On my way to meet for breakfast. We had not tried eating from the deli at our local grocery store. Now I know why…pretty bad when the only thing on offer was tiny biscuits with sludge gravy. I went for biscuits and asked for jam since they had no butter. In the box was two packages of jam that was hard and a fork to spread it with. Bought the smallest coffee (latte) I could at the Starbucks and it was just under $5. Think we no longer have to wonder what deli breakfast is like there.
Since Anzac Day was coming up, I baked the cookies for the Australian bike shop owner. The rest will go to the men for breakfast tomorrow morning.
I was thinking about the artwork I have around the house. The work I made myself. It seems that what I see on the internet or in person is more about learning some sort of technique or made to be a decoration. Nothing there to make you wonder why certain elements were chosen…what the placement means, why those colors…
Here is a piece, or rather details of a piece I made years ago and hangs over my bed. It started with a piece of bark from a tree that had worm tracks all through it. I could not put it back on the ground. I wondered if I was trying to read a secret language of something instructional. A message made by one species to be translated to another.
What if bugs were communicating to, say moths, on where and how to fly to find something important. I had a tissue paper covered with moth images that were much brighter years ago. And carefully cut them out to “follow instructions” left by the insects. Brass wires twined fine branches and palm inflorescence waiting to be used in my studio. I had an abundance of imagination back then. I even put a gold metallic thread on my sewing machine to pick up the shine of the brass wire and look like more markings along the “trail”. I never get tired of looking at this piece. I never lose interest in figuring out what one insect tried to communicate to another.
The moths and I have grown old and faded together. There is nothing on my artwork and my body that is not without layers of meaning and experiences.
Here is the last of the Curiosity Boxes that hangs next to the Moth piece.
I titled it The Witches Daughter’s Box because I found a poem with that title in an old, very old, book. The poem is bound into the long narrow book to the right side of the tall opening. The background is a scrap from test collographs I made in undergraduate school while learning various printmaking techniques. This gave a dark mysterious pattern that fit the mood of the box. Next an odd shaped and colored foundry mold placed next to the book, a basket I wove from grasses I found in the yard (I think a witch would have woven these to hold small bits). Mine holds a feather.
Under the floor is a brass bird, nut shell, and a shaped ball from a piece of shifu spun paper containing a hidden message.
Then above is another space filled with bundles of important papers on a shelf. And above that an attic space containing bones and some symbolic dial in the background, a clay bead and glass vial of shards next to another coptic bound book.
And finally laying on top is a hunk of wood that contains all the techniques I learned in a metals workshop taught over two days by a Native American. It is like a rattle and makes the most pleasing sound when gently shaken. Nothing went into this piece without careful consideration as to why it was needed.
I wish I could see more work that told stories, held secrets, and had some kind of meaning that took looking and imagination to decipher.
In the meantime, the last couple of days of the basket gathering in Tasmania inspired me to share long distance time with them in the Gathering Book. I have lots of spaces to fill and a stitched section to do before these two pages are finished.
I might go take a nap. It is too late in the day for me to go back to my writing and too early for some Aussie red. But just the right time to stretch out with my cats.
Til later….