Weekword: Story

Yippee Yay - weekword is back! Rachel has chosen this week's word and has a list of all the contributors. As I have little time I am posting something old. About 10 years ago I had this terrific idea of writing the story of my life - in comic form. I started with the birth of my brother - as this is my earliest memory. But oh goodness, the effort involved to draw all those frames! I finished one more strip, and that was it. (The story of my life, indeed ...) Maybe I will continue one day - Jesse's book here is a great inspiration to me. The only difference being - she can draw. Oh, well...


PS Most of you won't be able to understand - it is in Afrikaans. Also, there are two bad words in there. Forgive me.

Collaborative Art

On Sunday we visited the Spier Contemporary Art 2010 Festival held in collaboration with the Africa Centre - this year at the City Hall. A lot of conceptual art, some installation pieces, and quite a few performance pieces (which we missed as live performances are only held on certain days). All in all, quite interesting, but I have to admit that I was more impressed by last year's offering. I do like conceptual art, but I found many pieces a bit ... lightweight ... dare I say? In the end my five favourite pieces included two paintings, a carved marble relief, an installation of steel cutouts, and a video installation.
I really like to participate in art - so here is my self-appointed collaborative piece, entitled Ana Iram and Venus de Milo Viewing Jhb CBD from CT CBD. I  do hope that Raiford Johnson won't mind ...

Lefthand image: Anairam Traws, righthand image: Phillip Raiford Johnson

Your relationship to That Stuff

Yesterday was the monthly car boot sale. I rushed down, pink shopping bag in hand to carry back my goodies, Snous in tow. But here is the thing, although there was some stuff that would normally have attracted my attention - a small succulent, two books, a piece of fabric, a few tiny plastic animals, an ink pad, a small glass bowl, and a sheet of computer labels - I didn't buy a thing. Because I didn't really need any of it. Is my addiction at an end? Is my relationship to that stuff changing?

Art journal collage with magazine cutouts, paint, cut up store card.

Everyone has his own version of that stuff. For some people it is not a material thing. What is your relationship to that stuff? In my journal page I included: addicted to, overwhelmed by, in control of, tired of, in love with ...

Have a great week! Don't fill it with too much stuff... Hmmmm, my week will be filled with words, too many words ...

Freedom

Today we celebrate Freedom Day. And although the flag appears a bit tattered, it is still flying strong and we have much to celebrate and be thankful for in our great country.

I will be ducking off to Hermanus to be with my family. A bit of freedom from work. But back tomorrow to the slavery of my editing project.

Patterns

A while ago a very dear person (and friend, I would like to call her) gave me this beautiful piece of mud cloth. I look at it every single day and as I look at it my love for it grows and grows. It is beautiful. It is perfect. And if she knows how much joy it brings me, she will be very happy, I'm sure ...

It inspired me to make some mud cloth doodles in my moleskine. (Tippex is one of my unnecessary necessities, remember? In addition to obliterating proofreading marks, it is also really good for making patterns on black paint ...)

Companions

Coming up for air ... and to say how I miss your company! Before I started this current editing project I made a family for The Doll, as Sarah Jeweller and Sarah Dollmaker suggested. My three dolls were meant to keep me company as I worked, but oh, they are not half as fun as my sweet bloggy friends. No, they are a sorry substitute. They've settled themselves on top of a cabinet in the livingroom, soaking up the sun, discussing the Philosophy of Dressmaking amongst themselves, while I sit in the dark and dingy study at the back of the house ...

Dear friends, I hope you are all well and happy! I'll be visiting you all. Soon, I hope.
xxx Anairam

Unnecessary Necessities

I was considering a few days ago how there are objects that I feel are absolutely necessary to my life. Whereas in fact, they really are not necessary at all, and I have done without them perfectly well in the past. So I started a moleskine series ... I will post more next week.

What are your unnecessary necessities?

Work update: Well, I am still busy (not nearly finished ... see below)  and reading about amazingly interesting things - like hydrogen displacement reactions and mutual magnetic induction and Lewis diagrams and so forth. Riveting stuff. But hear my little tale of woe: I worked flat-out from last Wednesday evening to Monday afternoon, throughout the weekend, up to 2 am some mornings. Yes, I was cross-eyed and hunch-backed and jittery from caffeine-overdose and my fingers stained with red ink, but I was a proud woman! I had finished more than half of the pile! And then the publisher emailed me (too damn scared to pick up the phone, I'm sure) to notify me that (unfortunately) they had given me an older version of the text. By mistake. WTF??? Yes really, dear friends, these things do happen. But, I ask myself, why do they always seem to happen to me? Oh, I can write a book about the publishing industry.
And I will.
One day.