Slow Progressions

No interior walls yet but windows put in place.

My bathroom window, den window and garage window in my studio space. So fewer windows in this house than what I am used to. But there is not that much to look out on in this subdivision. The roof has been closed in and I notice that several neighbors had those panes put in their windows. I am going for maximum light possible.

And this distorted elephant-like shape is the guest bath and shower combination. I did not peek around to see if it was grey on the good side. Probably not, probably white, probably boring. I will have to count on art work to make that small room interesting.

On the other hand, my shower tiles have been picked out. I love the stone patterned floor that will also be used for a decorative band about eye height. The caramel colored veined tile will be in 12″ x 24″ panels on the walls. I asked the sales woman that it not be put in with seams lined up because it would look too much like the interior of a jail cell. She assured me that they would be offset so I wouldn’t be tempted to make passing time marks on the walls.

I am thinking that since I am taking all my collected round stones from the house and yard, that I place a stack in the shower with me. A friend in Australia did that years ago and the serenity of that has stayed with me. She is the same person who inspired me to turn some of my rocks into a snake slithering along. She lived in a lovely cabin-like home among the Eucalyptus trees in Fern Tree, Tasmania. Her whole place was magic with all her creative additions in and around the house. It was late 90s but I should locate some of the pictures I took to share. Over the years I stayed with her maybe eight times and always drew her lovely turquoise tea pot in my sketchbook. She was one of the best hosts, always ready to take on the challenge of getting me from one place to another.

Anyway, back to the house…

Here they are working on the soffits at the back. I hope to incorporate that tree into a Japanese garden out back for me to enjoy from my small porch. The gym where I go is that brick building in the background…just a few minutes’ walk.

Speaking of walks. The dam over two days. The first a very frosty morning and then just the shore yesterday.

I love those colors. Something about them remind me of the works by Anselm Kiefer.

I started to commit myself to writing the story of Burke and Wills. Being such a visual person, I found it necessary to pick the right font and size to write it in. How odd. A children’s story does not become real to me unless it is presented contextually. And then there are the illustrations. I kept thinking they would be small additions in lower left of the text. But now with so many words going on visually, maybe the illustration should fill a whole page with background of trees, sky, and other things that visually set the stage for the action taking place.

Yesterday I thought it a good idea that Burk’s mother not just abandon her boy altogether, but look after him in any way she could. She plucks socks from a clothes line for the boys to use as sleeping bags. I needed to draw that.

And maybe there should be a patterned border around the page of illustration. Say, oak leaves and acorns…dandelions….whatever fits. It all adds to the time it will take. But this book is just for me and however many I feel like printing and binding.

Sketching, writing is simply a means of distraction for me living in a once shared space. It was never so true, the expression, “the presence of absence”. I always appreciated that expression when used in artwork where you can visually interpret what is missing and why. But actually living in the absence is an altogether different emotion.

I spent the last half hour searching out these pictures. The earlier ones from Tasmania and Barbara’s house in Fern Tree were taken with a slides or print camera. Pre-digital. But her snake and shower rocks were there when she moved to Melbourne.

And my most favorite tree ever that she introduced me to in Tasmania. Very much a visual interpretation of “presence of absence”.

One could hide in here and never, never come out.

Enough pondering for today. Time for lunch. I have a lobster red pepper bisque I brought home from take out yesterday.

Til later…..