Busy Weekend!

Woah... what a weekend I've had; and it started on Friday for me and has only slowed down this arvo.  

I was supposed to put up my Christmas Tree on Friday, but I received a reminder phone call that I had signed up for a Hebel Sculpture workshop that afternoon... so there went that plan.  Anyway, after I got stung by a black mud wasp, I wasn't all that interested in irritating my bite too much.
So, I went and enjoyed myself.  I made a great piece all about my past... it looks great!  It's called 'Bittersweet Tears'.  It doesn't look perfect, but to me it's finished.  And I also made a second piece from the corner I cut off; very cool... I'll be putting that around the house when I get the jewels glued in.
I ran into Doug Cartright and we chatted at the front desk.  I haven't seen him in a long time and he's lost a lot of weight... and he invited me to his place for a visit.  I'll go and see him on Tuesday; as his partner, Peter, passed away last year (I didn't know until recently) and he's really feeling the loss greatly.

But earlier than we'd usually do, we had to pack up as a storm threatened to close in on us.  So, I took photos of my piece - and others - and wrapped it up and took it home.  That night, we got a lot of rain, a bit of thunder and lightning but that was it... and I was very tired.

On Saturday morning, I was up bright and early to get back to the Logan Art Gallery for the Volunteer's Morning Tea.  This is where we were given our Christmas presents and certificates and badges (if we were supposed to get them).  Last year, my 15 year badge was forgotten as they thought I hadn't been there for as long as I have.  This year, they made sure I got it - in my 16th year of service.  I received a lovely certificate and a gorgeous painting card.  I loved it!  Now, there's only 4 years to go until I've been there for 20 years and I get my 20 year badge and certificate.  After that?  I'm not sure... might stick around and see what goes on.
However, I ran into our old curator - Annette - and she had heard I was going to see Doug.  She discouraged me from seeing him alone, saying he wasn't in his right mind.  I don't think she realises that I'll be okay; that he's grieving and I know what's happened.  I said would take on board what she's told me, but still I'll go and see him.  He wanted to tell me something; and I want to know what it was.

Today, I was up before my alarms went off... I did try to sleep in a bit, but it was impossible with the day heating up quickly.  So, I was up and off to get the paper at around 8am.  Before I knew it, Geoff Treagus was here to have some pancakes with me and I sat for him to do a sketch on a canvas for me to paint.  He thought my pancakes were delicious and the coffee was too strong (oops on my part, I didn't read the packet... oh well, know better next time).  Well, I'm now kicking back and catching up with what online.  I'm hoping to get my butt into painting and reading again over the holidays.  How has your weekend been?  Busy?  Slow?  Or just the same stuff going on?  Until my next post, take care, stay safe and remember, I'm always here.

My Weekend

My weekend has been busy and tiring.  However, it's been great fun too.  Yesterday, I was up bright and early after a warm night's sleep.  I woke to a lovely, clear day for the Home Festival here in Brisbane.  It was around 9:30am before Mum picked me up and we were on our way to Pineapple park at Kangaroo Point where Sinclair Street was packed with parked cars already and there were still another hour and a half to go until the festival was to start.  Mum dropped me as close to the drop-off spot as possible and I found my way to the other artists who waved at me - greeting me with hugs saying it was great to see me.  Mum showed up after finding a parking spot, and I introduced her to them all and she said it looked like it was going to be a great day.

After I strung up my red pages in the tree with fishing line - and lost my green-handled scissors - I positioned my altered book so people would read it; with the Darren Hayes ipod music collection.  While people were listening to his tracks against the wall comfortably, they could flip through my book and read it; like they would if they were reading in bed or on their lounge - and you know - it worked.  People sat down, plugged in the earphones, and spotted my book and began reading.  Very cool!  And I mentioned my other blog - My Reading List - in the book and looky-loo's there have jumped from 10,985 to 11,009 overnight!

There was a jumble and suitcase sale going on all afternoon; which I went and had a look at with Riley.  And I loved seeing things I wanted and found them at the right prices.  We even took off and did some screenprinting and painted up our own bags with a printing of our choice!  I chose a typewriter in purple and Riley chose a Deer in orange... how cool!  But Gabe, Kat and Riley couldn't stay.  I gave them a bag of Paprika that I found was hot instead of smokey and they took it off my hands and thanked me very much for it.

Then, next to the installation, there was a stage where performance poets took part and entertained the crowds; as did the local choirs.  They were great!  Meanwhile, we found that the sun wasn't as bad as we thought it would be as the shade moved over us and cooled the day down.  None of us got sunburnt and were cooled down instead of being dehydrated.  It was a great day to be outside yesterday and I didn't want to be anywhere else.

