shrines

It's a quiet day. I opened a folder at random, & these are the
photos that caught my attention, funny how that happens.

Not sure about posting this link. I guess it's like everything else,
when we are sick, we find ourselves following one course
of treatment or another. There must be many plants
that indigenous cultures knew about.

time tables

Found another small stash of photos of old works.It's not that
I'm really messy, I just haven't looked some places,
since I moved. The above collage/paintings/screenprints
were exploring images that could be read on any side.
I made a few into tables, & might make postcards,
as I've many photos with ambiguous orientation.

& a collage card. I did a number of monoprints, which now
look too rough ~from the digital perspective, I suppose.
Which is also why I'm not painting, perhaps.
Or time really is speeding up..do you think so?

Just read a great novel by Marya Hornbacher: The Centre
of Winter. I don't have tv, read several books a week, & know it's
quite rare to savour every line. An enjoyable surprise, the series
by Sergei Lukyanenko. Anything by Haruki Murakami.

clouds

A cloud machine, & clouds watcher

A real cloud. For Milli, whose short life ended on Sunday.
With love to her family & friends, & heartfelt sympathy.

darjeeling

c.1994, I stayed 4 months in an old hotel in Darjeeling.
It dated from raj times, I had a room with attached 'sun room',
very occasionally the clouds would lift, for
a sensational view of Kanchenjunga. The trees trimmed
for firewood conjured strange shapes in the mist/clouds.

The dhobi was a fine man. Paths were vertical,
the tea pickers had especially hard lives; the place
was lovely, looking out, early in the day. After noon the
vast crowds of tourists kept me inside, that was fine too.
The prayer flags were near the Ghoom monastery.

I had to fix all these prints. An interesting article.

wild things

These plants seem too wild for towns. Grass trees might swish
their skirts & move closer when you're not looking.
Cycad seeds like these, eaten by men on Flinders' expedition,
made them very ill. Ferdinand Bauer made wonderful
paintings of all the new & strange things they saw.
The wildest creatures I've ever seen: snow leopards at
a small Darjeeling sanctuary.

There's a movie coming, from Maurice Sendak's classic

hearts

Continuing ~ sporadically ~ the spring clean/throw-out.
Gave this picture to my darling mother c.1972, it's a good
example of what not to do: the gold paint corroded, & the framer
glued the paper to masonite. However when I took it out
of the frame today, I saw that the gold paint, which was higher
off the paper ground, had left a ghost image on the glass.
Much nicer effect, if only there was a way to etch it on.

Here's a link to a kind of Phillip K. Dick world, who's one of
my favourites in the sf genre, but I certainly don't want to live
there. What do you think?

carvings

My grandmother has quite a strong presence in my place,
she carved these frames, chair & cupboard, I guess before
the first world war. I think then it was fine to be 'accomplished'
but you'd have to be really driven to be an artist. Our mother
(her daughter) also had a real skill, & then 4 children came.
Lower right is an image I made of her ~ before we happened.
How fortunate, to be free to do what we love!

Check the huge & often rewarding art for housewives site.