felices fiestas!

found at twitter...

Its warm here and even though I'm not at the beach this feels like a fitting image to share with peeps from the northern hemisphere.

Its actually late here as I type ... the end of christmas day... so I've added this image looking into my studio and house. It seems all the neighbours are away. We are still getting to know the neighbourhood so its an eerie feeling. Our former home always had more people around and late night revellers to boot.

SEED.ART.LAB studio is closed for a week. Back after New Years!

Whilst I don't speak spanish I do rather like the notion of joyful festivity... and I think it a good wish to send around the globe when we don't all subscribe to the same creeds, religious or cultural festivals. As many have a holiday at this time of year and the same calendar is quite common around the globe its a punctuation mark that means something to all of us ... whatever that may be!

We chose to stay in this year... a new home makes it appealing to do so. We'd have been at my niece Lara's in a flash if that didn't involve a busy freeway trip for 90 mins or more. On top of travelling south tomorrow one's 83 yr old mother voted to avoid the roads and Lara agreed it was wise. This year we celebrated her marriage to the lovely Dwight and 10 days ago were up for her 30th birthday and an announcement she will be having a July baby. So we will visit in January for sure... and come July keep us away!!!

Imagine my mothers delight when her 5 yr old great grandson William, son of Lara's brother Tristan and wife Renee, phoned this morning to say his Mummy was having a baby. Olivia, my mother sat outside all morning counting all the July birthday's there'd be in the family with such relish! As her birthday is July 31 she hopes either Renee or Lara will bring her a very special birthday present!

It's been a pleasant day and I've pottered a bit in the kitchen... very low key nibbles today which in the heat is great. Red papaya for breakfast. Simple things laid out for lunch... and this afternoon a taste of home-baked goods given as gifts this week.

The Panforte was made by Jane's mother Vivienne who's mother is Italian and no doubt they have cooked this panforte recipe for years. The other tiny Xmas cakes were from Olivia's friend Stella who is quite famous for her brilliant cooking I'm sure. She is the only person I know who takes her treats to cafe owners she befriends so they can try her wares. The love her... so do we! She's young 80+

 year old and gift giving small treats is something she does all the time!

There other thing I'm doing is sorting things to take with me on a little mini-residency for 5 days.

My rationale in taking this short opportunity was to look into lining up a longer stay with hosts at Koonjewarre and Springbrook Rescue - part of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society.

Their work consists of:

Springbrook Rescue” is a multi-stage project to protect and restore the World Heritage rainforests of the Springbrook region in South-East Queensland, Australia.

It involves seven programs:

1  acquiring land to expand the World Heritage area

2   restoring critical habitat and landscape connectivity

3   community engagement in World Heritage protection, presentation and restoration

4   science programs to guide restoration and monitoring

5   protecting World Heritage through better governance

6   presenting World Heritage values for their protection and community well being

7   partnerships to realize a shared vision

NB: text from website page!

Because I'm tagging along this week on a pre-organised camp I am doing a lovely exchange with them where I have a generous work space and I will offer 90 min classes over three mornings to 10 or more people. I will focus my seeds and biodiversity art classes around the work being done onsite to weed out invade species and restore the bio-diverse landscape which is deemed a Biodiversity hotspot.

Its come at a great time as I have been working non-stop to set up the new studio and introduce my plans for Seed.Art.Lab, and importantly, after months this year spent in limbo whilst relocating homes, these past 6 weeks have seen a spike in income that was... how to put it... absolutely about time.

click here to visit

I am so thankful to the support of a great many people who have visited, sent messages, made purchases at my online shop or in person, shared my project with friends and importantly set ideas up for next year so that there will be ongoing events, workshops and such.

Going backwards $10,000 due to stalled projects, expenses and new studio set up costs saw me holding my breath and anxious to turn that situation around. $10,000 is peanuts to some but I know many artists see it as something considerable and we don't like to spend when we're not earning.

