Tuesday. In pictures.

I call this one Screwed. A close up picture from Craft ACT's Secret Back Room...where we were creating a display for these: Dress and drill: because it's important that they match...The Craft cupboard next door in the studio at CMAG. I'm filled with jealousy and lust... I told the Big Important Person who visited that they should a) provide us with lunch for an extra charge and b) have a programme of Sundays for grown ups... Printmaking 2.1: all about The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief. There are fuck-ups*. I include them in the body of work as I'm sailing close to the edge and working on a one print edition: (because I only have an hour to get this right...)
(which, of course, I don't, as I forget to invert my work!*)No time to ponder, though, as our hour is almost up. This is the very first three colour print I've done. I tell myself that I can scan it and sort it out later...But there really is no later.** I'm still happy, though... In the "Things that make my heart swell and (almost) make me cry" category, I met Li in the print studio at CIT tonight at our catch-up class (where I spent my time helping my classmates with their projects as everything I needed to do had to be done at home.Oh the irony of having several rooms of toys at CIT at my disposal and no need for any of them!) Li told me she started this course after reading my blog. I didn't know what to say: I started documenting my experience in class partly because I couldn't find any information on the course before I started but to actually meet someone face to face who used this blog to decide their next move was quite overwhelming... (and Li, I meant it when I said I'd love to hear the outcome of next week for you!)

And here's a photo I took of the people left in my class (less Dani and Edith, who didn't show tonight). Of the original 30 people, we're down to the final 7...

(*Thank goodness for thinking on my feet and Photoshop!)
(** Especially when my still-not -laughing tutor tells me it looks like duck feet)

Good news. And bad news.

The good news:

I went through my body of work (as it stands so far) with my tutor tonight. And he didn't laugh. (Not even at the photo of the nest with the dolls house furniture in it...)

The bad news:

1. After discussing my work with my tutor I came up with an avalanche of new ideas. And the first stage assessment in Wednesday night. 43 hours away.

Before then I have to pack up a pile of stock to return to my distributor, visit the doctor, intern at Craft ACT, attend a printmaking workshop at CMAG, then a catch-up class at CIT (which won't be much help as I have everything I need to work on my pieces here) and work. Oh: and sleep, shower, and eat.

2. I appear to have tidied away my two pieces of A4 sized, stringy bark dyed fabric when The Collectors were due. And I can't find them anywhere. Which means I either have to find time in the next 43 hours (minus the time needed to use them to create something) to turn the house upside down to find them (you won't believe where I hid stuff!) or drag some more stringy bark into the kitchen and do a redye job...

(Shamed into) clearing the nest

My dastardly plan worked. Before I went to bed last night I spent 15 minutes sorting out my desk space. And this morning I just had to have a wee play while I waited for the kettle to boil downstairs: I always said I wanted the answer to my brief to be a dolls house. Now if only I could justify it as part of my body of work.

Let me think: this work explored the concept of flying the nest. The nest is empty apart from two vintage chairs, signifying the "empty nester" parents left behind once the child has left the family home. The rug signified how the family has been woven together over the years. And the lamp? Ummm.... Oh yes: the child is the light of their lives. Think it would (ahem) fly?

Corners of my (messy) home

I wanted to share the very fine black and white rubber band ball I picked up at the National Portrait Gallery Store yesterday. But by the time I got home from work today the light was going and, as I looked over to where I'd popped the ball yesterday before getting back to work on the The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief, I decided I should document what my work space really looks like at the moment: (Clockwise from left: lace from a bag I bought the other day that I haven't put away yet. Empty tea mug and Keep Cup. Packs of Lifesavers I need to post to my mother, who tells me they're no longer available in New Zealand. Op shopped dangly things to be turned into stitch makers. Beautiful black and white rubber band ball. White tape measure to replace dead white tape measure. Free black and white (and red) jellybeans from the Canberra Theatre 2010 subscription launch. Lundby lights waiting for payment before I box and post them. Knitting nancy and random piece of ribbon from my weaving. EBay invoice. New sketches for The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief. Avant card I want to send to a friend. And the omnipresent To Do list.

I keep kidding myself that I'll get on top of it all soon. Definitely after final assessment on the 24th. But first I have a seven day working week to get through. And a brief to finish. And a mountain of stock sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor to pack up and arrange to get sent back to my distributor...

Nesting

I wonder if it would felt?

Plaid mad

I call it the Royal Birds Nest Royal Knitter.

Speaking of which, I must away and knit a nest. As you do.

Who cares?!

I had fun and that's the important thing...

But does it fit the brief?

There's been another unexpected change of direction in my response to The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief. Mainly because I found a beautiful wooden toy loom at Vinnies this morning for $4 and suddenly have the urge to explore the possibilities it brings to the brief (Nests=woven, after all. Possibly too literal, do you think?)I've also pretty much given up the idea of actually painting something for the final body of work as I feel much more comfortable working digitally (and you can sort out mistakes much more easily!)

Here's an idea I've been mulling over in various forms for the past week or so (very loose test runs shown, completely different to what I was originally planning):

I originally conceived them as a triptych but now I wonder if they stand better alone...

