bits…

  • Never did find a blog design I was happy with. Finally got around to doing something about it and now have my very own-made something.
  • Autumn has arrived. Finally. And it is cold! My inner broken thermostat is breathing huge sighs of relief.
  • We have new neighbours next door, with three kids. I don’t see much of Liam anymore … he is always outside playing with the kids next door. Their place or ours. It’s a wonderful thing and I’m so so so happy to see him with other kids to play with finally.
  • Found something on my sd card when I put it in my computer tonight:
Embroidery for Arwen
beaded embroidery for Arwen Elizabeth. (Rena send pictures when you have it framed!)
  • Quote for the day:  “Since you would save none of me, I bury some of you. “–John Donne
  • Received some gorgeous things in the mail this week from my favourite etsy seller Relica Supplies, who sells gorgeous vintage finds for jewelry, particularly from the Art Nouveau period. Also scored a big, ‘mod’ pendant. I will post pictures once I have made something from them. Speaking of which, I made three beautiful bracelets for Mother’s Day and forgot to photograph them. A shame … I was very happy with them.
  • Ordered some great books that were on sale today: Crocheting with Wire (for beaded jewelry), some very different designer knitting/crocheting combo patterns, and a book on art journaling for healing.  Will definitely post pictures when I do some of these.
  • It’s been a hard, sad week. Natalie had her first chemo treatment this week (she has them three days running each cycle). The REALLY strange thing was, that it was on the anniversary of MY very first chemo treatment… Tuesday after Mothers Day. Natalie’s handling it well so far, no nausea. She did have a mild allergic reactions to one of the drugs on the first day, so they pumped her full of something and she promptly fell asleep in the middle of her lunch and treatment and slept the rest of the day and night. They have given her antihistamines beforehand for the last two infusions, and all seems fine now. She will be having surgery some time before the next cycle (which is only 2/3 weeks away!) to have a portacath put in. I have to admit I’m horrified that they are going to do surgery when she is undergoing chemo. *shudder*
  • And hence I am behind in my studies and have had to ask for extensions on two assignments due this weekend. I will be so glad when this semester is over. It’s been a hard slog, what with Natalie’s bad news, mammogram time for me, and all that goes with that. During the break between semesters I have plenty to do. A content management system website for somebody, try to finish typing that Electric Light book, and maybe look at redoing Heavy Water Experiments’ website, depending on how much time I have left after the other things. Maybe. Maybe not.
  • It HAS been hard to keep motivation up lately, and it’s no wonder really. I was warned this would happen, from the nurse from the chemo ward. It’s time to seriously get back into the meditation, big time,  and being gentle with myself. Lots of private journaling.
  • Time to snuggle down with a book. It’s past midnight, and my nose is cold!

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

I went to my intensive residential school last week (that is, on campus intensive school for off campus distance students, ie, me.) I have decided I’m born for that life. I loved every single lecture, tutorial, seminar, discussion, loved it all. It was rainy. It was very autumnal in weather AND colour (oh, how delightful!). My lecturers are all very wonderful and it was great putting faces to names both to them and some of my fellow students. I held my own 🙂 I came away feeling much more comfortable about poetry, about the long essay due in a month and the end of semester exam (in Australia our courses run for one semester, ie half a year). And even better, I came away incredibly inspired. I have been offered a chance to do an independent study research subject toward the end of my degree on Gothic literature, as I was talking with one of the lecturers about my special interest in that area, and to contact her when it came time. They don’t allow a lot students to do independent study as it would be too heavy going on them. Also, I am now working toward keeping my grade point average up to at least Distinction level (in Australia, we are graded Pass, Credit, Distinction, High Distinction) so that I will be offered an honours year on top of my degree. In Australia, Honours is the pathway to PhD, and I think Masters. We do not have to complete a Masters before undertaking a PhD here. Now I’m not aiming for a PhD or Masters, at this stage, I just want the honour of being offered the option of doing an Honours year 🙂 I’m now awaiting the return of a couple of assessment tasks in the mail.

The Bad:

The day after coming home, I got a phone call from my mother. My sister now has two brain tumours. One, the original one near the site of the one that was removed 10 years ago, is being controlled by the oral chemo. The other, however, is deep inside the brain near the hypothalamus and is growing. No chance of being removed surgically. She is now off oral chemo, and will be doing good old intravenous chemo starting in a few weeks time. Lucky I still have all the scarves etc I had to use when I went through it. They don’t expect it to cure her, but it might buy her time. How much time they didn’t say. But I’d be very surprised if she were still with us come Christmas. Or even the next six months for that matter. My poor sister is finally facing the fact that it is definitely going to kill her. How she can face that, I don’t know. Our family is grieving.

