meetings...

 The last few days have been all meetings meetings meetings... 

Yesterday I was at Bermagui...

Arts Network meeting - special guests included Elizabeth Rogers (CEO Regional Arts NSW), Libby Christie (Australia Council Executive Director Arts Funding), Lindy Hume (Sydney Festival Director, chair South East Arts)..... 

Bermagui ('Bermy') is one town over from my hometown... it's a small fishing town with lovely small but very safe harbour. Now that the fishing industry has all but collapsed, and all this water and more is now part of the Batemans Marine Park, Bermy is a town in transition...

My great-grandparents lived in Bermy, this was my Nana T's home town... I think they'd all still recognise the place - it still has the feel of a sleepy coastal town (no nasty mansions on the waterfront.... yet.... )

Looking through the boats and water toward Gulaga I can sense my home at Sams Creek - it's there in the distance, to the left and at the base of the mother mountain....

I've always loved visiting the ocean and waterways in my glorious bit of the globe.... but to my core I'm a farm girl, a creek girl, a trees and forests girl... and the sights and smells and moods of the coastal towns (even when just a few minutes from home) are as unfamiliar to me as they are to the here-and-gone tourists....




....

there and back...

Monash Uni - Winter Symposium (and boy was it ever WINTER!!!! f-f-f-f-f-freeeeeezing!!!!!)

thank goodness for the smart folk in our shared accommodation who had the idea and the know-how to make a mighty nice mulled wine to fortify the troops...

mulled wine ...
red wine + diced apple + orange + cloves + cinnamon + cardamon + warming stove
= warmed little arty bodies!

Winter Sympo is the time that all we coursework Masters and HDR distance students get together to present our work (semi-formally in daytime sessions) for critical discussion.... and for us then to make mulled wine and be merry - and sit around most of the night informally discussing life and death and ARRRRRRT!

mulled wine at table centre.... pilfered food at periphery... arty conversion flying over and under and around the table!

Much as I miss my home something fierce every second I'm away - the wonderful spirit of sharing and
helping and humour meant that of course I loved the company and conversation. This year in a break from the usual format of all day talk talk talk (then eats and drinks in the gallery foyer each night) - one of my favourite Monash peeps (a book loving artist) had the whole mob undertake a small 'making' exercise.... each artist was given a carefully folded piece of paper to 'do their thing' with the view to making a couple of very simple little books to capture the moment (and to get us all away from all the talk talk talk for a moment)

It was meant to be a quick thing, without pretension or ego.... all the students and lecturers together in the print room with a few minutes only to get the task done....

here's a few of the completed pages laid out for selection/ integration/ ordering...

 

 

(here's my quick little contribution..... its nothing grand....
yep that's a burnt hole.... of course... I think you can click the pic to make it a little bit bigger...)

Clever Rosalind Atkins, Monash Uni lecturer (and soon-to-be co-supervisor of my research project), created some gorgeous covers for each booklet - and then turned the disheveled masses into lovely little books. (I only got to see this book that my little page is featuring in .... I'm sure all three books will be a delightful record of our passing) I can't say what others thought of the exercise, but I certainly appreciated the chance to think with my fingers....

In and around the semi-formal talk talk talks, I had my little book project to occupy my fingers....

look its growing....

And then it was time for the very long drive home again home again....

here I am stopped on the road in the forests between Cann River and Eden
- trees had fallen over the highway and we are waiting for the road crew to clear the way.
On this part of the journey its just forests and more forests
and log truck after loaded log truck heading to the port at Eden....

Oh but it's good to be home!

.....

being in one place...

