Nanna Before My Time

I've been nicknamed 'Nanna'... and I don't find it very becoming. I know I have Grandma Hands - as they were full of lines since I was seven, but now I've coupled this with some heavy-duty crocheting.

Yes, I have been travelling for a while now with "three clothes and half an underwear" (credit: Nicola Harte) but have prioritised the inclusion of a fully kitted crochet bag.

As discussed last night with friends... as you get older there is a period of acceptance of not actually wanting to do what you used to do. For example, a couple years ago I would have forced myself to go clubbing and to late night bars whilst visiting Melbourne. I would have walked the streets all day, shopping and meeting friends and been damn exhausted but thinking that was what I was meant to be doing. But now I fully embrace that I want to simply sit on a good friend's couch, crochet, talk about life and drink one damn fine glass of wine. I don't have to prove nuthin!

Now I know that craft is oh so irritatingly hipster right now, but it does not detract from my delight at having learned to crochet and the incrementally improving quality of my productions.

I forced Rowan to give me an object to crochet and after some thought he came up with 'a breakfast radish'.
I had to google it and discovered it's like a radish and a parsnip and a carrot got together and made a three-way baby.

It's pretty accurate.... but I was sorely disappointed to discover on Google that other people in the world felt that crocheting a breakfast radish was also a good idea. How hard is it to be original? What is not crochet-corrupted yet? Can I truly make a soft and knotted version of something that hasn't been nannafied before??

I even joked with Cristina about 'haha, what next, a crochet eye patch??" only to discover that is like, so 2 years ago...

Well I'm going to try to find things (or more like NOT find them on the interwebs) to crochet.
Feel free to suggest...

I don't doubt I'll be over this phase soon and hopefully I will still find things to do when I am 70... or back to clubbing for me!

[current mood] A not-curdled soy latte and a not-cashew-allergy laced granola

30 Ties and No Occasion

This is the third participant in The Occasion project that I started in Armidale, NSW. I only managed to get through 3 people in my week as artist in residence at NERAM. But I will continue on as I travel around Australia... starting conversations about why we hang on to objects and ideas and fantasies and helping people seize the day and USE their things for a photoshoot.

I loved working with Hadley. He's one of my fantastic new friends in Armidale. Hadley has 30 ties he's been imagining wearing when he becomes a 'professional'. Years later, those ties haven't seen the fluorescent light of a day in the office.

Donating his ties to the occasion project was certainly a PROCESS as much as an outcome, as Hadley explains in the video piece below.

The Occasion: with Hadley from Neram on Vimeo.

Hands up if you want to take part if you're in Perth, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Sydney, Armidale or Melbourne! I'll be in those parts over the next two months and I'd love for you to find an object that you are saving for a special occasion and use it in an everyday or unique way.

Got something? Email me.

[current mood] Old Funk & Cherries

An Instagram Love Story

I discovered Instagram a week ago, in a park, in Armidale NSW.

For those that are at least a week behind me, Instagram is a free smart phone ap that takes photos that you can apply a range of funky filters to including colour and focus effects AND geo-locate them and then share them with friends, following any number of people and their beautiful views of life!

As a sometimes-slack-photographer, I love using my phone and clicking to create effects. It's far more versatile than Hipstamatic which you know was my camera of choice in India and the USA!

Looking back through my week of Instagram photos, I realised that they tell the love story that occured concurrently...

I sat outside at the NERAM gallery cafe where I'd get my morning coffee and it was here that I took my first Instagram photo of a man reflecting.

My coffee was delivered by the owner, Rowan, and I showed him my photograph and put it on the cafe's Facebook page. We struck up a friendship consisting of shared nerdiness, beatles lyric quotes and an identical cutlery collection.

It was raining a bit and very chilly for December, so I wandered into the Museum of Print under the gallery.

I played with the letterpress to create a christmas card I imagined giving to friends. I could spend a week down here!

But the next day, Rowan asked me out.
We only have a week but 'why not', we both thought.

So we ate brilliant food together as much as we could.

We drank martinis and margaritas together when we could.
And sometimes apart - him working and me playing with Instagram.

We discovered a tiny rabbit at the cafe and I made a dozen new friends.

I followed him on errands as any time was good time

I picked flowers from his garden for glass jars we bought at the tip shop

I immersed myself in fresh produce and his housewarming party

We didn't get much sleep

I never made any more of those letterpress cards but nothing seemed more right than to rest the one print I did make against a vase of flowers on Rowan's porch.

