But the upside is that I have an opportunity to create my own Arabian knight.

I've been reading David Deida's 'Way of the Superior Man'. It's for blokes, but I'm told I possess a lot of masculine energy (this is a step in my attempt to do away with it.. or at least to understand the other species better and know what the ultimate man could/should be like! but I digress...). Deida talks about man's obsession with do do doing, going from task to task, filling up his life with getting things done.
So what if you were suddenly to die? Are you living right at that moment? Full of life and able to gracefully go out? As opposed to woh, wait, I'm not ready! I forgot to live!

Deida suggests that even in the doing of things (which we can't avoid) we can hold ourselves in a being-ness, with our hearts open and really seeing our task in the bigger picture of life and love. Simply, we can 'do' with love.

It just takes a breath to bring you back to being in your doing.

From the number of times I slice my finger with knives, I'm clearly a mindless do-er. So my little Arabian Knight can remind me today to be be be.

[current mood] Ice Coffee & My Text Message Tone

This is a (slightly silly) introductory video I made with an old friend when we were in PNG a year ago. I edited this together in my cabin in Goroka to pitch a documentary to Australian Business Volunteers. No luck. They were 'restructuring' and couldn't commit. So now I wade through endless footage - enough to make a feature film. Any buyers?

I thought it overdue to share a tasty slice of my experience with you. For six weeks I worked with village weaving women. Virtually all women in PNG are weavers and for many, the sale of their weaved bilum bags is their sole income.

I was brought in to develop their weaving designs to appeal to an international market. We focused on the bilum bags and developed a collection.

Here are some of the women that made the collection...

I asked them 'what is your dream?' They had never been asked that before, some were stumped and I had to get them to imagine that they had a million dollars and the freedom to do whatever they wanted, and after some time, they whispered their dreams to another woman to translate to me. I think their humble wishes really put things in perspective.

Here are the women and I with the bags and cushions from our collection.

My eyes still well up when I think of how much I miss them. However the experience of flying in a tiny rickety plane over the highlands stops me short of heading back to hang out.

Without phones, postal addresses or email I can't keep in touch. I'm going to print 20 copies of this photo above and send it to a business near the bilum markets and hope the women receive it.

In one of my alternative life scenarios I'd take this project on whole heartedly and make it happen for these women. They really need someone there on the ground to manage the sales and quality control.

6 weeks wasn't long enough...

[current mood] Wedding Canapes & Lionel Richie

It was BYO gourmet dessert (and plate to eat off).

I now have had a taste of what it may be like to organise your own wedding. Decorations, tables, trailers and the correct number of chairs.

I had the flags sewn up after being inspired by the Festival of Perth's decoration. I picked up chairs from verge side collections. I scored $2 per piece odd glassware and I managed to move a picnicing family from my perfect chosen spot - pronto! The highlight would be the battery operated lanterns (which inspired a song by me with the lyrics "China China, China China, how you make many wonderful things").

Jo's perfect Almond and Polenta cake

Dave & Melissa's fancypants platter

Steen's Dazzling panna cotta

She brought origami paper and we all practiced making paper cranes by candlelight while he played his battery operated keyboard and we sang along to Tears For Fears & other great 80's hits high on sugar and certainly with no time for photography. SO you get no shots after 6pm, sorry.

I do hate not having images to share but I'm getting better at just enjoying it, not needing to grasp it.
Someone else shot my hair though, which I'm glad about.

And the next day I had paper cranes to remember it by...

[current mood] David Deida (Way of the Superior Man) & Crab Linguini

"Enclosed is your mission, if you choose to accept it..."

"I do I do I do!"

I've been thinking a lot about my purpose - that deep sense of purpose... that which drives my every action, that which makes the journey directional, meaningful, sensible... logical responsible practical... oops supertramp moment.
And at this moment I've forgotten my purpose. It happens every now and then and the common thread is the amount of time I'm in front of a computer. Not just because the electro magnetic field zaps my chakras into misalignment or at worse, totally closure, but because my purpose is over-ridden by several micro purposes.

I'm talking about DESIGN purposes. Jobs are missions I lose myself in!

And like a designer superhero I take on the missions. Ace designer, creative problem-solver, beautifier, extrordinare gets down to work like she's saving lives.