I’m back to getting weepy at the most inopportune times.  Today is a particularly bad day and I’m getting no study done. I’m about to curl up in bed with a heat pack and some magazines.

Why does this keep happening? Every time things are looking up, positive, like there is future, something awful happens like this. I swear, I’m not giving up the study again. I’m going to try as HARD AS I CAN to keep up with it, I think it is the thing that may keep me sane. Now I’m feeling superstitious … it’s time for my CA blood tests and mammograms again. I’m terrified of being rediagnosed and making things so much worse for everyone.

I need to develop a Will of Iron. Keep the study up. Stay focused. Beyond focused. Cut out the bad. The only things that exist are study, Liam, my family, and my few true friends.

Which brings me to …

The Ugly: Labels

Neurotic, highly unstable, unfit for heterosexual relationships, critical, bothersome, know-it-all, pain- in-the-arse, constantly self-pitying, fat, sensitive, negative, too analytical, needy, depressive, anxious, obsessive, insular, sad, consumed with self-hatred, emotionally messy, too easily offended, overly cautious, too serious, and the list goes on and on. Some of it is true, and some of it is not. Some of it, dare I say, has very good reason for being. Particularly a couple of years ago when I was dealing with the biggest existential thing a person can possibly deal with, slapped in the face with it you might say, cut me some slack there please. When a person faces their mortality and the possibility of not being alive long enough to see your child even reach 10 years old, it’s BOUND to get messy.

Why are the bad labels the only ones certain people focus on? It makes me want to physically vomit. I no longer have the energy.

afflicted and conflicted

Afflicted with uni assignment anxiety. To the point physical symptoms are plaguing me. I have an English essay on imagery due on Friday … only a 500-worder, but probably worse because of that. How’s that TS Eliot quote go “If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter?” Yeah. Harder to write short than long. So much imagery, so little words allowed. And, music, a what-looked-like-small assignment that’s driving me mad. An analysis of a Scottish jig. And two tunes to compose (which I haven’t started but they aren’t worrying me that much). So here I am, procrastinating.

My inner wild and wise woman told me last semester “have fun with it”. That is to say, when last semester’s assignment-panic arose I meditated, doing more of a creative visualisation than a proper Buddhist meditation. I went to my ‘temple’ and my special ‘guide’, who presented itself as a carefree wild woman, told me to have fun with it when I asked advice on ‘it’. Sounds incredibly new-agey and ridiculous, but really it was just the wiser inner part of myself giving myself advice, and it was good advice. I should remember that now. So, I’ve put on my gorgeous little marquasite (totemic) dragonfly pendant (Spinsterhood: When You Will Forever More Buy Your Own Jewellery).

I also have to find time somewhere to do housework because my little film society is meeting here on Saturday night. My pick this time, so it’s Fantastic Planet, a surreal and beautiful psychedelic-era animated movie.

Ah the conflicted part. Hm, maybe not so much. I don’t know. Nothing left to say, really, beyond social niceties which well all know I find superficial ‘lies’, so to speak. Feelings … meh … shrug … it’s all devoid of anything really. Dry and dusty. Crumbling and dying. Yes, there is a little lingering sadness, but at least the heartbreak is gone.

And Dear Summer, excuse me, but could you please let autumn get a look in?

I’m home, but …

I want to go back. I am much more suited to the west coast. Everything about it, but in particular the weather. Yes, it was hot. But I didn’t mind it in the slightest because it was dry heat. The tamoxifen flushes were barely there in that climate.

Some photos below.

I’m ‘sat’ here, confined to my bedroom already (as my housemate likes to watch US drama series and the like) with the fan blowing full on me, barely dressed, sucking down water like it’s air, humidity tiring me out, and with Picnic at Hanging Rock on one of the movie channels. It’s one of those movies which, although I have numerous dvd copies, I have to watch if it’s showing on tv regardless. What a happy happenstance.