Being able to get back on track makes me incredibly grateful for each and every bit of support and kindness that came my way. I am finishing 2013 in a far better place than when it started actually ... and despite the unnerving panorama of global challenges which I do, by nature, take very seriously I feel my faith in the kindness of many absolutely assures me of the colossal numbers of wonderful people on this planet that want it to be the best world it can be for all.

Recently starting "internships" at the studio has been a surprising joy. I've long enjoyed working with teens and children but it was an incredible stroke of luck that two separate conversations led me to intuitively put forward the idea of work experience to Sam and her mother back in May, and to Jane when I met her finally in person at my opening weekend after helping her in March with research via email.

That we decided to call it an internship was a mutual decision between the girls and I. They've been coming once a week for 5 or 6 hours. The focus of their time is spent between my projects and their own, depending on what else is happening at the time. They both wrote blog posts for me on their own artwork and their individual experiences here at the studio as they come on different days and have not met as yet.

Read Jane's post.

Read Sam's post.

We discuss what it means for them to be in a studio, slowly observing the full gamut of my particular art practice, getting glimpses into challenges and down-sides as well as the wonderful aspects of this vocation. Both families are delightful. Sam's mother put it to me from the start to ask 15 yr old Sam to help with anything useful for the studio business. This was liberating as I then knew there was a very clear understanding of my role.

Sam's father, until his recent untimely death, had an international career as an award-winning Architectural Illustrator so her understanding of a Studio Practice is very much about conducting a professional life and a business as much as exploring the depth and breadth of one's creative life. What has been exciting to see in her is that she understands the pragmatics of this vocation but is also utterly whimsical and enamoured with expressing her creative passion. Her joy in art-making is infectious!

Jane ushers in a kind of energy and experience that is different but equally inspiring. She brings me ideas every time she walks in the door. Have I thought of doing so and so... what about this or that? We laugh, talk and work on some of the tasks that she has essentially reminded me of the importance of.

Time soon passes and its been great to see her shift out of her heavily academic Year 12 mode of thinking and art making and into a period of  freedom from academic direction... to realise there is now a window of opportunity for her to make marks and put down ideas that she feels like exploring... certainly at a least until she takes up University if that's what she chooses to do next. There's a fluid exchange... we go between working on something for my deadlines to thinking through things of importance to her quite effortlessly.

Ideal really for school students ... much of their direct experience of art at this point is more likely the busy school classroom, generally without commercial context or broader world engagement, apart from referencing ideas of artists. Perhaps if they were doing 5 days a week for a month or longer all this would be a different experience. But one day a week gives a solid grounding in the studio reality and 6 days to go off and ruminate on that and find whatever they might like to explore inspired from their time in the studio.

More days are planned for January and I look forward to that.

One thing I want to share before I sign off came up lately when approached by the Global Crop Diversity Trust re an image for their Christmas greeting. As a not-for-profit they were interested in connecting and doing Homage to the seed promotion in exchange for non-exclusive use of the artwork. Having followed their organisation since 2010 when my project was taking off it was an inquiry I was delighted to follow through on.


This was one of the artwork images I sent to them... 'Perennial Symbols from the Botanical Realm I'.  It was decided to crop a section of this work for a closer view suiting the card the were going to have printed and also send via email!

Original work: 120 cm x 60 cm... one half of a dyptich.

To read more about this go to the Homage to the seed blog post I wrote this week where I described the way this painting evolved over two long years.

The cropped section below is now available as a Limited Edition print from my Seed.Art.Lab online shop here.

You can call my mobile on 0430 599 344 if you have inquiries. Or leave me a message on how to contact you! I've been organising to use Paypal so that makes it easier at the online shop.

It seems like a good note to end the year on really. To be able to share my artwork with the organisation that works at every level to conserve the seeds of the crops we rely on everyday all around the planet is a satisfying thought.

And tomorrow I go up to Springbrook National Park for a 5 day residency where I will be focusing on Seeds and biodiversity whilst learning about the efforts being made by Springbrook Rescue Action                                                                              to restore land from invasive species and also deforestation that occured decades ago.  