I go about my multiple missions with real dedication, with the most whole-hearted and detailed desire to produce the best design I can (for the purpose). Sometimes I stop to query whether my moving of an image a few pixels to the left will in fact have any tangible results for the client, however job satisfaction IS paramount.

Here are two recent examples of about 20 jobs I've got right now pulling me in many a purposeful direction.

Regional Arts Fund - promotional pack

Client: Country Arts WA
Mission: To promote their regional arts funding program

I took 8 successful projects and turned them into little inspiration boards, as though the people have collected quotes, photos and objects throughout their project and pinned them to their office cork board. I kept the theme real square.

Here is the beaut package, pin striped and recycled.

Here is the back, it folds in and is sealed with a inspiration sticker - also useful to then stick on your forehead or heart after opening.

Here is how it folds, like a box! I've done enough house-moving in my time to be able to fold these babies into shape rather swiftly.

Here are the cards.

Some back-sides placed together to show the kind of detail I get into when on my mission. Each card has an object on it, "pinned to the board". So I hunted through rubbish to collect plastic lids for the recycled art kids project card, I nabbed some blue rope and picked a seedpod off the ground to make the river-art object. I spun together wool for the weaving project. I hand cut metallic stars for the dance project...

And best of all, I chose my own (and favourite) photograph for the Mingenew photography residency card - the project I did!

The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik

Client: Perth Theatre Company & Tim Watts
Mission: To give prospective show buyers a take-home pack

Tim Watts' brilliantly reviewed one man show had to pitch itself at APAM (Australia Performing Arts Market) so I thought it appropriate that the adventure show should be packaged in an adventure survival pack (like Alvin would be given for his mission).

Click for a bigger view

Each piece was full of wit and detail. I hand soaked those luggage tags in coffee, dried them on the front lawn and stamped them whilst sitting on a plane. A very tightly packed 'air bus'.

There was the species chart for Alvin's identification needs whilst under water. I loved making up the names like Squibbiligibbet and Siloneous Legalot.

The important information sheet with a whole bunch of NOs and crucial graphs.

The other side of the sheet shows Alvin's suit. I do like the details like 'store in a cool dry place' - like you could, under water! ho ho.

Then there were the support cards. I designed that word sleuth to be the appropriate level of challenging with a few misleading trick-words!

And the really supportive cards like images of food that you wish you had.

You should go check out his show sample video on the Weeping Spoon website and fall in love with Alvin.

The packs were a hit and he's booked shows all over the world.
So I think I'll take full credit for that, knowing that my mini purpose for this job was met, big tick, and on to the next adventure....

[current mood] The idea of pink macaroons & Polyphonic Spree

Then she asked, "Do you want a foot rub?"

What the hell, "sure" I said.

It's simply not often enough that a person offers you a foot rub.

And so another story unfolds, me with my leg up on a woman I've just met in a caravan park on the Sunshine Coast, QLD. Michelle and her man submit their faces for another page in my future book 'In a Sea of Grey Nomads' (title TBC). It may well need to be titled 'I'm parked' as I'm finding more often than not the grey nomads are more like grey statues - unmoving from the caravan park for decades.

I love all the details of living like this.

And I love my interactions as a young freak wandering and a-wondering around caravan parks.

Little things like getting instructions to places I might like on plastic table tops.

I'm also collecting photographs of other people I meet and the quotes they say.

This is Pete who I met in the street. How does a street meet turn into a coffee, bread sharing, chilli-swapping session about paths to enlightenment?

I can't explain that. But now I have a CD that may see me receive "The Knowledge".

I should write down quotes as I don't have one for him.

However the couple said to me:
"Keep moving, never stay more than a day or the crocs will get ya"
and I asked, "Why do croc's wait a day?"
"It's mother nature. They see a pattern forming." he said.

I think he was making an analogy with the crocs...

[current mood] Green Grapes & The Age of Aquarius

And finally, sitting at my friend's outdoor table, I quickly sketched my experience after some lengthy ranting about the woman in question. It's what really happened between us when I was working for her.

There aren't too many people that really really get my goat, but this woman wins tops prize. I really tried to turn my hate vibes into love vibes, but have resorted to illustration-revenge!

I have been really working at the 'why do I attract people that talk AT me for hours' concept. I am seeing a very strong pattern in my life where I am interacting with these kinds. So far I've worked out that I'm a very active listener and invite it somehow, secondly perhaps I am meant to review my own talk-ability as one is often agitated by a trait they possess. This is still a work in progress.