I didn’t do as much as I would have liked while out west… teenage girls being notorious for being flakey and ditching plans for better offers! I studied (I’m loving my music course), finally learned to do Sudoku and became thoroughly obsessed, cooked good Thai curries and Asian stir frys, got loved on by the two CUTEST dogs ever to live (German Spitzes), watched all the episodes of The Seven Ages of Rock, did some drawing, shopped at Officeworks numerous times (because I love love love stationery stores, and even managed to find music manuscript books and Pitt Artists Pens there), ferried my niece around to dance classes during the week, and read  Buddhist books which were a present from Rena, and Slumdog Millionaire (and Dickens’ Great Expectations, but only because I have to!). Went for an eco-walk or two, but didn’t get pictures as I forgot to take my camera. I wanted to borrow my niece’s camera but when she was at work it was always hidden in her room, and there’s not even a chance of finding the floor in there!

Yes, she has a good camera. And now I have a yen for a digital slr. It’s on the ever burgeoning list of things to do/get in the near future. You never have a camera when you want one. On the two hour drive back up to Perth (for the 4th time in three weeks) to put me on my plane back to the east, we saw an emu, then a kangaroo. I wish I could have got those on camera. Even better, one Tuesday night after Tash’s pointe class, after picking up take away sushi and crispy teriyaki beef (another good reason for loving the place … even on a Tuesday night, the place is buzzing … it has a strong cafe and restaurant culture there), we were nearly home and saw two kangaroos just standing there in the middle of the street. We thought they were two big grey dogs at first.

There was so much more I wanted to do. There are a fair few nature/bush walks to do in and around Bunbury itself, an estuary a little bit away that has a good long walk and plenty of birds and wildlife to see, and a reserve out east three hours or more that I wanted to visit. We did, however, manage to do something I wanted to do, and that was visit a couple of caves two hours south, outside of a beautiful little town called Margaret River.  I could drive forever in Western Australia. The car helped … I drove their Subaru Outback and it was such a lovely car to drive. I just wanted to drive, and drive, and travel for weeks on end *sigh*. And yes, this time we had the camera! Although it couldn’t capture the vastness of the dolines that we had to go into (and back out of) to get to the caves, or the Karri forest around the first cave.

First we went to Mammoth Cave, which felt a little ‘mines of Moria’-ish in spots. A place you could imagine cavemen living in, actually. In fact, there have been remains there, and some are still embedded in the rock, of megafauna that date back over 44,000 years. It’s impossible to comprehend that time span.

We then visited Lake Cave, which has a reputation for being one of the most beautiful caves in Australia. I thought the 172 steps out of Mammoth Cave just about killed me. Lake Cave has 300 steps down from the top of the doline to the cave, and then when you have finished viewing the cave, you have to climb back up those 300 steps. Being as unfit as I am, it really was a huge struggle. I seriously thought I could not finish getting up there. Even Tash, the uber-fit classical ballet dancer, had very sore legs for days afterwards. Thankfully there were strategically placed benches on the way up for the fitness challenged! But it was well worth it … that cave really IS very beautiful. It really was an achievement for me, managing both Mammoth and Lake Caves. When I think back to when I visited WA just over a year ago, after just finishing chemo and radiotherapy, then I went for with my sister for walks on the beach. I’d go 100 metres and have to sit and wait for my sister, brother-in-law, and the dogs, to eventually come back after their walk, because I just could not go a step further. I’ve come a long way since then, but it’s a very slow process and I still have quite a way to go yet.

Mammoth & Lake Caves

This is one big photo gallery (I tried splitting it into two to avoid confusion but it won’t allow me to) … so these are just thumbnails linking to larger images. Descriptions of photos can be seen by hovering mouse over thumbnails. Believe me when I say it is well worth taking a look at the bigger versions!

Pictures 1-17 are of Mammoth Cave, pictures 18 onwards are of Lake Cave.

The pretty teenager near the end giving the YEAH pose is my niece Natasha. This photo was kind of a private joke. Throughout the day, we were plagued by Japanese tourists doing their ‘take photos of me standing in front of this!’ bit. It went on, and on, and on. At the end we decided we wanted to get a photo of Tash doing a cheesy “this is me standing in front of …” snap. I was telling her to move closer to the Japanese lady having her photo taken (who, incidentally, was a lovely lady) so I could get her in shot, “stand right next to her!” But Tash didn’t hear. Bad me. Funny private moment leading to much hilarity between us afterwards. Many belly laughs were had that day even in spite of the near death experiences from walking up and down nearly 1000 steps during the day.

