Geocaching

'No-luck' park

A very small cache!

Yesterday, I restarted my interest in Geocaching. I have decided to add it into my artistic practice. It gets me out of the house and studio with a bit of exercise, I go places I wouldn't usually, see and find things that I wouldn't usually, I'm getting to know my new neighbourhood and it makes me pay attention to my surroundings.

Yesterday's cache (which I did not find) led me to a small park not too far away from home, today's cache (which I did find) was in a different direction. I enjoyed the long strip of parkish area in-between the houses on the way back home.

Happy Mother's Day

An unexpected perambulation

<p dir=ltr>After clean up this afternoon at the glassworks, I had planned to try out the bus stop nearby and the direct bus route Woden. What I hadn't taken into account was the fact that this unbroken journey was an hour long. My phone told me that if I was willing to walk 15 minutes I could get to Woden in half the time.

The unexpected Autumnal twilight walk was delightful; ankle deep piles of leaves made for scrunching and stomping, the scent of woodsmoke, bare branches silhouetted against the dusky hues skies and one very individual letter box.

Academic gowns, robes, hoods etc

On the 10th of May I have my graduation ceremony, where one HAS to wear the traditional costume of gown/robe, hood and hat (the mortar board type). To hire the set for a few hours is $120-$150, which all up I guess is not so super expensive for the service, BUT...I find it annoying that there is no choice not to wear one and not to have to pay. So I have decided, to sew my own (which is within the rules). Suitably I am going to use the  fabric that I blacked out the room I installed my grad show work in.

However there is surprising little information out there (on the web) with CLEAR pictures for garments with so many rules.

Hopping through many links I came across this resource at the costumer's manifesto. So it's a little dated (but then so is the tradition of wearing the damn things). The hoods have been puzzling me the most, as there are quite a few styles for different degrees and schools. I traced the B.A hood pattern in miniature to make up a calico just so I could see how it worked. The colours for Sydney College of the Arts BVA are scarlet and purple !!! Thankfully I only have to put a 5cm trim of each to line the hood.

Happy Birthday Dad

peas and beans

Morning collection

So this is the second day of Masa's the Joy and logic of cold working. Before we start joyfully cold working here is my magpie collection of bits from this mornings walk. Backdrop, Bitter sweet cafe table in Kingston.

Australian Museum (Sydney)

Excuse me, but do you have any seals in your collection?....Reply....Um not sure.
As far as I could find, there was an Australian Fur seal in the skeleton room and a Leopard seal head in the Surviving Australia (or something like that) exhibit.

South Australian Museum

Lots of seals and sea lions

Paper 53 (the app)

Love the sketchy ness of it and the notebooks, I may even keep all my notes and sketches per project in one space...hmmm maybe. Here's a Selkie, given my usual sketching ability I'm pretty happy with the app.

Planting

A first in the new garden, sowing of beans, peas, lettuce, poppies and jonquils and just when I was bemoaning the lack of a watering can it started to rain. Perfect!

The Woodcutter's daughter

@ Wagga Wagga regional gallery until 21st April

Seal head in wax

Geelong

I'm taking 2 precious days out of my residency to give Dougie some assistance to Geelong and Melbourne. I love these sculptures down by the waterfront at Geelong and I was amused by the tourist sign.

Cycling from Braddon to Kingston

The main part of my cycle path between Braddon and Kingston is around Lake Burley Griffin. I love cycling under these trees, can't wait to see them come Autumn.

stick moulds

similar to last year, but taking notes of sizes. Being more scientific!

Cutest seal pics so far

Second seal head

I have been pinning and saving lots of seal images. They really are cute, I find my self gushing over some of the images.....awwwww...and none of them are baby harp seals. Posted are some of the stages of my second clay seal head.

Selkie project

This is the second seal head that I have attempted, improvement I think. One flipper also complete. The flipper I decided to make the plaster silica cast right away, but the head took longer so I made a clay bonnet (see pic...and that is not a technical term) and tried out a silicon pouring mixture.

In Karen's sewlutions jar...yikes!

I have committed myself, via Karen (of 'didyoumakethat') sewlutions jar to knit myself a cardigan. Whilst glass is my usual medium of choice I do like to make 'soft' things too. I have been able to knit for at least 20 years, but I've never gone beyond hats, scarves or the odd fingerless mitten. Karen's jar seemed to be an ideal way to make sure this happened this year. Her blog has quite a high readership so the pressure is on!

So...progress? Well it is summer right now and quite a hot one at that, but I have decided on a yarn and a pattern (which I have now bought and downloaded)

The yarn is from Tanis Fibre Arts, I think I would go with the poppy, but their odours are so gorgeous I'm having trouble deciding.

The pattern is Audrey in Unst by Gudrun Johnston, I was inspired by Tasia of Sewaholic's version.

