Ink and Spindle

My boyfriend works in a beautiful old warehouse with many other people doing interesting things. One of his neighbors is Ink and Spindle who make beautiful natural screen printed fabric and now have a new line of very lovely children's clothes. I think they are just beautiful and it is tying in with my new obsession with the colour mustard which has taken me by surprise as it used to be right up there with lime green as my most hated. Pretty excited about my new mustard cardigan that arrived yesterday in the post, woo hoo

Reading

Hello everyone who may be reading this after seeing the lovely article posted on the Readings website. How nice.

Lift off

The book launch was really fun. I worked like a beaver all week making big cut outs of the animals and hand stitching and packaging all the books and posters. I made tiny letter shaped gingerbread and lemon cordial and so many of my friends and family came along it was really lovely. So the little book is launched and now available at Readings in Carlton as well which I am excited about. I feel like there is a lot to do it is exciting and fun and hard to fit in around the normal jam packed days we seem to have. There are raspberries to pick, chickie's to chase, sand to throw, crawling to learn, sleeps to be had, avocado to fling but we will get there slowly slowly.

Book launch

I am having a book and poster launch next Sunday the 4th of December at Smiley Mcslidey studio corner of Blyth and Nicholson st East Brunswick in Melbourne from 3pm- 5pm if anyone is in the neighbourhood, if your not you can get your very own copy at my little etsy shop

http://www.etsy.com/shop/gentlearts

A woooo

Well it sure has been awhile between drinks of water but here I am, another baby boy and a new project finally almost finished after what feels like an eternity of chipping away at it. Small steps, small steps, here we go boys.

Consumed

I am involved in an art event happening all week at Smiley McSlidey Rehearsal room in East Brunswick Melbourne. It should be really interesting with a wide variety of artists making work on location and installing it and taking it down in 24hour cycles. I’ll be there tomorrow, Tuesday the 4th and anyone can come and be a part of my project if they are passing by. The final work won’t be in display until the evening but it can be viewed from the street all night long.

Folk Ladies

I have just bought two excellent cd’s that are on high rotation in our house at the moment. One is First Aid Kit, two teenage sisters from Sweden who did a live to air concert last week at our local, and excellent public radio station, if you find the recording you will hear me clapping and the baby having a squawk in a quiet but between songs. The second band, also female and folky, is by Mountain Man which is just beautiful especially the song animal tracks which you can hear here. Hooray for music.

Daffodil

The winning flower

My friend comes from a long line of champion daffodil breeders and this last Saturday was the town show in Kyneton when she is from. I have wanted to go each year for the last ten and each time something has come up so a 12 year flood wasn’t going to stop me this time. It was wonderful. A tin shed with the rain pelting down on the roof and rows of perfect blooms created from rare breeding stock and secret pollen deals, battling it out for the various prizes. The winning daffodil was spectacular and was won by someone who swept up many of the prizes. There was also a children’s section where local school children made sculptures out of fruit and vegetables that were particularly wonderful. My friends father also won two prizes to continue carrying the family mantle.

Tara Donovan

A friend has just pointed me in the direction of Tara Donovan. Her work is so simple and so clever created out of everyday items, pencils, straws, Styrofoam cups, but repeated to create landscapes and microcosms. It has got me thinking.

Kinder

We recently returned from a wonderful adventure in Japan. As well as spending time in the large cities and zooming around on the bullet trains, we had some beautiful and quiet times high up in the mountains in tiny villages surrounded by bamboo and cedar wood forests.
It was high summer over there and very hot and humid. The baby was a trooper and took everything in his stride. One day in Kyoto we were hot and getting cranky as we wandered around in the heat trying to get back to our cool tatami mat room so the baby could have a crawl around after being clipped into a sweaty pram for hours. I saw a tiny hand painted sign in both Japanese and English saying there was a children’s bookstore so we went to have a look. On the first floor of a building was a lovely bookstore filled with all the classics translated into Japanese. We were told there was a kindergarten upstairs and we could take the baby there to play with some other children. It was so beautiful, two grandmotherly women played with another baby in a cool clear room filled with beautiful handmade toys. It was just perfect.