By around 3:30pm, I smsed Dad's phone, saying I was going to begin packing up.  So, Mum smsed back and said she was on her way to get me.  I was stuffed and ready to go to sleep and was getting a headache; not that I wanted to complain.  But I really wanted to head off home before it got cold.  About half an hour later, I had packed up my book and cut the pages off the tree, and Mum had shown up.  She wanted to have a look around a bit and I said it was a good place to be.

As we walked around, we found the place was packing up the daytime markets and it was beginning to shift into night-time gear with the music and food.  The shadows began to pull long, the breeze started to turn cooler, and it was time to let the night-time part of the Home Festival to take over... we had done our part and enjoyed our day there.  I will most definitely do it again.

Today, I woke and found I didn't want to get out of bed; but I pushed myself to.  After getting the paper and milk, I washed up a little and made myself some not-bacon and eggs and jumped online.  As I was about to, Gabe called and said that the Paprika wasn't Paprika.. it was chili.  He said I was right in thinking it was very hot and to take back all the packets I've bought.  I said that I had put a liberal amount on some cheese last Wednesday and had copped blisters long my gumline... well he laughed and said that could happen with this Paprika.  I said I jumped up so fast and grabbed the yoghurt and milk I had it running down my chin before it stopped burning, then I started sneezing.  He laughed again and said that he felt bad about my experience but said to take it back and get the guy to taste it and that it had been labeled wrongly.  Well, until my next post, take care, keep safe and warm and remember, I'm always here.  

Home Festival 2012 

June's Something Different!

Wow!  What a month!  It seemed from the very first day to the last, I didn't have a single day free to scratch or to myself; and once I went to bed, I zonked quickly into the dreamworld... only to be awoken by my alarm or my neighbours slamming their way out of their house to go to work at 6am.

On 1st, June, I was off to Doug Cartwright's house bright and early to help him design a blog for an interstate artist.  Once we got it under way, we ate lunch with his house mate and another visitor who had dropped by and Doug let me into his lead lighting studios to make a gorgeous little jewelery box from his design.  It took all afternoon, but the end result is absolutely wonderful and I use it to house my rings and Grandma's watch.

Within the first week of June, we had some really cold

weather.  But that's okay really.  I like the cold and enjoy getting out into it.  It makes me work harder to keep warm and keeps me going at what I want to do for the day.  And one of those thing was to go out and see the Ron Mueck Exhibition.  I had heard about it on the radio and television and resolved to go and see it when it came to Brisbane.  And so, I did; taking my camera with me.  What an exhibition!  I loved it!  Actually, I had a pass-out stamp on my hand in case I had to go back in... luckily I got one because some of the photos were blurry and I wanted to look at some of the stuff again.  

By the 8th, June, I my fortunes had turned around and things were beginning to happen in a positive way.  I checked the mail that day and found I had won a double pass to see 'The A-Team' the night before it opened from Triple-M radio!  And I took Mum with me.  It was so much fun!  She loved it that I chose her to come with me.  

But on the previous day, I had picked up 'The Golden City' by John Twelve Hawks from QBD at Garden City and by pure chance brought home a 'Clifford' dog with me... he just looked so cute and bright red by the register that I knew he'd find a good home amongst my books!  And now, he's guarding my Mt TBR with vigor; making sure I read as much as I add to it.

Also, my 'Mixed Favourites Book Baggie' came home from its extensive trip around Australia.  And a lot of books arrived home in it that I wanted to read; as well as the pencil case I sent off in it being so full I couldn't repack it once I had opened it!  What a lot of stuff there was in it!

I began 'The Big Tidy-Up' around my house.  This is

happening due to the success of 'The Big Clean-Out' in February.  And so, I've cut up my big jobs into little jobs and put things away in such a way where they can't get messy anymore.  It's a good way to do a clean out and a tidy up at the same time where I may have missed a spot in February.  But this has turned out to be a little harder than I first expected.  Downstairs is going okay; but upstairs isn't.  I think I have to look at it from a different angle up here as a lot of things don't get moved around here for a while and then suddenly they do.

During the Queen's Birthday Long Weekend, I had a good go at cleaning up downstairs.  It was good.  The kitchen was three-quarters there, as was the lounge room.  Then, I jumped on the piano for about an hour or so (I lost track of time to tell the truth).  And I decided to try out the new book full of exercises for both hands to follow each other.  Well, not long into them, I found them really challenging and my neighbour went off her block about me stopping playing (which I didn't until 10 minutes later when I realised I wasn't going to be a genius at them immediately).  I went for a walk and she watched me leave and watched me come home... what a creepy person to live next door to... really creepy.