I'm finding myself falling asleep at the key board after rather a long day... so I'll be off for now.
Christmas blessings to followers of this tradition and my warmest wishes that your holiday be a great pleasure everyone!!

Image found at Springbrook Rescue

slow summer days...

Somehow days are very full at the moment, making posting at my blogs a very rare event sadly! I say sadly because I am fond of bloggy friends from near and far and I really miss the to and fro of this realm! Two years ago over the xmas/new years period we had huge rains and floods in this part of the world and I remember blogging non-stop through al that. Last summer was cool and quite wet too... hence much time spent catching up online. This year is different with bushfires more likely!

Xmas seems ages ago now ... I downloaded photos yesterday and noted I was so relaxed over my 6 day break at the coast I rarely got my camera out. I shall have to find if my brother down south has photos from xmas night when we revisited all the songs we used to play on guitar and sing together. That was blissful!

Having little ones around demonstrating their excitement always makes for some fun! William enjoyed his nan's pavlova smothered in berries! Some memorable moments conversing with him I must say! Lunch under the mango tree at my niece Lara's home was really delightful.... photos of the magnificent tree and the even larger macadamia tree next to it...? Too much going on I'm afraid!

William at lunch!

Patrick eating blueberries ...recovering from 

a fall where a front tooth met an early demise!

out the front of our holiday place!

A last minute online find for our family gathering up the coast. The deck overlooking the water was blissful... we spent late afternoons and evenings mesmerised by the water and boats coming by, some with xmas decorations and passengers waving and singing out to us!

13 of us had a peaceful xmas night on the deck with the family musicians Lara and Dwight playing so many wonderful songs for us... including all our requests from the 70's and 80's. Words were remembered and harmonies too! Cheeky friends used to call us the Von Trap family with good reason... piano lessons, singing and guitars were compulsory for my 3 siblings and I. As were the hours of practice and the Eistedfodds etc! These moments years later make it so worthwhile.
Four year old William loved the evening by the water... effusively commenting on all the boats coming by and people waving. It was hard to leave I must say.

News for 2013 is that we're in the midst of rethinking "home". Getting the house ready at the moment to be offered for sale soon spells major change. House hunting took up days before Xmas and now that we are back its all go with the fresh makeover in readiness for the (daunting) experience of showing our home.

Perhaps it's the same the world over... here it's definitely a buyer's market .... houses sitting for a long time on average before selling. Many sellers are taking their homes off the market because offers aren't meeting expectations. We've no great imperative to move...yet in saying that there are changing requirements and timely reasons to move. There'll be tears, yet there is much excitement... and maybe it wont even come to pass! For 25 years this has been a lovely family home. I came here in 2008 not long out of hospital (from Interstate) ....and needing a slow recovery. I painted and walked the leafy streets into a new life here... gathering seed pods from day one... and giving shape to a whole new project and direction during 2009 that has carried me through to 2013, and for the 4th year I will be pursing "homage to the seed"... albeit in its latest incarnation.

As you can appreciate this is throwing plans a little ... navigating competing agendas and prioritising left, right and centre! Having moved no less than 36 times in almost as many years there is a weariness... yet...  I also know new spaces bring forth things one can't even imagine. I thank my stars for the fact of a roof over my head, and as always happens when change looms ... every single thing around one's home is seen as if for the first time and cherished that little bit more. This is a not a time to take anything for granted... of that I am sure!

Ive been wondering if it's best to take a blog-vacation for a while... that may come.

For now I wish you all a truly wonderful 2013... may it be richly rewarding for each and every one!
Many blessings all through this new year before us now! Be strong and live from your deepest passion... I for one will continue to aim for just that! No matter where I am living!
S xo

Spicing up the life!

Home again and catching up today...

Downloaded some images from Sydney and wrote a post at the Homage blog on Spices after visiting a wonderful Sydney store aptly named Herbie's Spices.

