International Women's Day

Saturday March 8 is International Women's Day. I have just been reading a book called `The Promise' by Lisa Clifford. Daughter of June Dally-Watkins, Lisa writes about marrying an Italian man and moving to Italy. In one chapter she talks about how International Women's Day is celebrated in Italy.

`Women gather for lunch, dances and parties, mothers take their daughters out to Dinner and Sisters make the effort to meet with each other or their best female friends. Husbands, boyfriends, Fathers and Sons give their women a sprig of Mimosa flowers. Schools organise Art Sessions where the children paint or make collages of Mimosa to take home to Mumma or Nonna. For 24 Hours women are honoured and uplifted. On this day it feels as though, the universal sisterhood of women with its special brand of female nurturing love, is truly united and venerated'........... So I will be thinking of all the Women in my family and my `family of friends' on that day. Mimosa is not in flower here at this time but I might pick a rose instead :)

Frameworthy Challenge - Antonio Mancini

This week's Frameworthy Challenge is based on the work of Antonio Mancini, an Italian Painter who was born in 1852 and died in 1930. Mancini focused mainly on portraits, and as I have always been fascinated by portraits I chose to use a studio photograph of Alan's Great Grandparents with their family as a way of making a `connection' with Mancini's work. This is the image I used as an inspiration: http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/03/arts/0104-MANCINI_7.html

I have always had issues with conventional photographs and frames as a way of `seeing' our ancestors. They were living breathing people with hopes and fears just like us, yet the somewhat stilted images of formally dressed people in photographs taken in the early 1900's tell us very little about them. I have titled this Collage `Where have they gone to' which is based on the words on the transparent frame around the image. They read `Where have they gone to - to find new things under the sun - a REAL adventure in a new direction, may drop a line now and then........ I really do believe that our ancestors drop us a line now and then if we are alert enough to notice :)

Artist Trading Cards

I have been involved in a Digital Artist Trading Card Swap for over a year now. Although we make them digitally, or partly digitally, we mail them out and all of the Artists I swap with live in North America and Europe. It is wonderful to receive the cards in the mail each month as a nice change from the usual junk mail and bills. I am also a member of the local Art Society and about 12 months ago I was invited to give a talk to the members about Artist Trading Cards. Inspired by that, some of the members formed a monthly Artist Trading Card swap group and I have recently joined in that. The result is that I now receive between 10 and 20 Artist Trading Cards each month. Woo Hoo. I love these little `Works of Art' - each one represents a piece of the Artist who created it. I also love the fact that the cards are traded and not sold, so that each Artist can create their cards without a `purchaser' in mind. I think this tends to result in Art which comes from the heart rather than something `trendy' which is designed to sell. Ironically the cards are often coveted as they are beautiful, but they can only be traded or displayed. I have an album for mine and I love to look through it, each time seeing something new that I have missed before. This is my card from the Art Society February Swap, the theme was `Portraits'. I painted this in ArtRage, and the lace `brush' was added in PhotoShop.

Living the Good Life

I'm currently reading an interesting book from the library called `Living the Good Life', sub titled `how one family changed the world from their own backyard'. (It reminded me of that TV Show we used to watch with the similar name) Linda Cockburn and her husband and 6 year old son decide to be completely self sufficient for 6 months and not spend any money in that time except for essential bills and medical care. They buy an electric bicycle, a lactating goat called Possum, use the library, walk everywhere and get a lot fitter. They live on a normal sized block of land and I was intrigued to note that they also lived in our town at the time of their experiment, in fact only about 10k from us. They try to grow as much as they can (all organically), and they barter for what they can't grow, which is quite a lot. Like us they have no trouble growing organic herbs, cherry tomatoes, oranges, lemons, limes, paw paws and pumpkin, but not much else. In a sub tropical climate because of fruit fly and other pests you really have to spray stonefruit and mangoes and zucchini and similar vegetables. If it was me I think I would have sprouted seeds as you can do this indoors. Anyway it was a very inspiring read and I enjoyed it. I think they have now moved to Tasmania to a more suitable climate for growing food, and they are building a Straw bale home. I wish them well.

Here is a recent photo of our Passionfruit vine, really loaded with fruit and fully recovered from the winter frost. Last night as we had visitors, for Dessert we had Vanilla ice cream with fresh passionfruit and genuine Canadian Maple Syrup. This was a really yummy combination :) Oh and I can report that yesterday the temperature hit 40C, but the cool change came through at around 6.00 pm, just in time for our barbecue. Today is a lot cooler :)

Catching Up

So what have we been doing? I hate February, my least liked month of the year :(

Always hot and humid, nothing exciting happens, no Birthdays or celebrations and the weeds are rampaging everywhere. At this time of year we mow every week - and with 5 acres of grass we have a lot to mow. RDA began on Thursday and that was great as we had an excellent morning with 8 Drivers and lots of volunteers to help. Its also a very social morning with morning tea etc. so it was very enjoyable and not too hot. Art Society has started up again and I really enjoy this too. We meet each Wednesday at the Art Gallery which is wonderfully air conditioned and there is always a new exhibition to see and be inspired by, other artists to talk to and an interesting floor talk each month. I spent some time on Wednesday looking at a great book of Margaret Olley's work and writing down some of her interesting quotes about the process of `making Art'. Today it is 36 degrees hot and very humid with it but luckily we have air conditioning so our living area is cool and relaxing. Louise and Jeff and Tate are coming to visit later so that will be good too. I am looking forward to a promised cool change later on tonight.

This week's Frameworthy challenge was the artist Maggie Taylor http://www.maggietaylor.com/who is married to Jerry Uelsmann - you may remember my surreal imagery of the Camel, the cat and the fireworks which was inspired by his work. Maggie also creates surreal montages, but very different to those of her husband. This time I didn't use a particular work for inspiration, I just looked through all her on line galleries and then came up with this :)

Frameworthy Challenge `Sonia Delaunay'

Sonia Delaunay was a Ukrainian French Artist who married the Artist Robert Delaunay with whom she founded the movement `Orphism' noted for its geometric shapes and strong colours. Interestingly she is also credited for having invented the polka dot. I think it must have been very hard to be married to another artist - especially one who worked in such a similar style, 2 artistic egos and temperaments in one house would have been difficult but they seem to have merged their talents and have been very happy. I was particularly interested to read about her work in textiles, prints and interior design, fabrics, wall coverings and clothing as I think she was extremely innovative and ahead of her time. The work I chose as inspiration was one that did not include any geometric shapes or strong colour. It is a print called `Farewell my Summer Love' and it is very soft and beautiful. It shows I think the range of her talents. http://artfiles.art.com/images/-/Sonia-Delaunay-Terk/Farewell-My-Summer-Love-I-Print-C10301890.jpeg So have a look and see what you think.

Happy Valentines Day

I love Valentines Day - a good excuse to eat chocolate, drink bubbly and just be romantic :) This page is titled `Homage to Saint Valentine' and is dedicated to my darling husband.