I have another idea I want to play with which involves nesting boxes and cross stitch and knitting and the idea of boats (blame Where the Wild Things Are fever, OK?) but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I did manage to justify a quick op shop trip this morning

Where I picked up a copy of a 1969 Sunset book: Things to make for children ($1).

Mainly because it included this:

(Did you notice on the top of the first page that there are also instructions for other houses?)

It's from the same era as the New Zealand made Jomax house which I'd love to get my hands on:

Oh well, back to work on the The Big Very Important (Scary) Final Brief...

My plan for today:

(By Matt Jones, via kootoyoo. Maybe I should start a collection of these?)

A momentous occasion

I worked behind the bar tonight at the Craft ACT Christmas Smash.

I thought it was voluntary.

But I got paid! $50! My first paid work in the creative industries*!!

The $50 note dragged me straight into the Craft ACT shop. Where I was tempted to put it back into the till and take home one of the treasures I've been admiring over the past few weeks.

But I stopped. Tucked the note safely away and came home.

Now I need to make a decision. With my $50 note do I:

a) Frame it?
b) Buy something meaningful from the Craft ACT Shop to mark the occasion?
c) Retrospectively pay for my printmaking course at CMAG?
d) Other?

(* Actually, if you use the list of creative industries in Wikipedia my first paid work in the creative industried was cataloguing records for Radio Active in the mid 80s. But that doesn't really count in my mind)

It takes gumption to become more Australian

Almost a year to the day I continued my quest to become more Australian* by buying my first tub of Gumption.

Unfortunately it's to get crayon off the kids' tables at work, not for my personal use. I still have almost a full tub of (pink!) Chemico from New Zealand to use up before I can buy its Australian (white!) equivalent.

On a positive note, my colleague, who arrived here from Singapore in 2000 had never heard of Gumption so I had the pleasure of introducing her to this wonder of Australian cleaning...

(*Phew: attendance at a B&S Ball put off for another year!)

Tuesday: morning, noon and night.

Morning: Spent at Craft ACT where we were pricing new stock in readiness for the Christmas Smash shopping extravaganza tomorrow night at 6pm*. (For a sneak preview of one of the new items currently under wraps in the back room see here.)I also checked out our new exhibition Art Quilt Australia 09, which I haven't had a chance to see yet: Noon(ish!): I popped next door to Canberra Museum and Gallery for the first of my lunchtime printmaking classes.

We started by looking round the exhibition of prints from the CMAG collection, before a highlights tour by the Curator. The we had to use a viewfinder to select a piece of one of the works to sketch
before heading downstairs to the studio where we were shown how to make prints using the base of foam meat or vege trays and a pencil. Amelia shows us an exampleinks it up and prints it.Voila!We have a go:

Then she shows us how to add layers of colour and pattern. After cleaning the foam and scratching some background design she re-inks in a new colour
and shows us the difference it makes: But the hour's not over yet and Amelia isn't done. She cleans her foam again, cuts out the tree part of it, inks it up in a third colour, presses it down and we're all terribly impressed!
My final result wasn't nearly as striking:

Then I went back next door and spent the afternoon sorting out and loading the photos from Re-loved 2 to our Facebook page.

Night: My favorite night of the year (and better than Christmas):The Canberra Theatre subscription season launch!

(*Are you coming along?)

Almost forgot!

A little something I spotted on a fence in Vivian Street, Wellington...

Bother...

An unexpected side effect of watching Objectified is the desire to buy a Muji CD player, a Karim Rashid Kone vacuum cleaner and pay a visit to IKEA.

Sunday

Time to catch up on housework. But, more importantly, catch up with reading (a library book due back tomorrow and no renewal because there's a waiting list) and catch up with friends.

And tonight I plan to finally watch this which arrived a couple of days ago. Bliss!

Are you sick of random photos from my trip yet?

I hope not, as there's more to come and posting them enables me to try to sort all those boring things out that always need sorting out when you return from holiday.

Stuff like visiting the supermarket to buy groceries (which is a bigger thing than it sounds since Dickson Woolies has decided to turn themselves back to front. So after 12 years of getting the frozens last we're either supposed to get them first or shop from the other end of the store.)

So here's a photo of my favourite (not so) small person:This photo's called Cube on the coast:

And a shot of a bumble bee since we don't have any here:

Stupid o'clock

That's when I got up this morning after realising I wasn't going to get back to sleep.

But my bags are now unpacked. I've tidied my room, put away the dishes I did before I went away. And I've dealt with a pile of random colour inspiration photos I took over the weekend:

Because I suspect the chances of getting through my photos before they're past their use-by date will be a miracle

I'm thinking I should just highlight my faves...

One down, one to go..

Tonight's Power Point presentation on Terence Conran: I can go to bed happy now...

I'm back

I have bags to unpack

I have clothes to wash

I have new treasures to find homes for

I have accounts to balance

I have groceries to buy

I have a kazillion photos to deal with

I have to go to work

But first, I have a Powerpoint presentation to whip together for class tonight.

In the meantime, here's a pretty picture I took of Scorching Bay for you to look at: