big day on the farm...

It's been a monumental day for everyone on the farm.....

today was the first day of the new dairy....

(I spy Sass and EJ hiding in the wash room - checking out all the excitement

I spy the Very Big legs of the Very Big girls! )

I am quite tired - it's been a stressful day, week, month, year!

And now the real challenge begins for me:

How to integrate 

my passion for this land,
my whole-hearted belief in permaculture as the only way to operate a farm,

  my desire to impart in our kidlins a sense of loving respect for animals and land,

and to juggle all the different aspects of my life (art, garden, study, farm, KIDS)
with my farming man's need to MAKE THIS NEW VENTURE WORK!

(oh boy)

** I have posted many more pics and the complete tale of the first big dairy day here

....

back to basics

I'm resolutely one of those annoying 'when life gives you lemons, make lemonade' type of people....  so, given the challenges to be faced in the coming short while, I'm getting stuck into something positive: - over the summer months, along with dairy-building, studying, arty-making, (and all the usual stuff - gardening,  kiddie and/or cow wrangling and preserving lemonade anyone? )

there's an abundance of lemons at the creek right now....

I'm setting a small, and I hope, distractingly enjoyable task - I'm going to make a collection of booky models showing the different stages and ways of creating handmade books... and I also hope to post the odd 'how-to' of these as I go....

Wheeee won't that be fun? (well it SHOULD take my mind off milk vats and vacuum pumps and heat exchange hot water heaters and all the other things FP is trying to get me to understand.... not to mention all the pressure of Higher Degree Research!)

I'm going to start at the beginning - the basics of bookmaking  - like understanding paper grain, making and using paste, tips and tools....

 (I made this little box model of the steps in making a multi-section paper case binding as part of the bookbinding unit in the Diploma of Western Calligraphy - back in the mid-1990s..... my whole summer project is inspired by this little model)

I hope that all you more experienced booky folk don't enter a yawn-fest as I go over what might be really familiar (and very basic) ground....

 (a snippet of my 'alphabet practice'.... circa 1996)

Like I've said before - I always find reviewing basics really valuable - and I LOVE to sneak a peek at how other people do things - it either reinforces or challenges my current practices... so I consider it a win-win situation.....

I hope everyone feels free (but not obligated) to chime in at any time - and by all means you can question any way that I may do things (particularly if you think my way is TERRRRRIBLE!!!!)


oooo I'm feeling excited and more positive already!



.....

permaculture and me....

ON Monday morning, bright and early, I'm off to commence the Permaculture Design Certificate held at 'The Crossing' (out the back of Bermagui - 20kms east of Sams Creek). The 72hr course will be over the next 13 days (with a day off in between.... phew!) and lead by local permaculture teacher John Champagne. I'm really excited and nervous that I'll FINALLY be able to undertake the course.

I've been interested in self-sufficiency since the 1970s and 1980s (yep - whilst I was still in primary and high school).... indeed I actually spent some of my hard-earned babysitting money on this, still treasured volume....

I bought my first book specifically on permaculture in the early 1990s (Permaculture One by Bill Mollison) and have been reading and collecting different books on and around the topic ever since....

In 2002 I bought David Holmgren's spectacular text- 'Permaculture: Principles and Pathways beyond sustainability'  hot off the press...  

(look I even managed to get an autographed copy....
that's because David's mother, poet and environmental activist, Venie Holmgren calls this region home!)

I think David's book is simply the best and most far-reaching text to explain the philosophy of permaculture in practical and far-reaching terms.... I love it.


BUT

Despite my swelling collection of books and long standing interest in the topic.... I've never had the chance to get to a course, to meet with others passionate about permaculture, to benefit from their experience, and to spend time focused on the topic.... in short  - to really delve deeply into all aspects of permaculture - soooooo I'm terribly excited about the coming days!....


I also expect to be rather quiet on the blogging front during my looooong days.....


see you on the flip side eh?!


...

beginnings (coda)

Reliving/ reviewing my arrrty journey (albeit in a very abridged form) as a series of 'beginnings' over this past week has been really cathartic (and exhausting).... Yes I can see some recurring themes and obsessions (text! boooooks!), but mostly I noticed that, until a couple of years ago, there was one thing strangely absent in my arts practice......

My home - Sams Creek.....

 this pic was taken in the drought-breaking flood earlier this year -
it was featured on 'the weather channel', as was my excited report about the longed for RAIN at Sams Creek!

Sams Creek is far more than my postal address.... Sams Creek is my soul's home.....

The Ayliffe family (my parents and grandparents) bought the 365 acre run-down farm at Sams Creek (6kms north of the small township of Cobargo, where we all lived) in the late 1960s. The property was purchased from 2 elderly bachelor brothers (the Elliott 'boys') on the priviso that the men (and their old work horse) could stay on the farm for the rest of their days.

here's me with my stunning mumma and skinny dad (them's some sexy legs daddio!),
just after the family purchased the Sams Creek property.....
I'm the first member of the family to ever LIVE on the farm
this pic was taken about 30m from where the old house - my house still stands -
ps the old shed in the background still (almost) stands!

me and the main men in my life - my dad and my 2 grandfathers -
I'm about 2-3yrs old in this pic. My Poppy T (wearing the hat.... gosh but how I loved that man!)
had a dairy farm about 5kms from here.... he was the 'real' farmer of the bunch...

