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!

Batik.

I went to a workshop this Friday on resist dyeing. Taught by the brilliant Faiqah Abrahams, it was a great deal of fun.  I tried out most of the techniques taught - folding, tie-dyeing, painting the wax, stamping, bleaching and using the tjanting tool. Here are a few of my efforts:

Mutiny.

Mutiny. (Title pages and endpapers of old books, masking tape, glue)