Southern latitudes.

Haven't done a BC for a long, long time ...

BC #12 of an installation called "armchair traveller" by Raymond Smith , January 2005.
(Pen and colouring pencils.)

Dear Mr Covey.

At the Library Book Sale, I found this delightful little book:

Full of examples, instructions and admonishments on the art of letter writing (by ladies), it makes me want to take up my pen. I mean, I would just love to write an official letter, and end it with:

I have the honour to remain, Sir, Your most humble and obedient servant.

Here are two examples in the section on accepting and declining invitations. The first is the model letter for Declining an Invitation from a Gentleman to go Motoring. The second is for Declining an Unwelcome Invitation.

Poor Mr Covey.

Have a lovely weekend, all. 
PS Some good news - my work is finished for the year. Six projects in total - all DONE. Yippeee! I am free, free as a bird ...

Pop Art.

I have habits that some may consider weird. For example, when I have finished using my laptop for the day, I wrap it in bubble wrap, and hide it. This is not as strange as it may seem. The area where we live has become very popular over the last two years for burglaries in the middle of the night, while owners are fast asleep. The culprits carry away anything that is lying about and quick to lay their hands on - notably laptops, cellphones, cameras, cash and credit cards. Now, while I have no problem with someone taking my cell phone (I rarely use it), I have absolutely no intention of handing over my laptop. No siree. So every night before I go to bed I hide it. But first I wrap it lovingly in a little blankie of bubble wrap. And it was in the middle of one of these wrapping episodes that the idea struck me.

It is so obvious, I am surprised nobody has thought of it before. Then I remembered my Great Stitching Discovery and the subsequent sad realisation that there is nothing new under the sun ... so I guess someone has thought of it before. But for the moment I'll believe it is my idea and mine alone. And no, I am not going to google it.

Filling up the spaces.

I just had to fill up those white spaces on the batik lappies. (And some coloured ones as well.)

And this is the end.

 

Not quite, though. I still have about 40 words to go. 

I am embroidering part of a poem by Billy Collins. 

"And this is the end,

the car running out of road,

the river losing its name in an ocean,

the long nose of the photographed horse

touching the white electronic line.

This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,

the empty wheelchair, and pigeons floating down in the evening.
Here the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period
and you closing the book."

                                                                  (from Aristotle by Billy Collins)

So what.

I went to a great applique workshop on Wednesday, run by Liz Chojnacki.  Apart from jabbing myself with my needle a couple of times, I had great fun. (I am clumsy - so what.)

Have a great weekend, everyone! Today is our wedding anniversary. I am hoping for some flowers. (Probably not ... sigh.)

Un-natural History.

I have of late become interested in curiosity cabinets. The concept of collecting, documenting and exhibiting has always resonated with me. While these have traditionally been used to house natural history collections, I have been playing for a while now with the idea to record and display my finds of the metal and plastic kind. A few years ago I made my F-O-U-N-D piece, and since then I have also filled up a printer's tray with some of the more interesting pieces. But I have lots of tiny pieces that must be displayed in a different way - this is what I came up with:

(Curiosity Cabinet #1 (above) and Curiosity Cabinet #2 (below) - found objects displayed in chewing gum blister pack on found cardboard)

My next step is to document a (fictional) history for each object.

Have a look at Maissa Toulet's cabinets. Bizarrely beautiful.

Espoir.

espoir m (plural espoirs)

1. noun: hope

As I am near the end of my final Maths project (the second book), I thought it apt to buy myself a pre-celebratory gift. Actually, two.

 (Pinky Cut (above), and Mr Cool (below), colour lithographs by Burundian artist Espoir Kennedy.)

Simple Food.

Sometimes simple food is the best.

(Lunch: lightly steamed asparagus, a tiny knob of butter and some grated parmesan to dip into.)

Happy Birthday.

Sweet Snous is celebrating her 2nd adoption birthday today. We took her for a walk amongst the Boulders Beach penguins (on the other side of the fence obviously, otherwise there may have been tears); she had a special Cesar gourmet supper (thanks to Auntie Tana she is now hooked on it), biltong treats throughout the day, and a special birthday biscuit from the lady at the DVD store.

(Looking out of the window and sharing her thoughts on life with  Beertjie.)

Happy birthday, my sweetest, bestest, loveliest, most beloved and most genius doggie-in-the-world.

New journal.

I made myself a new journal with a hand-stitched binding  -  using watercolour paper, cardboard for the covers, and the same beautiful cover paper that I used for my triangular book.

I had a problem with tearing the watercolour paper - one is supposed to wet the folds and then tear, and I wetted and wetted and wetted, but the tearing did not work very well ...

But I will have fun filling it up.

Have a great weekend, everyone. I am almost, almost done with my second Maths project. Woohoo.

Dilettante

dil·et·tante/ˌdiliˈtänt/

Noun:

A person who claims an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge. A person with an amateur interest in the arts

Dilettante has such a negative meaning. Yet I have always considered myself a bit of a dilettante. I can be brutally honest when I need to.
I dabble.
I dabble without commitment or knowledge. This to me is not a bad thing. After all, how am I to discover my passion if I do not dabble first? How am I to learn something if I do not not know it first?
I find many things along the way. I see no reason to commit myself to any one of them.

So when I happened upon a site called superdilettante, and saw that she created zines, well, enough said. My two zines arrived last week. They are pretty damn amazing.

(Finders Keepers & The Indifference of Places, by Carolee G Wheeler)

PS Maybe one day I will find that ONE thing. Who knows?
In the meantime: Dilettantes, unite!