It's almost Christmas and now my poem makes perfect sense.

So I'm contemplating Armidale and continuing a love story...

[current mood] Artichoke Hearts & The Beatles

The Occasion project: Lauren

Lauren Upjohn for The Occasion project.

I've been given the opportunity to be an artist in residence at NERAM in Armidale, NSW.

Heard of Neram? It's the absolutely under-rated New England Regional Art Museum which has the most impressive collection of Heidelberg era art in a regional area. It also runs education projects as well as touring and selling exhibitions. And not to mention the incredibly delicious and gourmet café I could LIVE IN! Neram Harvest.

As part of my residency I'm doing a project called The Occasion. And I'm setting up this blog for other artists to do residencies!

I've been thinking about this Occasion concept for a while. I think nearly everybody has some object they hang on to for a special occasion. We often buy these objects with a future fantasy story attached to them.

And it sits there, being un-lived. A tangible expression of not being present. Not seizing the day!

For example I bought this 60s swirly dress from an op shop for this fantasy party I might attend where I need to dress retro... 3 years on, no such party has occured. So if I were part of this project, I would pop on this dress and just head out for the day, do my shopping and enjoy the dress in the everyday occasion. I do the same thing with tea cups, stationery and shoes...

My first photographic subject is the horse riding country gal, Lauren Upjohn.

 

Here is the video I made of Lauren's Occasion.

The Occasion: with Lauren from Neram on Vimeo.

[current mood] Croissants & Camomile Tea with New Arty Friends on Squeeky Chairs

Mmmm weddings

I never would have thought I'd be so into being a wedding photographer.
I surprise myself! I just can't wait for more more more!

Can you FEEL this photo?

It's that feeling that feeds me.

When I've just shot a wedding I can't wait to go through the images, edit them and look at them, over and over again.
I guess it's about the beauty, the joy - I love looking at what I've done.
It's not like I'm being egocentric, there is some little bit of magic between me and the final shot that takes a bit of 'me' out of it.

Here are some favourites from Kath & Dave's wedding last weekend.

There is much you can't control, such as the light and weather, the people's love, the natural expressions and the way flags get held, just right.

It makes the world of difference photographing people that are full of feeling.

I need to be the fly on the wall to allow the experience to occur.

As Kath's sister, Janine wrote to me "It's as though you were wearing some sort of cloak of invisibility - I'm looking at them and thinking I don't remember her taking that!"

I need to be aware of angles and a hundred things going on at once. It just occurs in my mind very quickly so I don't miss a thing!

Sometimes you see potential and you just give it a little encouragement.

And other times you choose everything to be perfect but still let the moment breath.

But it's also fun to entirely stage something with clear direction for ultimate effect.

This was the secret 'posh' shot for mum.

With every wedding I do, I carry the experience of all those that went before. When you keep doing something, you just have to get better right?

As Jappalin, the incredible florist for Kath & Dave's wedding said as she gushed down the phone last night, "The future's looking bright!"

[current mood] Whirring computers in Armidale, NSW & Ryvitas for breakfast, lunch and tea.

A poem from the seaside tonight

The day is at it's end
I feel a sorrow rising
but the dusk is setting in
and I love it for surprising  

I look down on a beach
near empty but for three
children playing cricket
and my own two bare feet 

I head towards the sand
sitting under salty air
like a thick mist in the sky
not a wispy cloud spare 

The ocean beckons me 
singing deep in my ear
a sweet entrancing sound
and so I enter here 

I let the waves lap me up
I begin to create prose
I exclaim it to the ocean 
"my love my love" I go 

I really talk aloud
the ocean seems a being
I'm talking with about
how I'm truly feeling 

I let it be wild
I let it clear me
I take on her message
it's medicine you see

These colours hit me
beyond any doubt
the most beautiful colours
I have ever come about 

No words will convey 
and I think that it's due
to the millions of colours
making up this here hue

It's like metallic, it's cyan, it's turquoise. It's blue
but it's deep blue, sky blue, mauve, lilac blue

It's so so 
so so
so
beautiful 

I look up as it graduates 
deeper and deeper
and I see this dome above me
from my tiny peeper 

I'm immersed in this lover
and I travel across
to the light that makes dusk
the setting sun almost lost 