Again, the vastness was impossible to catch. The walls of the doline were nearly black at Lake Cave, and were dotted by big white spider webs. It just went down, and down, and down, before we finally made it to the cave.

I ought to add that all of these photos were taken by Tash, except of course her cheesy pose. I also ought to add that some of the photographs are quite grainy, due to having the iso setting very high in preference to using a flash in some shots.

I miss her already. We had fun in the evenings–each of us on our respective lounges with our laptops commenting on each other’s facebook pages and ‘yacking’ with friends, listening to music on our respective iTunes and sharing finds.

It was a trip not without it’s dramas though. The car battery died one night after Tash’s dance class. The next day I side-swiped the car–my SISTER’S car–on a pole when we went on a side trip and now I’m going to be out $500 to pay for their excess. I missed my flight home on Sunday because my baggage missed check-in by 10 minutes … I could have gone without it but no thanks (we were held up by roadworks on the freeway into Perth), so there was an extra $90 to change the flight booking and nearly $40 cab fare to my motel because the flight didn’t get into Sydney until late at night and the motel’s airport shuttle bus stops at 10pm. My card wouldn’t go through at check-in and I couldn’t figure out why because I knew I had the money in my account … turns out someone had already pre-authorised it so they were effectively trying to charge me double (accidentally).

I also got sick with a cold my first week there (thank you whoeveritwas on the plane) and was hobbling around with an infected ingrown toenail.

But, I had a good time regardless. I love the place, I love my niece (and they had adsl2 internet!), and Christine and Darron came home with amazing photographs of their trip to New Zealand and a possum-fur hot-water bottle cover for me (um, the fur disturbed me a little but now I have grown used to it … it doubles as a teddy bear!)

So now it’s all systems back to normal, I have my little boy back, I’m still three hours behind on Western Australian time, and Picnic has finished and The Bridge Over the River Kwai is on.

Tomorrow, a lot of study. Poetry, and a couple of music lectures on melody in traditional European music.

And some serious work on the treadmill lol!

This life’s lesson…

Attachment. Impermanence.

One of my aunties died yesterday, in her sleep. She was diagnosed with leukemia just over a year ago. She was hospitalised for a really harsh chemo regimen just after I finished radiotherapy. While I was down south having radiotherapy, we visited a few times as she lived down there. Although we knew she had cancer, none of us knew she was that sick. We were told she was really sick, but she was having chemo at the time (again) so assumed it was the chemo. I won’t be able to go to the funeral as I will be in Western Australia.

This has been a huge shock, but it is yet another reminder to me about impermanence.

I wrote a blog a few days ago that got eaten by the blog monster. A kind of a meditation on attachment and letting go. There’s no way I can recreate it, unfortunately (I was in a serene, instead of sad, state then).

Recently I received the BEST surprise gift from overseas. Two Buddhist books (and a GORGEOUS bookmark!). The one I’m reading at the moment is ‘Going Nowhere, Being Nobody’ by Ayya Khema and it is such a simple, beautiful book. Just reading it gives me great peace. The other is ‘Buddhism for Mothers: A calm approach to caring for yourself and your children’ by Sarah Napthali. I’m very much looking forward to getting into that one as well.

One thing that has been made very clear to me is this life’s lesson: letting go of attachment. Yes, I ‘knew’ it intellectually, but I get it at a soul level now. Last week I was plagued by a series of different dreams I had, one night after the next, about my relationship with my mother. (As a child I felt she actively hated me; there was certainly no ‘emotional’ mothering, although we have a nice relationship now, like a friendship. This has resulted in me apparently having an ‘attachment disorder’. Me, I’m the anxious/ambivalent type). For a long time, but particularly after these three nights I had had enough, I was SO tired of carrying around these attachment/abandonment issues. They are heavy, and incredibly wearying. I don’t WANT them anymore; I just want them to ‘drop off’ me. I told myself that night that was it, I did not want to dream about it anymore. And I didn’t. Clearly I still have a lot of work to do here, but the intention is well and truly growing in my neural pathways

Of course, we all have attachment issues of some sort, we all have areas of our life, or people, we need to let go of. People or things that don’t serve a positive purpose in our lives. ‘Baggage’ we lug around on our backs throughout our lives. The philosophy of Buddhism really makes a lot of sense to me. I don’t intend embracing Buddhism as my religion, but there is a lot of it I want to incorporate into my lifestyle.

