First two days in Japan

All I can say is - wow.

It's been full on!

First of all, it's a lot different from the last time I was in Japan, most notably because that was when I was 15, and didn't to worry about anything more than trying to decide which keroppi plastic fantastic to buy.

Nowadays I get so into thinking about what Xi needs that I forget things for myself - most recent example, today in fact - my jumper and we WENT INTO THE SNOW TODAY!!!!!! First time I've ever seen it falling (more on that later, will try and keep things in order)

So, yesterday we went wander shopping/looking, happened upon a fabric store, had to have a browse (of course). We can get beautiful Japanese cottons now in the quilting stores and speciality shops at home, so I was interested in seeing what was in a store here.

And these lovely ladies were. They thought my baby was 'kawaii desu ne!' They are of the gothic lolita persuasion, and it's a pretty hilarious fashion/life, like little bo peep crossed with .....not porn, but something close to it.

The process of buying the fabric was really interesting. I didn't understand our friend when he tried to explain it to me (I think it's maybe because he'd never bought fabric himself)

but the whole shop is just samples, so I was looking through the designs, thinking, wow, there's not much here, or this one has more, but geez these pieces have got terrible cuts on the edge (thinking where it's been cut to be sold). In actual fact, the person comes to you (like DK's) cuts off a sample, staples it to a card, tells you to wait x minutes then you go to the counter and your order is dropped down a little shute, already bagged up. ..........Tom just told me that the sample card gets sent upstairs by vacuum tube and the order drops down - I missed that bit, I was probably back to fondling fabrics. So there's basically two stores of fabric on top of one another!

Other things that happened:

We went to a toy store,

and a grocery store,

And today we discovered a wall of greenery, (DC these are for you) which was really cool and looked very successful, on our way to Kyoto Tower, which has an observatory up the top.

This is what the individual plants were living in.

This is Xi holding a can of hot coffee from the vending machine as a hand warmer, since I couldn't get mittens on him. I think he's going to be a can-a-day boy.

Then we met up with Aogu and went to find Kurataniwashi, which is a famous paper making village, which was an adventure. First we had to drive about 2 hours out of Kyoto, and we started to pass little bits of snow, and then it got 'real countryside' (Aogu) and very rural, cold and more snow, and actual flakes hitting the windscreen!! (remember, girl from NQLD, this is my 6th meeting with snow)

We went to the old centre first, not the new tourist one, and we found it pretty deserted, and kinda twin peaks weirdy, but had a peek around before going to the new one, look at the snow on the vegie patch - frozen lettuce!

The GPS to us along a very winding road, where we only passed one old man on a kinda motorcycle into some hills, we were surrounded by more and more snow on the road, and it wasn't looking like we'd end up somewhere at all, but then we hit a main (ish) road, and found the place, only to find out that they only are open on Fridays and Saturdays (but don't advertise that fact).

However we were lucky enough to run into a papermaker who stayed on for the afternoon and she gave us a personal tour, so we saw the studios, but were not able to see the process, and were sad to hear that the school (which the new centre is) will probably be closing down soon due to lack of students (and possibly funds).

It was a full on day, and I am hoping not everyday will be like that!

Tomorrow is Costume Museum and temples.......!

Wallpaper disappreciation society part 1

It's true. I want to join that society. We are nearly there though. Nearly kinda almost not quite nearly there.

It's been a full on week. This is the first day in nine that I haven't been at the house de-wallpapering. I can't remember what I used to do before wallpaper; either I'm pretty knackered by it all, or the wallpaper has just turned my brain to mush.

To start at the start, my fabulous MiLaw came over for a week to help in any which way she could, (unluckily for her it was the wallpaper) and we got things cranking when Xi was off having a fun time at childcare, and Tom could have some time at the house.

Front room (the wonder room with wallpaper that comes off like a dream...... wish the others were like it)

It was a different story when it was just the two of us and the baby.

This is exactly how much painting you can get done before the child realises that something more interesting than playing in a very exciting new sandpit just outside the door, is going on.

This is the mentioned sandpit. It's a hit, though we have been finding sand in unexpected places (carseats, prams, lunchboxes etc)

After that we took turns and then did a flurry when he was napping.

We also had a lot of help from some hardworking friends on the weekend -

Hallway coming along nicely.....

The pile of carpet from four rooms and the hallway, in the only main room that wasn't wallpapered (thank goodness for that!) That got taken away by D & J!

Museum show pre and post!

So.....

Here's some behind the scenes of the works we made, and the finished installations (a small selection of them, we ended up making quite a lot, and I haven't gotten the professional photos back yet, so they are just snappy snaps)

I didn't go with simple, easy to make free-form crochet like I spoke of in March... I went for casting, sculpting, learning and inventing totally new things and combinations of materials that I'd never worked with before.

I have vowed for the next body of work to utilise my skills, not spend all my time figuring out how to make things work......

This is one of the two Hypohued Oculate Anemones I produced with the help of Tom. This one is as yet nude!

Tom is being a great collaborator and casting the base!

This is the finished piece. It's not that great a shot, I feel I'll have to explain it:

The glass polyps have been sheathed in machine knitted tubes which have been knitted from embroidery threads, so each tube is a combination of three to five different coloured fine threads, so it produces subtle (in hot pink) variations of tone, and you are able to glimpse the glass underneath.