Graduate in Residence at Canberra Glassworks

Today is the start of a four week residency at the Canberra Glassworks. The Glassworks has 4 GiR's (Graduate in Residence...pronounced as 'grrrrs') this year; Pamela Manning from Monash, Melbourne / Lucy Palmer from Uni S.A, Adelaide, South Australia / Alex Frasersmith from ANU, Canberra, ACT and myself (Spike Deane from SCA, Sydney, NSW).



We each submitted a project proposal, we have access to the glassworks 7 days a week from 8-5.30 and $500 worth of equipment hire a week. and conversations with all the artists coming and going

Today was a bit of a blur of introductions and inductions combined with a growing sense of excitement after seeing all the fabulous facilities available.

I have recently moved to Canberra (no fixed address as yet) and I have, in response to all the cycle paths in this town bought a bicycle. Today I cycled to and from the Glassworks...and even ventured at times on to the road.

Research quote of the day

Transformation

The wonder tale and the fairy tale are, in essence, transformative narratives on transformation. On the one hand, both their narrative patterns and metatextual variations convey dynamics of change rather than a static framework; on the other, their themes hinge on processes of initiation and metamorphosis. thus the form and contents of wonder tales concur in conveying a transformational pattern of thought.


Greenwood encyclopaedia of folk tales & fairy tales edited by Donald Haase
p.982

I had hoped to have access to this wonderful 3 volume resource last year, finally in the National Library I get to see it in the flesh.

Grad show photo's

and I like this one too...

Gradshow photo's

I'm slowly recovering from the aftermath of effort that was getting my installation complete. Dylan Esguerra from the MDA studio took photographs, one of which is... one view from my installation piece "The Wolf I knew, would lead me..." (after Carol Ann Duffy)

I was madly still installing on the day (and evening) of the show, so I was no where as organised as I was last year. So no photo's of my own of the rest of the glass studio...yet. Reminder to self..go take photo's.

All done

Well I suppose I will have to change the focus of this blog, now that 4 years of Uni is over. While I wait for results and photo's...I have bought 3 books today. Margo Lanagan's 'Sea hearts', Fiona McIntosh's 'The scrivner's tale' (ebooks) and 'The Snow Child' by Eowyn Ivey in paper back. Just about to go and mind the gradshow exhibition in the glass studio on a rainy day with a new book. Sounds good!

progress

Writing quote of the day

This rather long quote is most of the last paragraph from J.C.Cooper's 'Fairy Tales: Allegories of Inner Life'.

"The tales meet the deep-seated psychic and spiritual needs of the individual as myth does for the race; both follow traditional lines and obey universal laws of symbolism. Through them runs the constant motif of man’s struggle to find his true worth, his inner self, his place in the universe. The themes deal with creation, paradise lost and regained, the union of the opposites, initiation, the conflict between the powers of good and evil, the meaning of life, a meaning which can vary from the moral and social to the psychological or the mythological and spiritual according to each person’s interpretation and needs.

But, psychological or spiritual, the chief motif is that of initiation and integration, the transformation of man himself by himself with supernatural aid, the transition from the mortal to the immortal in the ever-recurring cycle of birth, death and rebirth until that, too, is transcended and he can live happily ever after."





Cooper, J. C. Fairy tales: Allegories of the Inner Life. (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1983) 154.

Writing quote of the day

In his chapter "The Utopian Function of Fairy tales and fantasy" Jack Zipes explains to us through Ernst Bloch's theories on hope...

"these intrepid heroes show the holes in systems of domination through which small people can slip to liberate themselves and gain their ends. Their goals are socialist and utopian in nature in that they assert the potential for humanity to be on it's own, nor dependent on a system, on phantom gods. The individual moves into his or her own, undergoing metamorphosis while gaining strength from the gifts of other beings. The building of the self and the other world is essentially a communal project."

Jack Zipes. Breaking the Magic Spell: Radical Theories of Folk and Fairy Tales (rev. ed.). New York: Routledge, 2002, 169.

 


I feel like shouting hurrah at the end of that...so HURRAH!

Writing quote of the day

This is the quote I am using to set the scene for my paper...woe betide you examiners who think fairy tales are nonsense!

"The scholarly world discovered the folktale in the 19^th century. Before that time there was little serious interest in the phenomenon of oral tales, which were generally viewed by learned persons as a form of amusement proper to simple or uneducated persons, or to children, none of whom had much to teach the rest of us. Accordingly no one thought long about the nature of such stories, no one wondered about how old they were or where they came from, no one asked what they meant to their tellers and listeners."


William Hansen. Ariadne’s Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University press, 2002) xi.

Fairy Tales Re-imagined Symposium

Fairy Tales Re-imagined Symposium

I will have to write this up later, I had a wonderful day. I talked to people as wrapped up in the study of fairy tales as I am, I met one of my favourite author's Kate Forsyth...and lots more. But I must not digress at the moment...too much work to do.
Just in case, I ran off a few 'calling cards'.

My research paper needs....a map!

Yes, I have decided that my research paper needs a map. Like the ones you see at the front of many fantasy novels. Though they aren't as easy as they look... for some inspiration and 'research' I pulled off a few title of the shelves