And just to the right
her partner, the moon
a slant smile rising
I feel possessed to salute

And so yoga I do
for the sun and the moon
for this life that I'm given
I say thank you 

thank you 

and I cry because I mean it
even with sand in my eye 
that drops from my hands 
clasping up to the sky

I see a little twinkle
a flash in the air
and I say thank you for that
what ever that was there

I step in a puddle
of curious form 
I see the sky reflected 
or the dune like floor 

I change focus each step
moving between two worlds 
one of sand one of sky
I walk or I fly

And I feel light and celebratory
I begin to dance and pirouette
and it's like I'm possessed
to prance and ballet step

I'm by myself on the beach,
no one's looking at me
I'm dancing in joy
and no one, no one can see

My body it moves in response
to visual ecstasy
but I can't help but think
it's temporary

It's fading, getting darker
the ocean nearing black
and I wonder why I'm crying
Do I fear a lack?

But there is beauty in the night
yes there is! I remember!
A galaxy of sparks and pinpricks
I can dream of their splendour

As I leave I reflect 
on how words really suck
and that nothing can explain 
and make you give a stuff

Words come in drabs
arching creeping bubbling
But no names for the colour
There I'm really fumbling

Then I realise more is going on
in this feeling that I'm having
Looking at a photo
I would never feel this smashing

Being here within it
It's the presence of the thing
in all its fleeting glory
as the dark is entering 

[current mood] Sesame Snaps & Queen

Dissecting the Heart

I've often pondered where the heart shape comes from.

Doesn't look much like our blood pumping, fleshy organ.

Here are my thoughts:

A heart shape represents so much more than our heart. It represents love, the heart of our being.

The Heart Chakra

Our heart chakra isn't positioned where our heart is, instead it's in the upper middle of the chest.
This chakra is the energy centre of our openness - our ability to love and be loved.

As it is with all chakras, they are in the centre of our body. That's because we want to be symmetrical, balanced, with our energy coming from the core.

So the heart-shape is, likewise, symmetrical. It could represent our heart chakra.

The Act of Love

It dawned on me that the heart shape could also define the direction of giving love, and receiving love.

Like a topographic view of a hug.

We give love out, like out stretched arms. Then that process draws love back in, filling us.
There is no such thing as running out of love to give. Love is a bottomless cup.

I've been seeing heart shapes in lots of places lately. Here are some of them photographed.

"Love was not put in your heart to stay, love is not love til you give it away" - a fortune cookie I once had.

So I left a little love in my morning walk.

[current mood] Fish Cakes & Sneezing

How to: Annoy your OCD housemate

The lovely Alice has a slight condition. She describes herself as "a little bit anal" and you know what that means, if someone even acknowledges their desire to have all forks facing west then you know they are fully obsessive compulsive!

For some reason Alice and I were drawn to live together. I suppose there is something we need to learn from each other.

Alice needs to learn not to control me and I need to learn not to be controlled by Alice.

That was a joke (Alice!). What I really need to learn is how to be true to myself within a more controlled environment as well as partake in some of the order, respecting Alice.

Alice needs to learn how to not get wound up by my spontaneous, messy, creative chaos and let things flow more.

Right?

But it's fun to tease Alice...

Leaving a pear with just one bite sitting on the kitchen bench all day.

Not properly closing the pantry door which leaves the auto-light on.

Taking the ordered cutlery and turning a spoon completely upside down. I'm so crazy.

Mixing up the canned vegetables varieties and making a pretty pattern.

Leaving a giant pom pom on the sofa.

Turning the right nob to face right, not left like the left one.

Taking over the kitchen bench with your office, hard drives and dirty crockery.

I've noticed Alice is getting used to it now. I think she's learned all she needs to from me and it's time to move on. My job is done.

As a farewell gift I bought her these gorgeous, handmade, imperfect, colourful tea cups

and she really liked them.

[current mood] Sushi & Other People Doing Hard Labour

ps I warned Alice about this post and the information herein may be slightly exaggerated and I may have in fact learned a few things from Alice. I'm balancing out my freestyling condition with a good dose of zen-like cleanliness, attention to detail and some planning. Just some.

From Blues to Bliss

Like an old log with hundreds of staples... I got into a bit of a blue state last weekend.

It resulted from going out to a club against my heart's desire and subsequently feeling like I was a) invisible b) ugly and c) unhappy.