Every week my family would deliver a load of groceries, and I can vaguely remember the oldest and last of the brothers (Percy), who passed away when I was around 5yrs old. However, I vividly remember the old house - I only got to venture inside after it was vacated (I was about six by then). But by about the age of eight I had decided this old house would one day be My Home....

I took this pic of 'my' funny little house in the mid-1970s when I was 8-9 years old.....
already I was dreaming how I could make it mine....

I was still dreaming and photographing 'my' house a decade later..... this pic is circa 1985...

All good things come to those who wait.... and my wait finally paid off in 1988, for at last the funny, century-old house - with no electricity, no running water, no bathroom, no kitchen, no telephone, no insulation, no floor coverings, no heating, no cooling, (ummm... actually it was missing quite a few window panes and all the interior lining back then also - and I'm not going to start to describe the outside pan toilet....) - was STILL my dream property and at last it was My Home!

yippeee!!!!

It took six months to install running water and a flush toilet (believe me - there is NO romance in an outside dunny), another six months to get a bathroom and bring the electricity some 1.5kms over the paddocks, one year to hook up the telephone, 3 years to gain a rudimentary working kitchen and some replacement glass..... and then another 14 years to actually commence the big fix up (re-pier, re-roof, re-place half the house that was condemned...)

the 'big fix up' was 9 years ago....

We kept all the original house (circa 1870 - with round timber construction, double brick chimney, wide original hardwood floorboards, pressed metal wall and ceiling coverings), and about half of the school house addition (added circa 1920s) but the rest of the school rooms were deemed 'too far gone'. We managed to save the third brick chimney, the handslumped glass window panes and coloured glass inserts... We put the new structure back on the footprint of what we removed (so it's a modest little house) and clad it all in matching weatherboard.

the original double chimney of the old house is still going strong -
and just check out the original unpainted weatherboards... love 'em

I've just started making a small dry herb patch at the chimney base

here's My beautiful Home now.....

My Home, sweet Home - spring 2010

I know it's terribly self-indulgent to be rattling on and on about my arrrty background and the makings of my little home here Sams Creek as I have this week - so I do so appreciate all of your coming along for the ride. Right now, my arty making and our life at Sams Creek is poised on the brink of a massive change (that you've heard me hint of repeatedly), so looking back on the series of 'beginnings' has reminded me of all that I am grateful for and given me greater confidence to face the challenging uncertainty of the hard work ahead....



* ps next time I share 'beginnings' I will be looking forward, not backwards.... I've got lots to share in the next while....



...

beginnings (part four)

my arty beginnings... 
a story in four parts starts with part one,   ---  part two,   ---  part three 

and now - here's part four....

In August 2006 I received shocking news - Gareth Long, my dear high school friend, classmate and fellow BHS prefect, had been killed in a freak tractor accident. Gareth was a spectacular person - funny, personable, compassionate, brilliant - As teens we shared a similar confidence, clarity and intensity about our future path.... Gareth was destined to be a doctor, and me - well I was going to be An Artist of course. Gareth became a highly respected orthopaedic surgeon and passionate advocate for local (and global) health issues - mostly though, I remember him as a genuine and beautiful person. Gareth and I were 2 of only 4 people from our high school graduating year to gain tertiary qualifications and remain/return to the Bega Valley... His death was devastating news.

Just as the birth of our children had been a life-altering event, Gareth's death caused something of a personal crisis: for the first time I fully sensed my own mortality..... and from that sensation came the renewed urge to live to the fullest.... with as much honesty, integrity, kindness, humility, compassion, generosity and authenticity as I could muster.

The week following Gareth's death, I sent off an application to enroll in a Master of Visual Arts (by distance... of course!).... Sass was just entering Kindy, EJ was a toddler, we were in the grips of what became the worst drought in recorded history, my mother was very ill then diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.... basically it was absolutely insane to be considering a Masters at that moment.... but..... there was no time to lose....

I had little idea what I was about to take on so it was with tremendous nervousness that I accepted the offer of a place with Monash University.

Wow! what a roller-coaster ride the 3 year part-time course was..... in the first year I played with textiles (and took out 2nd prize in the Meroogal Women's Art Prize with a textile piece.... much to my amazement!) I played with installations and calligraphy (I was guest artist for Coffs Caligraphers exhibition 'botanical rhythms' so I created a whole banksia-inspired body of work....)

weight of words

mixed media on canvas - 10 panels

2007

and of course I experimented with boooooooks.....

'herstory' (detail)

reclaimed history text book, cotton backing, cotton and polyester thread, acetone transfer image

2007

(see more of this piece on the EGAG website....)

I commenced this blog at the beginning of the second year of my MVA (2008).... (indeed you can blame Monash Uni for all my blogginess).... so if you trawl back through the archives you'll catch up with the story to this point.

Last year I finished off the Masters (wheeeeeee! happy dance!)....

'scientia inflammatus'

ephemeral sculpture/photography

2009

(reproduced in Artlink magazine, shortlisted for Basil Sellers Art Prize TBA in Oct.)

Rather than take a breather, I immediately applied for the Higher Degree Research program with Monash.....

Soooooooooo - right now I'm in the thick of things with the MFA/PhD booky arrrrrt project - the first chapter of the exegesis is due in Nov and there's much arrrrrtyness to make! (but then if you've had a peek at anything this year you'd know this already)....

....and that means I think we're all caught up!


PHEW!

being An Artist can be tiring - this four-part arrrrty tale certainly has taken its toll!

I think I need a little lie down......

"A beginning is only the start of a journey to another beginning"

(Anon)

.....