On my birthday, I received Aperture 3 from Paul and a Microplane grater from my parents. <3
I also received some other lovely presents and many well-wishes from here, there and everywhere. Many, many thanks to everyone. I also had a very lovely party; thank goodness it was last weekend…
For about a month now I’ve been collecting images of circles and space and such on Once Upon a Spacetime, my MFA tumblr. So of course the first thing I did after setting up my studio this week was draw lines. I was thinking of them as threads or a warp, and have been playing with op art ideas of perception and the way our brains interpret visual signals. The lines evolved into opening sentences from novels. Today I took the camera in and started taking pictures. Not sure where it’s going from here, but that’s part of the fun, right…?
Another damn fine slow cooker recipe from Teh Internets. I did want to make something tasty, but I admit my main goal in making Unbeef Stew was to take a better photograph than all the other horrible looking ones on the recipe page. Stew is not the most photogenic thing in the world.
I didn’t stray too far from the recipe this time — just added a little less cornstarch, threw in some red wine and honey, and bought some good quality Asian Grocery “dried” tofu (you’ll still find this in the fridge section, it’s just a lot firmer than regular tofu) instead of bothering with the freezing and liquid draining malarkey. Also, I didn’t peel my potatoes or seed my tomato. I’m such a rebel.
I have a few pieces in the latest salon-style show at Pigment Gallery in Melbourne. The show opens tonight, but is on for just over two weeks on level 2 of the Nicholas Building, near the corner of Swanston St and Flinders Lane in the city.
The pieces I’ve entered are stills from the animation I made last year. In the catalogue, they’ll appear as The Kraken, Alice Falls and The Kraken Rises, but yesterday when signing the proofs, I changed the titles to Below the thunders of the upper deep, Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? and In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die. I’ve printed an edition of 20 12″ x 18″ photographs for each piece, available from the gallery at $100 each.
I hope you can come along and have a look at some stage during the show.
On the first day, I rested.
On the second day, I finished o w l s. Possibly the most wonderful thing I have ever made. Rav details.
On the third day, I started taking photos of old knitwear, and began to notice a trend in my preferences. This one is Cathode — Rav details here.
On the fourth day, I tried to distract you from my love of short sleeved jumpers with macro pictures of loosely knit mohair. I made Loopy repeatedly as a thinner scarf for many people, and it was this that sparked my undying love for Debbie New and Unexpected Knitting.
On the fifth day, I said “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” And accidentally set my kneecaps on fire. This is Puff from Fitted Knits, another short-sleeved cardigan. Rav details.
On the sixth day, I unravelled something that was going nowhere. While wearing cheerful heart-covered socks.
And on the seventh day, there was a toe.
This is what I looked like the day I turned 30.
My parents were overjoyed when I mentioned that I’d appreciate a new watch for my birthday — as I was turning 30, they wanted to give me some kind of special keepsake. We went shopping for this together, and it has barely been off my wrist since. I haven’t worn one for a few years, but I must have missed it.
Last year, I quoted a line from Robert Bringhurst’s The Elements of Typographic Style in my proposal.
An ancient metaphor: thought is a thread, and the raconteur is a spinner of yarns — but the true storyteller, the poet, is a weaver. The scribes made this old and audible abstraction into a new and visible fact. After long practice, their work took on such an even, flexible texture that they called the written page a textus, which means cloth.
I’d originally found it on a website, and was overjoyed to stumble across the book while reshelving at work one morning. I’ve been trying very hard not to double-space between the end of one sentence and the start of a new one since.
Around this time, my dad called. He’d just been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
I’m at my mum and dad’s house now, posting this from my old tiBook, which feels a little weird. I took a day off from work today to visit my dad in hospital. He had surgery on Tuesday to remove his prostate — he’s not entirely well yet, but is on the mend. Hopefully all will be okay.
This last one I took quickly at The Forum. I’d bought Mr C tickets to see Mogwai for Christmas, and took the camera along in the hope of getting some nice shots, but the security staff decided that it looked “too big” and wouldn’t let me take it in. I’m not happy with this shot, but I had to take it quickly and it was the best of a bad lot. Note to self: always attach the 50mm lens to the camera when passing through security and hide the 24-105 in the bottom of the bag. Gives the illusion that the camera is smaller…
There was a period in my life about eight weeks ago where things just didn’t seem to stop. I’d started my new job, had an art show opening and was trying to sort out starting my MFA. Constant movement.
I was also about to turn 30 and desperately needed to clean my house in preparation for the party. Of course, in my brain, that translated to clean and polish all bookshelves and catalogue all books using Delicious Library.
I did manage to squeeze in some knitting time. I don’t remember what I was knitting though. I do know it wasn’t the gloves that I promised Mr C’s mum last June…
I also snuck in a Puppy of the Week. I’ve been slack with my Puppy of the Week photos. I need to get back on that, because it’s wonderful flipping through all the photos and seeing the changes that don’t get noticed day-to-day.
In the meantime, I was busy finding out what I’d need to do for uni in terms of contact hours. It wasn’t much, as Masters is basically a Choose Your Own Adventure type of course, but I needed to go into printmaking weekly for group tutorials. Despite a discussion on the phone about part-time study being viable when I accepted my job, thanks to the wonders of flex time, I was nervous about telling my employer that I had been offered a part-time fully Commonwealth supported place in the MFA. And it turns out I was right to be nervous, as the HR department flat out refused to give me the hour and a half off each Tuesday afternoon (that I would have made up during the week with my “flex” time) that I needed to go to class. All because I’m a new employee. I was pretty upset about this, mostly because if I’d been told that on the phone, I would never have gone through the hassle of enrolling myself at uni and would have instead accepted the offer for the MFA but deferred immediately. Instead, I’d been stressing out for weeks trying to organise things, and now that I’d started the enrollment process, putting the degree off for a year was more complicated and difficult for everyone involved. Despite being very happy to have this job, being told one thing then having that flat out contradicted left a bitter aftertaste — on the day before my birthday, of all days.
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