self-portrait wednesday
Looking inwards, looking outwards, and looking forward to an opportunity to combine the delicious suggestions of Catherine and Alison and uncoil the big black ball to see what is inside. Slowly and meditatively while being quiet and listening to the muse - I wonder where she is.
Happy me . 
Guess the mystery object anyone?
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Tags: self-portrait
Development
Every so often - in the creative life there will be a little period where you make a breakthrough - or take off in a slightly different direction that feels good and right at the time.
Sometimes you will find yourself at the end of that small leg of the journey, turn around to catch your breath and realise you are further than you thought you’d be.
Vertigo sets in. A moment of anxiety and feelings of pressure mount.
You try to work and everything just looks crap.
This is unlovely.
The ‘unloveliness’ is valuable because it makes you work harder, try harder, climb further, and it is in fact a blessing - this dissatisfaction - because it is a glass that helps you realise how far you have in fact come.
It just feels icky.
Having spent the last 3 days on a painting that is - MOST horrible, and being unable to get anything useful out of the experience is frustrating and crushing. Temporarily crushing. I’ll be over it tomorrow, but for today I would just like to curl up in the sunshine and wait for my new wings to fully uncurl.
And tomorrow I’ll give it another go. Or maybe today. I am so impatient….
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Tags: mistakes
Coiled
I knew it made no sense in the shop. But when one is wandering the aisles of a vintage Japanese textile and furniture warehouse and discovers a giant ball there is an irresistible pull. Isn’t there?
Or is it just me.
It is large - has about a 25cm diameter, is made of a flat cord and I have no idea what is at the centre.
How thrilling.
There could be a giant rhinoceros beetle. A polystyrene ball. More of the same.
The shape is so appealing to me - round and coiled with wanton loops falling that need to be continually rewound. It refuses to be neatly contained. I like that.
It sits on the shelf in my studio - and has for some months now - just making me happy by being there. It emanates something peaceful and promising and speaks of possibilities and lifetime ownership. I want to enclose it in a bell jar, which I know is nutty…
But it’s beautiful.
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Tags: giant ball
Quietly
Quietly - oil on linen, 2008.
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Tags: girls, painting, quietly
clothed
She is growing so fast. So fast, so suddenly that I can’t seem to keep up with her. I bought tops a month back and she has shot through them already - exposing a midriff in our cold winter is no fun, and bad parenting I suspect, so a few new tops are in order.
one in blue and grey - with a flower made from the revwrse fabric and a trim found at Patchwork on Central.
One in green and brown, with baby-elastic threaded through the cuffs and collar to disguise it’s slightly-too-bigness…
There will be pinafores to follow - to try and get some wear out of the too-short tops we already have. I can’t make sense of this growth-spurt. we are small people my husband and I. She is a giant!
Bless her.
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pressed
I had an email from a collector who told me her beautiful apartment was to be featured in the September issue of this magazine.
And there I am, by happy coincidence hanging next to my friend Daniel on page 101!
The apartment is beautiful, and must be a joy to live in….
Yay!
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Tags: hom ebeautiful, painting, press
Contented us
Contented us. 46cm x 46cm, oil on linen.
When I was a child, my grandparents lived next door to a couple of old ladies called “pilly’ and ‘bakie”. I’ll never know if that was their real names or not, but they had lived there together in that house for EVER. We used to trot in and they would give us biscuits or little treasures like fascinating buttons or bits of stuff.
I loved them. We moved away. At some point one died, the other a year or so later.
I will never know, though, as an adult discussing it with family, there was a suspicion that they were a couple. That always fascinated me. Had they known each other forever, or met later on, were they public about it - or was it a secret. It must have been a shocking thing when they were young, and I found it very sad if they had kept it a secret always, how that must have been frustrating.
I wondered if they had met, and run away to be together. If their families (long gone) knew where they were. Nobody ever knew their whole story. It just wasn’t the kind of thing that was discussed over polite conversation and tea with elderly neighbours back then, and they were so gorgeous it would have been a crime to make them uncomfortable or suggest something that would have been wrong. They may just have been good buddies who shared a house.
I think of them sometimes, and wonder what their real stories were. Probably much more fascinating….
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Tags: couple, run away
The trick is
The trick is…. (oil on linen) 2008
Painting in earnest this week and trying to avoid distractions…. Difficult with a head full of ideas and a light heart. Wish me luck.
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Tags: painting, trick, city, couple
between jobs
15 years ago I had left an awful job.
Truly awful.
The kind of experience that leaves you doubting your own self-worth and place in the universe. I spent a bit of time at home - wondering what I should do next, and hoping it would be something spectacular (within a year it was).
While plotting, I took a few contracts here and there. Cementing my ideas of what I never wanted to do again, and still looking for the right thing. I had no money.
No money.
And my car was dying. Mysterious things were happening to it and it obviously needed some attention. Prepared for a week of perhaps not as much food as I would like I took it to the service station for a look.
The people at the service station told me cheerfully how much it would cost to fix, and I said - ‘um - you better just let me have it back then and I’ll roll it home’. They said - ‘you want a job?’.
Damn.
Hard to refuse an offer like that when it is given to you and you don’t have another immediate option - and it will fix the car that you have only just admitted you can’t afford to fix otherwise….
I worked for 4 weekends (maybe more), doing the (apparently) plumb morning shift as the chick behind the register. I stole chocolate and ate it whenever I wanted to as my revenge. I flirted with everyone who walked in the door. I thrilled at how much money they took in - and how I was the one who sent it through the mysterious shute that led to the subterranean vault. It’s true - there was a subterrantean vault - or so they told me.
Nobody relieved me for any breaks - I had to lock the door and make a mad toilet dash, while all the petrol bowsers were locked - resulting in more than one falling incident and a gash in the forehead (sad but true). On returning to my perch there would be angry motorists banging on the windows - red faced and pissed off that nobody was pressing the button to start their petrol flowing.
One weekend 2 dangerous criminals escaped from custody and were at large in my city. I kept my hand on the emergency buzzer and one ear to the radio for my whole shift. I was fairly sure they would be walking in my door. They didn’t. I still can’t get over how they didn’t know how terrified I was, and magnetically make a beeline for my place of work. They didn’t get to witness my carefully rehearsed reaction to their entrance…. I am grateful for that.
The highlight of this brief employment was a training session at the metropolitan fire department where we got to dress up in heavy duty equipment, see how one pocket lighter can explode setting an average house on fire in no time at all. Learn the dangers that mobile phones are near a source of fuel, and see a map of what lies beneath a petrol station.
Oh My God.
All I can say - is that we were advised by a professional that should you see a fire, the best advice is to lock the doors and RUN FOR THE HILLS, calling the fire department if you have a phone box a reasonable distance away…. Shortly thereafter I quit.
Ah… memories.
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Tags: bad job
Caught in the middle of inside-and out. Feeling like I’m not quite resolved yet. It’s a peculiarly exposed and uncomfortable feeling, and if I could I’d retreat to a small place and just rest for a little bit
There are ideas swimming around my head. There are skills I would like to master. There is not quite enough time to feel proud of recent achievements. There are meals to be prepared. There is washing to be done and mending needed. There are bills to be paid and skipping down the street to be enjoyed.
These are the things that stop dreams from manifesting I think. And the selfish drive that makes the new goals manifest can be difficult to justify sometimes. At the moment I am feeling guilty, but I need some time for me too….. and in time, when I have time, I know I will feel guilty for not giving everything my all.
Grrr - and whee. Today I’m just feeling dizzy….
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Tags: dizzy, goals