Pop over here to read all about this fabulous store ....homage to the seed weblog . . .: Adding spice to one's life! You'll find lots of images as well and you can order if not visit in person if you want to try some of their more unusual offerings!

Being the largest city in Australia you can be sure there's thousands of places tempting one's palate. But didn't just eat out... I also cooked some evenings at home with my brother and his wife as company and others too!

One place I was most inspired by I have posted photos of and a mention goes to Phamish where I had
this scrumptious offering to try.

best go read all about these!

this was the venue...

via here.

I passed by this place... Bourke St bakery and had to stop in. That's the look most of their customers are wearing when they pause at the counter.

Just found these pics below

ginger brulee tart with pistaccio

seriously good... whoever thought up this I wonder?

at this blog ... The Melbourne Gastronome who was obviously holidaying in Sydney when writing this post!

Newtown is always a lively place to walk the streets ... I lived here in 1982 

lots of art on walls everywhere: image from Beastman

partial to these... Affogato - espresso and ice cream. Image found here

My Sweet Memory - Korean cafe and stationery store

One place I ended up by chance for an hour was a distance from the city - I drove a friend to a doctor's appointment and waited at this Korean cafe selling stationery items. Not kitch but rather stylishly designed stuff that was eco and minimal/ Its been almost 30 years since I spent time around here ... so to find the suburb of Strathfield bursting with Korean eateries and shops was fascinating.

That was my experience there this time... finding new and old places, drifting around some of the time in order to happen upon things rather than be on a mission with a long list of must dos!

On Sunday I got along to the Marrickville Growers Market which was a very eco-oriented market indeed. Colourful, alternative and organic etc. Like this stall:

I watched the woman behind this counter making
the most fabulous towers of interesting tidbits on
lebanese bread dishes .... as in these below.

image from here.

Also at the market... via here.

ON I still haven't told you about the secret garden... my photos are on the other computer. Time to go now... I'll be back.

Hope your week is going well all you lovely passers by!
Ciao,
Sxo

ps: Here's the secret garden photos I have been meaning to post from my first weekend in Sydney.



This garden tumbles down the hill at the back of the house that's home to Wendy Whitely at Lavendar Bay. Looking out from the top of the garden the view is like this:

For those who've not heard of Wendy Whitely before, she was married for many years to eminent Australian artist Brett Whitely. His death in the early 90's was followed later on by the untimely illness and death of their only daughter... and so the garden became the place in time where she took her grief and made something come to life.

This particular photo I found here. Also more on the garden there as well.

'The Balcony 2'  or 'Sydney by night' - from  here: 

'Windsor and Newton Deep Ultramarine oil colour has an obsessive, ecstasy-like effect upon my nervous system quite unlike any other colour.'
- Brett Whiteley 1975

'The paintings ... begin from the ... highest point of affection - points of optical ecstasy, where romanticism and optimism overshadow any form of menace or foreboding ... Almost all the works have been rendered in a lyrical and personal style where colour ... has this time been used in saturation.'
- Brett Whiteley 1974

Encapsulating key elements of Whiteley's art - his beloved harbour, fluent draughtsmanship, an erotically charged curvilinear line and ability to invest minimal brushstrokes with multiple associations - 'The balcony 2' is one of his most poetically evocative paintings.

Whiteley's return to Australia in 1969 heralded a new preoccupation with colour and beauty. Inspired principally by Matisse, but also by the tranquil ambience of his house at Lavender Bay on Sydney Harbour's north shore, he created a series of spectacular paintings: expansive interiors and views evoking the sumptuousness of the harbour's liquid presence. Text from the site where the image above  was found.

Book published in 2004

Its so in keeping with the spirit of this artist that a lovingly created garden tribute exists by the harbour which so many of us saw brought to life in the artist's magnificent large canvases.

If you are ever in Sydney and want to go somewhere off the tourist path this is a peaceful place to wander to and take a picnic, rug and good book! It must be said though ... the harbour is so extensive that you may find it easier to go somewhere by ferry to relax... still this is maybe 10 mins from North Sydney railway station... and not hard to find!