Plan 903...

I have a little weird front garden that looks great for about six/seven months in nasturtium glory.

and the rest of the time looking like this:
It's bringing me down bruce. I've tried quite a few things in there, but the combination of three trees planted in such a small space fighting for water and rooms for their roots, and massive shading at times throughout the year means that nothing has quite worked.

So I'm going to put in a succulent/pot plant garden and rock it up. Then when the rains come and subsequent nasturtiums, they can kinda mix it up (possibly)

I've been striking and separating, and hopefully by the end of next month I'll have a trailer load of sand to work with (and enough plants...)

Also, just a shot of my euphorbias, cause they are currently rocking their respective looks!

Museum Project

So.....I've been busy. It's all been too hard/busy/brain overloading. Lots of things have happened that I was worrying about (including teeth after nearly two months of paaaaaaaaain) and an exhibition on short notice. I need to catch up on everything it seems!

I wrote in the last post about a collaborative project with the South Australian Museum. It's called SAM's place, and is a cool project which allows the artist/artists to go behind the scenes, talk to the scientists and curators, research the greater collection and respond to it with an exhibition that's held on site for two months (the research period is four months).

I proposed as part of a group with a jeweler/metalsmith/artist cool chickie Lauren Simeoni and my husband, who's a glassartist/cool ideas guy. I bring to the table textiley/sewing/printing skills (and enthusiasm).

We've put together a proposal which allows us to basically do anything we want, in terms of making and aesthetics, but that's also the problem - we wanted our fingers in every pie! It's kind of like a pass the parcel game, in terms of, someone makes something and then passes it on to the next artist to either add to any which way they want, or under direction.

I've been freaking a bit, because I really haven't been able to use my studio for any length of time, and I just didn't have much to show apart from a bunch of ideas and a sketchbook, which isn't really enough when you're working with others, and the greater organisations that are involved that want to know about your progress.

It had become a bit daunting, so thank goodness for crochet.

Fast

Simple

Don't need a space, elaborate set up time or much of anything, just some yarn and a hook.

These are just the start of a series of free-form crochet forms, not sure where they are going to end up yet, or how they will look after they've been passed on, but it's a start. And it felt good to finally be able to start.

New Directions / Mailbox Fashion

It's hard to believe that we first did the letterbox in 2006. Here's DC demonstrating it's function. It had lovely scroll work flocking, and astroturf landscaping complete with animals enjoying the pasture, and then had a dinosaurific re-haul last year but was starting to look shabby.

The astroturf had almost disintegrated, and things were just getting kaka. So a new direction. Paired back, minimal, with a fuscia base and metallic purple spray paint. It's hard to see, but it's pretty sparkly. But it's had mixed reviews.

I put an extra platform on, so as to have more space for my ultra supercool dinosaur skeletons. I just wanted them not to be too crowded. Like an old school museum exhibit. And really, in my head I was making little velvet ropes, but in reality, I'd already used a bucket for a mailbox for two weeks, and I just needed to get it up there.
The glorious shininess is not really captured in the photo..

I am waiting on getting a tiny terracotta pot to put next to the Tyrannosaurus skeleton, and some Tillandsias for the scrolls.

*sigh* It's hard to be the new thing after astroturf....