 

edible chrysanthemums from my neglected winter garden....
ahhh how I love my funny little home and farm and garden

In a couple of days time I have to head off on my annual university pilgrimage.... now I know I shouldn't whine, I only have to go to my uni for a few days every year (happy dance!) BUT (ahhh me)  it's a loooooong trip (almost 1400kms round trip - mostly through the bush....  as I've told before ). And Churchill (township that houses the Gippsland campus of Monash Uni) is mighty COLD this time of year... And then there's the whole thing about leaving our little kidlins behind for my long suffering partner to care for (ahhh poor FP.... as if having a dairy herd to milk twice daily and almost 100 calves to feed wasn't enough work...). AND THEN there's the biggest issue of all for me (yep - even bigger than the kiddie guilt trips) - Going to uni means I have to leave my creek home...  even though its only a few days, I have a hard time both physically and mentally when I'm parted from my creek home. 

Indeed it's very hard for me to convey exactly how it feels to be so thoroughly connected to a place that being parted from it induces a physically experienced wrench. As a teenager, desperate for her life to truly begin (and as any ambitious teenager from a small town will tell you - life actually takes place somewhere, anywhere else... preferably far far away... and like all my school mates, I was eager to rush off and conquer the world - to travel to far flung places, to experience REAL life), there is no way I could anticipate how absolutely I would become attached to my home-place. (It came as little surprise to me when I realised recently I haven't been away from my creek home for any longer than a few days at a time since 1995)....

My attachment to my funny little creek-farm-home has influenced every single part of my life - and that of course includes my arts practice.

I've been thinking about my work and my arty path recently - and it was interesting for me to read a post from my bloggy friend Sara (where she expressed some of her current arty angst) ... its nice to feel that you're not the only one who questions what it is to have an 'art career' far from the city lights .... (hmmm I think I see another blog post topic - 'on having an Arty Kareer in the Kountry' - but that will have to wait for when I get back )

Right now I'm preparing my arty presentation (20-30mins formal-ish chat about current work, which is followed by 20mins Q&A by fellow students and uni lecturers....... its not as icky as it sounds because we are all v. supportive of each other), I've made a big batch of pumpkin soup and popped it in the freezer so I can take it with me on the looooooong road trip (mmmmm nice warm homemade soup for all the bedraggled troops as they wander onto campus late sunday evening), I've washed my favourite woolen beanies and tights, started packing up some of my booky arty creations for show and tell, and loaded my car i-pod with a collection of interesting podcasts (I recently discovered bookbinding now and book artists and poets podcasts.... that should help the driving hours pass more enjoyably)

And of course I've prepared some book sections so that I can work on my current BIG book project while I'm far from home....

 

Maybe if I keep my fingers busy I won't miss my creek home so much.... that's the plan anyway....


ahhhhh me - I'm feeling the pain of impending separation already!


(I'll never be a world traveller!)


....

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....



...

piercing... binding... starting...

 Today I started piercing some of that massive pile of cut, folded and bundled book sections.....

I made a little project-specific book piercing cradle (with thanks to this wonderful 'how-to' post by paper chipmunk)

I thought that it might make the job quicker and easier - although I love the way this simple book cradle works, for this fiddly job, my old way of working (with a piercing template aligned inside the section and a board on my lap, I pierce through the template and the section at a 45 degree angle with my pin awl) seems to be more comfortable.....

I AM going to make a larger version of that cradle one day though!

At last this big project is really underway.....

I have lots and lots (and lots) more encyclopaedia pages to cut and fold and bundle and sort (and pierce) before I can really dig my teeth into this baby - but I've got enough white sections sorted out from the bunch to make a start (and that means when I head off to uni in a couple of weeks time I'll have a project to occupy my fingers....)


ahhhh its good to add piercing and binding to my list of slow winter work....


(yes anna - this is going to be a very very very VERY 'long' serpent book - I'm expecting it will exceed 5m ... but the end is months away... anyone want to put in a guesstimate for the final length and finishing date? I might take bets!)




...

still cutting, folding, bundling....

Lots and lots of little bundles...

  Almost a big box full...

(roughly colour sorting as I bundle)

I have hatched a cunning plan that should allow me to start piercing and binding...
perhaps as early as this weekend
(still so many more pages to cut and fold and bundle and sort)

Its slow and quiet work, 

perfect for easing a troubled mind...

...