In short, the eleven glass pieces that needed dressing, plus the base, plus the gluing and stitching took a long time. It was hard to juggle making all the other work, the writing, travelling for another show and parenting, and to top it all off, I made this piece to go specifically in a vertical drawer, like a hidden treasure surprise, I thought it was a great idea at the time, but with half the people I sent to see the show not finding it, I wish I'd made something out of cardboard that took me no time to put in that drawer!

Each piece has it's own fake museum labels and story attached to it, here's the anemone's:

This anemone colony is remarkable in that the polyps have developed

completely discrete functions that act independently of one another. There are often several eye stalks, feeding mouths and defensive wings that make up the whole anemone.

The Hypohued Oculate Anemone uses colour as a way to

attract small prey and bigger interest. It uses electrical pulses

throughout the polyps to change it’s appearance, being able to

react to various different stimuli and environments.

They are also able to communicate with other colonies

through colour patterns and flashing displays.

Excerpt from Laurosto journal:

….I was diving, and was entranced by this underwater delight,

until I reached out and it bit me.

Now I have two lovely specimens for my collection….

it did take a few attempts to capture a complete colony,

but the polyps look good with my jellyfish…

Location and dates unknown

Donated Laurosto Collection 2010 LSRHTM274

These are the Egyptian/Australian animal mummies. Here's the spiel for them:

An Interesting Connection

There have been a lot of theories about Ancient Egyptian sailors
reaching other continents, yet there has been little evidence to date.

Now, for the first time there is a definitive link between Ancient Egyptians and Australia in the form of a tomb discovered by Sam Laurosto, the intrepid amateur naturalist and collector.

The date of discovery as well as the exact location is shrouded in mystery, though we know it was somewhere in South Australia and some time in the late 1800’s.

Laurosto discovered in the tomb mummified native Australian animals, objects and frescoes that led him to believe that a small population of Ancient Egyptians resided in Australia for some time and integrated the local fauna into their existing pantheon.

He observed the similarities between the animals worshipped as anthropomorphic gods:
The Jackal headed God Anubis and the Kangaroo God (name unknown),
The Falcon headed God Horus and the Parakeet God,
and the Ibis headed God Thoth and the Brolga God.
He also noted that the Ancient Egyptians had a crocodile headed god, Sobek, and Australia is known for its crocodiles.

They gave us a poster on North Terrace (which is the main drag for the Art Gallery, Museum, State Library etc), notice Xi doesn't look that impressed.

Here's Lauren working on some finishing touches to the foyer display. We've a teaser selection of curios: a Spanish Man of Peace, an eye catching mineral Disconite, a blue hypohued anemone, an Egyptian Kangaroo head with sketches and various glassy sea creatures.
Here's a view of the mineral display with Laurosto's minerals added in. Tom made one called Turdite, found in Deep Craek. He was pretty pleased with that one,
and Lauren made Pompomnite which really doesn't look that different from the authentic green gypsum, but a whole bunch of school kids came through as we were checking out the display and had a great time debunking some of our minerals (but not all surprisingly enough!)
Amongst the sharks and deep sea fishes lurks the elusive many eyed Roller Fish.

And here we are finished installing on a project that we first started talking about when I was four months pregnant and lasted until.........well, actually, it's just been installed at the Adelaide Town Hall, so really, it's lasted until after our son's first birthday.

So thanks Lauren and Tom it was a great and interesting experience doing the show with you, (and Xi especially for getting dragged to the Museum so many times when you would have rather been laying on the grass!)

Baby Days

I originally thought that this blog would just be about things I've been doing and making, but have realised that I can't really remove what I'm doing from what I'm doing with my son Xi, as I'm generally doing things with him (or around him, or carting him off to places with me), so I thought I'd show some of the things we've been getting up to lately.

He's been getting put to work weeding, and is learning to tell the difference between plants we like, and plants to put in the bucket.

We've been doing gardening in the mornings as he likes to look at the sky, listen to the birds, and sample the dirt. I still haven't built my path (think I need more time and helpers) but we've cleared the space in between the paths and have since sown all our old seed in the area.

He's been eating lots, and getting quite a wagayu build happening. I just liked this picture and wanted to put Tom in.

I turned 30 and had a lovely party at DCBS's, but this is the only picture I took... the balloons were a big hit with the bub.

And we all learnt (and remembered) how to play mahjong which is my new favourite game to whip people's patooties in! (well....attempt to)

And I was experimenting with the layout, and it went blah and didn't want to go back! Apologies for the mess (and all the underlining...)

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.

Treat

This was a treat for me to have a henna, and a long awaited catch up with my friend Humna. We hadn't been able to hang out for ages, since one of us was always totally swamped in work when the other had some time spare. She does beautiful work at her Diya Studio.

The henna came out very dark on my palm, and I wish I'd taken a better photo than this one below, because I'd been out in the garden and the gardening gloves had started to rub certain sections of the design off - and I'd been so careful of it for days!

I like to get the tops of my feet painted in summer - so you don't have to wear shoes, but you're looking pretty spiffy!