But for now, the bitch gets it.

[current mood] Stu's Tacos & The Hives

Use Your Loaf (The Miss behind Les' Breads)

I love barter. The exchange of service and products. I learnt that in year 9 commerce. Back then I thought it was just a ye olde term for those egyptians that bartered a bag of grain for 36 pineapples.
We also spent a week learning to write a cheque. Man, year 9 commerce was excellent and so so useful.

So I learnt that I can barter my photography of a baker for bread.

Les Bartlett is an artisan baker based at Crystal Waters village near Maleny, Queensland. Les taught himself (later in life - around age 40) to bake! And is passionate about the bakery being the centre of a vibrant community. The warm beating heart of Crystal Waters! Every Friday he spends an entire day from dawn til dark baking a range of scrumptious sourdough loaves for the locals. I photographed all the beautiful doughy moments in exchange for as much bread as I could eat (which is about one loaf it turns out).

Dough!

And for extra fun, having seen a photo attached to the bakery door, I suggested we do an 'ode' to Les's favourite shot of a french baker.

This is the original shot:

And this is ours...

Complete with framing, caption and credit.

(Besides the loaf, Les also gave me some chocolate, so it worked out as a good barter exchange in the end.)

Go barter something people! It's the economy of the future (and of those folk in egypt back in roman numerally something, didn't study history sorry).

[current mood] Relentless Waves & Stealing Some Kid's Fries

Here are a couple examples of what I find...

The design process for me always involves a degree of 'chance'. I have to surprise myself somewhat because only then do I look at it objectively - it didn't quite come from me so I can see how good it is!

I will set out with a plan and then play with the tools to see what emerges. The playing around can confuse you because every turn of the effects filter can send you into joyous new rapture. So I have to be careful that I don't spiral into play-land and lose my sense of direction. The "oooh!" factor has to be given time to settle to see if it has 'stick'.

This is a recent design of a website for a poet which I love love! (24 hours and still loving). It combines some experimental play with the planned concept of using a book spine and the mirroring of elements. Her writing is described as "feelings are seen as capable of deception and, like reflections in a mirror, they are reversed and distorted".

Nothing like taking a form of art and making another form of art represent it. And through the use of a review, another form of art!

woah...

[current mood] Joyous Gulping Tears in The Ocean & Bacon (sorry but I am craving meat!)

Then press play:

This was Pete and I playing Marimba whilst it poured outside. I'm on the bass beat-keeping.

There is a crew of Crystal Waters people who practice Marimba every Thursday.

Pete warmed me up by teaching me a few tunes on his Marimba at home.

It's made from piping, rope and plastic bags.

You could probably take your Marimba camping and turn it into a tent using the various elements.

Pete gets his over to the neighbours in a wheelbarrow.

This is Pete expressing love and laughter with a fellow Marimba player. Note the deep bass Marimba in made of serious plumbing pipe.

I loved this angle of Sara. She had a bag of curious percussion.

And if I had a marimba, this is what it would look like.

And it would sound something like:

Blue blue blue, yellow yellow
Green Green, Green Green, purple.

[current mood] Paw Paw Salad & Aussie Pub Singalong Classics

This morning's lesson was purely experiential (and I must be honest and say I did avoid the above outcome). I must add that I'm not your over zealous fly swatter, but blood sucking march flies really do piss me off... I'm prepared to kill to get the pain to cease.

I don't quite have the bush-gear one should, but I make do.
This and a pair of Pete's gumboots.

Besides this, in the past four days I've learned a lot to apply to my future property...
Native species names/recognition, How to prepare a bed for seedlings, How to get rid of evil vines, How to divert eyes from nude people's nude bits, How to use a machete, How to play marimba melodies, How to plant lettuce... I must start writing things down as my brain has always been far too sieve-like. Retention is around 48 hours at best.

Now, this post is what I shall coin 'combo post'. Two posts in one...

Leaf Ladies

On my rainforest walk in Bellthorpe, the leaf-carpet path would occassionally display single magestic ladies lying in a shaft of light, highlighted by their very brown surrounds. They just lay there like model species. I imagined them being replaced by stunning nude women for a photoshoot.

Let me introduce them...

Esmeralda

Glenda

Cynthia

Betty

Barbara

[current mood] 10 cent avocado from the front of a house & marimba