wild and woolly winter weather....

Its been very wintery here at the creek (and in surrounding places!) this week. Yesterday and today snow/sleet/ice intermittently closed the Snowy Mountains Hwy between Bega and Cooma. It's cold and wet and woolly weather everywhere around here.

(from a high point near the Bega water tower,

I spy wet weather..... Brown Mountain off in the distance is covered in cloud....)

In Bega today (grrrr... my 'oh-damn-we've-run-out-of-food-and-shoelaces' trip to the BIG shops that happens once every 10-14 days)..... Bega - population 4000 is certainly no city but it is more than 10 times bigger than my little town of Cobargo .... and has 1000 times the population of Sams Creek! I collected my latest order from Candelo Books - Book + Art by Dorothy Simpson Krause, and a newer title - Book Art  (published this year by Gestalten - this book features art made with/from books - delish!)

oh and yesterday another booky treasure arrived in the mail from Bruges - Yves self-published delight - 'Thoughtful Gestures - the calligraphic art of Yves Leterme'

mmmmmm new books for a wet long weekend... perfect!

and perfect for a little celebration - after a very cold, wet day yesterday spent in a grant writing workshop (which was EXCELLENT I must say - small wave to Ben from Regional Arts who guided us all through the minefield of arty grants). I came home to a welcoming email from East Gippsland Art Gallery - my booky entry has been short-listed for their biennial National Book Award.... yay!

(ps I can't show you pics of the work selected... yet... as the short-listed piece is my 'paper wrestling' book for bookartobject - and the BAO peeps haven't got their book from me yet! I'm waiting for 'something' to arrive so that I can post them out to you all... sorry for your wait...)

oh and talking of BAO peeps - I heard on the fb grapevine that at least one other BAO creature has had a piece shortlisted for the award as well - double yay!

ahhh the fire needs another piece of wood - and the chilled kidlins will soon be home from school - the new books will have to wait for a while longer....



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quick visits...

I did a very very quick trip to Sydney this week to meet Yves Leterme... for the uninitiated (eg all you non-calligraphy peeps) Yves is a spectacular calligrapher - known for his gestural calligraphic works that hover between the fields of art, craft and design. Yves lives in Bruges (which seems to have waaay more than its fair share of talented calligraphers.... like {gulp} Brody Neuenschwander...)

Yves and I have only ever traded emails and fb notes and such like... as you'd expect given the geographic distances... so when I found out Yves was headed this way to teach a series of workshops we hatched a plan to find a couple of hours in his busy schedule to meet....

so we sat for an afternoon and mulled over the future of calligraphy - and I admired his wonderful works - then it was off to Chatswood for his slideshow presentation - and dinner with the Sydney calligraphy mob...

had to share this moment where Yves chuckled at my 'oh no.... not a dead duck'
(there's nothing like a BBQ duck in the window to reassure a vegetarian...
not only did I have the 'what to eat?' moment - I had to decide whether I would sit facing the tank of live fishies
or dead ducks... hmmmmm.... decisions, decisions )

Got to say - it's wonderful to meet people who you've only ever traded the odd note - and find that they are indeed completely delightful. Yves is not only a fabulhoot calligrapher, he's a generous, easy-going, modest, erudite (my goodness how many languages does this guy speak?), funny, calligraphic superhero. 

Thoroughly worth the 13hrs of driving up and back to Sydney....

oh here's more Yves related stuff:
  2009 blogpost interview on calligraffia... (this is actually how we 'met) 
Yves website & new blog

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