This idea of impermanence. What we think of ‘real life’ is an illusion. There is NOTHING permanent in this world. Apart from the knowledge that we are all going to die one day. That is the only one sure thing. The past has gone and doesn’t exist anymore, the future hasn’t happened and doesn’t exist yet … all there is, is this ONE moment. This one breath. Everything is mutable, fluid, moving … and impermanent. Nothing is solid; everything is made up of atoms, which are made up of energy. There is SPACE between atoms. The people in our lives are impermanent. They come and they go, whether through death or other ways, and you can’t do anything about that.

The practice of mindfulness isn’t easy. And neither, strangely, is meditation. But I know what a difference they make to my well being. Simply meditating on the incoming and outgoing breaths, on the nostrils, is incredibly difficult (trying to tame ‘monkey-mind’), but helps me develop a strong, calm core. There are other things besides my mothering issues I need to let go of. Relationships with people that don’t treat friendships with equality … as an equal flow of give and take. I don’t have a large circle of friends. I have quite a small circle, but those friendships I do have are special. Perhaps I don’t view friendship in the same way as most people … I don’t know. But I can’t have a large circle of friends. To me, they aren’t ‘friends’, they are people you know, perhaps like, but there is no SOUL in the relationship. Acquaintances. No, I prefer my way.

Yes, there are people I need to let go out of my life as their actions don’t gel with their words, or vice versa. People who are only interested in themselves, and don’t participate in a two-way relationship, who are only in it for what they can get for THEMSELVES. And here, also, is a battle with trust. If I trust a person in the first place, but they then say or do something that doesn’t honour the friendship, then, ridiculously maybe, my trust is injured. My trust is hurt (even in a physical sense). I probably won’t believe you anymore. Why should I? Betray trust once, and it will always happen again. Yes, these I must let go of. I am trying to do it with loving kindness behind it. Of course, being human, there are times when anger gets the better of me and negative emotions take hold, but I am ATTEMPTING to let go with loving kindness.

I am going to Western Australia for three weeks on Tuesday. I will still have internet access, as I will be studying probably 75% of the time, so correspondence will not suffer. I am looking forward to it with near desperation. My time in Western Australia nearly always feels like spiritual refreshment.

And to end with my favourite Radiohead song … a song that could be about impermanence lol!

God how I love Thom Yorke. Now there’s a guy who writes lyrics from his soul.

May all beings be happy.

Impression, impressionism, impressionable, impress me …

Impressionism … fluid, organic, light, dreamy, ethereal, emotional, movement, ebb and flow, waves, sensuality. gentleness, touch.

Clearer and clearer, more and more, I am impressed by impressionism. More so in the realms of music and literature, than in paintings, though of course I love those too. Along with the Art Nouveau movement, Impressionism is my favourite. I was once asked what era I would have liked to live in best. I answered “the days of Debussy and white muslin dresses”.

The French Impressionists are my absolute favourite composers – composers as poets and painters. Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Saint-Saëns. Tone poems, visual music.  The more I listen the more I love. The music epitomises my soul. Sounds grand, but it truly does (with a good dash of late-Romantic Russians for the shadow-me). If, after I die, someone was listening to this music, I’d like them to think of me. One of my most favourite pieces of music as a child, another ‘soundtrack’ piece along with the 60s/70s folk and psych, was Debussy’s “Prelude a l’Apres-Midi d’un Faune“

Virginia Woolf–past the impressionist period perhaps but impressionist writing none-the-less. Baudelaire, Verlaine, Rimbaud. And Woolf. I am fast falling in love with her also. Two years ago when I was reading To The Lighthouse for the beginning of my undergrad degree, before I was diagnosed with cancer, I found it hard going. This time, I adore it. The trick is to float along with it. FLOAT. Another impressionism-sense-word. I want to read much more of her. Must also read Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Rhythms from TS Eliot’s Prufrock keep dancing in my mind.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?

One of my favourite things … nighttime candlelight in my bedroom, reading or writing in my journal, French impressionist piano sparking from my iPod. Lately though, it’s awfully prosaic and much less romantic … it’s too hot and my fan is going to the early hours of the morning, meaning candles don’t stay alight.

Verily I belong back at the turn of the century (that is the ‘turn’ previous to the last one!). I float, I dream. Ah, will ever I be with a man who truly appreciates this in me, and these things himself? None to be found in this place, where utes and rodeos are the go.