I emailed a friend, my favourite knight in shining ink, who wordsmithed me back to a neutral level. I was reminded to NOT go to bars and expect any gratification and that I am beautiful to those that matter. This is not a space for me.

The next day the blues lingered as I walked by the lake to the farmers markets... but when I arrived I saw a friend holding beautiful roses and I thought 'I want!' so I went to the stall's man.
"Yellow for friendship" he said and then grabbed a bunch with a pink one in the mix. This made me happy. That's so me.

On the walk home I really saw the beauty of the lake, and instead of crossing the bridge, I walked down the slope and sat underneath it with my roses.

Rather than pass beauty by, I thought I'd take my glimpse into immersion.

The water was such an incredible teal.

The sky, an endless deep blue.

The distant sound of children giggling and dandelions skimming across the waters surface.

It caused me to shift. I suppose like a therapy, if you sit in beauty and observe, it starts to alter your mood.

I took this concept with me today, even though I was feeling pretty good.
I drove to a crochet class, following an urge I'd had for a while, I put all else aside and just went.

I loved learning something new with ol biddies whilst being given cups of tea
and being told I was very good for a beginner (always helps).

When I went to the van a man approached me to see if I wanted to sell it.
After ten minutes he had offered to teach me to surf and sail and I went on my merry way on a high.

I decided to take this vibe further and stopped at Cooroy Botanic Gardens which I had only heard about.

As soon as I walked in I saw two birds I'd never seen before. Unnoticed by other passers by.

Each step I gently took didn't seem to scare them. I couldn't believe how close they allowed me.
I had a little chat and whistle with them and then took a snap.

A tawny frogmouth I later find out.

And the beauty of everything in the park, people-less, came crashing into my heart.

I saw things I'd never seen.

A snowing white jacaranda

A cluster fig

I really wanted to analyse why I felt so good, how everything seemed to be so gorgeous and my life felt flowing.
I was afraid that if I thought too hard about it that it would slip between my fingers.

But I can't really help myself.

So my theory is that if you really do what your heart wants, in any moment, then life unfolds for you, just so, just beautifully.
And if you open your eyes to explore the space in which you heart is blooming, then this enhances the joy you feel.

Words never do convey the greatness of the experience, but I'm trying. And perhaps with pictures, you get more of the feeling.

Try it and see?

[current mood] Lettuce and Banana Smoothies & Marvin Gaye (ay!)

100 dolls, countless hearts!

 There's that little gap between pressing send on an email with an electronic PDF of a 200 page Indesign document and when it arrives in the mailbox to be unwrapped, revealing itself as a 3 dimensional glossy ex-tree smelling object!

I'm always impatient!

And it was a proud moment when I walked into the kitchen with my latest design in the pulp!

Here are some shots of the 100 Dolls, Countless Hearts book which I photographed and designed. You can see some of the 'making of' in my previous post Old chooks and dolls.

Buy it! It's inspirational, beautiful, just $30 and all proceeds go to orphans in South Africa.

As part of the design 'experience', I received many messages from the Uthando Project coordinator, Georgia Efford. She doesn't spare positive feedback when she's whipping me day and night with the most insane timeframe I've ever experienced! But I love Georgia's enthusiasm and relentlessly positive thinking.

Here are my favourites quotes of Georgia-inspiration that kept me going til the end.

"Jesus and all the apostles would be proud of you little miracle worker"

"I don't know truly how to thank you. Nat, it was way beyond the call of duty... and kept on being like that to the last gasp."

"Nat, you are a little humdinger, as my Dad would say."

"Nat, the book feels as if we are bringing some peace to the world."

"Absolutely thrilling Nat. I truly love your way of putting things together beautifully."

"You have accomplished marvels today Nat! xxx"

"You are most generous and are earning lots of Light Units"

"Hi Nat, the more i think about you juggling all these elements the more I love what you do and the can do attitude. In retrospect, the funniest thing was me confidently saying "Oh Nat we will have the text ready for you when you arrive!!!!!!!!!!" How did you cope with so much unknown all the time?"

That's my favourite. Real acknowledgement of the challenge. And that's what you want from clients. Awareness and appreciation.

And for such positive feedback, acknowledging my accumulating light units towards my ascension to heaven, I'd do it all again!

[current mood] detox high & the smell of yellow roses