to express ideas about nature and time, the way it is cyclical and how we, as humans, are a part of that. I've been looking through images of work that I've collected for ways to express that aesthetically, and the collage at the top of the post shows some works I've pulled out to help me visualize where I want to go. To me, these works speak of time passing and past.

In a way, this is a progression from a triptych of photos (below) I did during the first year of my masters. As a work, they were at a very experimental stage and not at all resolved, but they were the first work I did in Melbourne that excited me with their potential. They referred to ideas of the primordial soup, and I was playing with light as an expressive tool.

I seem to be in a peculiar head space at the moment...quite stressy, quite sleepy but having trouble getting to sleep and sleeping fitfully when I finally do drop off. At the same time I'm having quite a lot of creative ideas, and works I've had in the back of my mind all year long are starting to come together (in my head at least).

Today is the first day of summer here and while the temperatures have been very mild (27-28 deg C) the humidity is often between 50-80%. This really saps me of energy far more than the dry heat I experienced when living in Melbourne. The last two days I finally relented and turned on the air conditioning. It seems unjustified when the temps are so low, but then I realised that I had perspiration on my upper lip and forehead just sitting at the desk. CFS has damaged the hypothalamus, the area in the brain which controls temperature regulation among other things, so my ability to tolerate humidity is far below the norm. I do feel better and more able to work with the A/C on. I might really indulge myself and try sleeping with it on too.