On 24th, June, Mum and I attended the Epilepsy Symposium at the P.A. Hospital.  It was a completely full day of information from researchers, professors and neurosurgeons and neurologists alike.  Also, I got the chance to talk to people who were living with the disease/condition and parents who cared for children with it.  So, it was a good day, but very tiring.  The best thing about this kind of day is that you can talk to the guest speakers about your medications, operations, the Ketogenic Diet, lifestyle and other things that may improve on what you're already doing free of charge (well it does cost to go to one of these, but not as much as an appointment with one of these people).

The shortest day of the year was yesterday... a day after Michael Jackson died last year (and the television stations played all his movies and concerts) and Mum and I went out to a photo course at Photo Continental on Creek Road.  But when we got there, it had been cancelled and it seemed that us and on other person were the last to know.  That put us in a bind.  We could've stayed home and slept in.  

Instead, we hung about at the shops across the road and waited for the Life Line to open.  Here we found 3 handbags that I loved and bought.  Mum found all these winter tops that I tried on and they fitted!  There was even a jacket that looked awesome!  So, all up, we spent about $70... I did put in $20 of that and mum bought around $44 of the rest... it was lovely of her to buy the clothes.  But she kept on saying that I had to stop buying handbags and coin purses.  When you're a collector, it's an obsessive thing that makes you look at them and buy them... then you have to find a time to use them all! 

Then, last night, we had our partial Lunar Eclipse for this year.  And what wonderful night for it!  Even though it wasn't the clearest night, I took some lovely photos of it and was up until midnight to watch the moon clear up completely.  And did it get cold!  Wow, it was freezing!  

Well, that was my month of something different.  It was most definitely a lot fuller than past months; and I'm hoping my life gets a little less hectic in the next week or so.  I want to catch up with some reading.  I've only read 8 books this year... not a good score compared to last year's 27.  Until next month!

A Fun Day Yesterday.

I was out and about in the cool Wintery day yesterday to Doug Cartwright's house in Logan Central.  He owns a lead-lighting business and has done very well with it. Currently, he makes jewellery boxes and has worked on the set of the next Narnia film at MovieWorld.

So, I took off early yesterday, bussing it to his place via the 550 and getting off it on Jacaranda Avenue.  The last time I was anywhere near this place, I drove a car and it broke down; and that was years ago!  So, once off the bus I had to find the walkway overpass and found his house very easily.  My task today was to help him start up a blog for another artist who was arriving from Melbourne in November.  It had to be easy to use, publicly easy to find and very easy to change if she didn't like the layout; so I recommended Blogger run by Google (the same blog programs I use).  We had our fun getting him signed in and picking out a template and then working on the title and gadgets.  Doug found it very easy to work on and edit.  Then, I showed him how to change the time stamps on it through the settings tab. 

By this time, it lunch time and we all sat down with a sandwich each and a cuppa and chatted about everything and anything until the subjects were exhausted.  Doug said that if he needed my help again, he'd ask and I said I'd be happy to help with anything to do with the blog or with the Kingston Butter Factory (where the Melbourne artist was going to show her exhibition).

After lunch, Doug showed me his lead-lighting studio downstairs where some of his paintings are also stored.  It's an amazing place full of smaller pieces of glass in containers and huge pieces of glass slotted into thin upright boxes in an area near a workbench where

he keeps everything as clean as possible.  All the templates for his famous jewelery boxes he sells at the Logan Art Gallery is there on the bench and he began working out a lid with some pieces of glass.  After a little while, I watched on and then began taking up some of pieces and getting into working out the patterns.  Once we had them all put together like a little jig-saw puzzle, we had to wrap each piece around the edges and brush flux all over it.  By this time, the soldering iron was hot and the metal rod was at hand. 

I had put on a mask and gloves and the place was opened up because the flux put off a smell once the metal touched it and metal wrappings connected; thus connecting it all together.  First, though, I had to tack each piece, then get it to ridge right and let it go hard.  Doug watched and helped me when I needed it; saying that I picked up the craft very quickly.  And the only sticky part was when the back and one side didn't connect all that well; but once we flared it out a smidge, nobody really noticed.  And what a piece!  

I did take other photos during the day.  We took an afternoon tea break and had a breath of fresh air out in the backyard where I saw a lovely Husky snoozing next to a little red kitten next door and took a great photo of a dandelion before its prongs went flying; it was a great macros.

Before long, it was heading toward 4:30pm and Doug though to it best to drive me home - actually, I didn't trust the busses at that time of day and it was getting cold too; truthfully, neither did he.  Just before we left, a customer arrived with a light shade that had arrived from overseas which had been damaged in transit.  Doug said he'd get it fix in the next day or so, grab the guy's number, gave him a business card or two and then we were on our way.

Boy! Was I tired by the time it was time for dinner last night!  I wanted to write this, but decided it could wait until today.  The jewelery box is next to my bed with my rings in it.  I also thought it would be an apt place for my grandmother's necklace watch too.