And how am I? I think I’m unwell. Joint pain down my left side … shoulder, elbow, hip, ankle. Sometimes waking me up at night (when I DO sleep). Worried about metastatic bone cancer, common with breast cancer. A lot of headaches, vertigo and ‘whooaaa’ headspins, some nausea, some chest pain. Thankfully I am due for a regular checkup. Been living the life of a unabomber lately. I have utterly NO patience for bullshit, game-play or being manipulated right now. There is no space around me for that. Only truth, air, integrity, nakedness (of soul and personality, that is, although it reigns in my bedroom as it’s a putridly humid summer!). I need … ‘pure air’ so to speak. Simplicity and truth. How zen. Non-communicado. Quiet. And a teensy bit worried.

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

 

fantasy - sydney long
“Fantasy” – Sydney Long. I have a facsimile etching of this in my loungeroom.

Maybe you’re right

I watched Cat Stevens (as Cat Stevens back in the Cat Stevens days) perform his Tea for the Tillerman album on tv the other night. What memories it bought back. I’ve dredged up both Tea for the Tillerman and Mona Bone Jakon and put them on the ipod. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying these albums which form the soundtrack to my childhood (along with The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues, Donovan …). Especially this song:

Love

Warm summer nights. The smell of jasmine thick on the night air through my bedroom windows. The stars glittering through my venetian blinds. Impressionism of all kinds–art, music, literature. Virgina Woolf’s “To The Lighthouse”. Satie – the most gentle music ever. Boubacar Traoré – Mali musical magic. Vivifying intellectual conversations on the back patio with a supra-intelligent male friend about literature and Pink Floyd, with the trickle of pond water in the background. Apple cider on hot afternoons. Erté. Drawing/doodling/fooling with watercolours. Peridot and citrine. Bending wire into beautiful jewellery. The bedroom fan. My antique-lace-looking thin scarf. Turquoise. Stephanie Dowrick. Dreams of pale lemon-yellow cats and white poodles. The Bleeding Heart Vine on my patio. Frogs of all sizes and vocal abilities. Writing stationery. Cupcakes. The rhythm of knitting and crocheting. Beads and sparkly things. Oyster Bay champagne. Loungeroom Cinematheque nights. Maxi dresses. The plop of raindrops on the elephant ears. McGackle birds. Giving gifts.

Art, and travel!

I might have been quiet, but I’ve been a busy bee lately. Most of what I’ve been doing has been creative, which is wonderful. In an email to a friend two days ago, I said I’d finally reached that creative life I had been longing for with such urgency for oh, well over the last three or four years. I’ve been playing a lot of piano, making jewellery, and drawing. My art journal is quickly filling up. I thought for a change I’d do a zentangle on black paper, with a white pen and this was the result:

zentangle white on black
There is no right side up or down or sideways with these. Whichever way you turn it, this one is diabolically bad.

I haven’t been doing much colour pencil work lately, but did manage this in a perspective exercise:

sofa and coffee table perspective exercise

I found a new illustrator to love–Ertè. He was a French Russian-born artist and designer, better known for his Art Deco fashion design, however a lot of his work looks like Art Nouveau, crossing over. I’ve been using his work to sketch, for the experience of course, but also because they are sparking ideas of things I want to do myself. Here’s some sketches (warning: very basic and quick sketches) taken from Ertè.

mermaids sketch

nude woman stretching

nude woman

In February, I am going to Western Australia for a couple of weeks to stay with my niece, Natasha, whilst her parents are on holiday in New Zealand. They requested I stay with her, and are paying half the airfare thankfully, as although Tash is 17 and well able to look after herself, she is in the grip of a severe depression and her parents aren’t happy leaving her alone. Tash and I are both really excited about it. She’s planning lots of music listening sessions, lots of film watching, lots of art (my suitcase is going to be chock full of art supplies rather than clothes), lots of sushi-eating and curry-cooking. As usual, I just wish it was longer. I will be alone most of the time, as she works, but I always love it even if it is like that (and it usually is) because it tends to be a reboot time for me, refreshing and spiritual.

I want to reprise this space, use it better and more creatively. I opened up my old old blog to have a look at some links I had there of other people’s blogs, and was reminded of the ‘creative web’ Rena and I used to go on about 🙂 I’m inspired again.

Santa bought Liam a Masterchef cupcake making kit for Christmas (as Liam is rather a huge Masterchef fan) and it is time to go help him ice them. Fun!