self like

I like this photo of myself.

Yeah, I'm a little red and blurry - it's a phone pic and it was mid-way through a particularly raucous girls night - but I rarely like photos of myself and this one works for me.

I'm wearing one of my favourite autumn/winter dresses (its first outing this season).
I'm drinking a strawberry frozen margarita.
I'm in the company of a very funny bunch of ladies.
I'm looking very naughty.
And when I look at this pic, I remember what I was thinking.
It was very naughty indeed.

Good times.

can't.stop.sticking.

This collage thing is addictive.

I started this piece in class last week, brought it home and on Saturday, in a few hours, ripped everything I'd done apart and started again. And practically finished it.

I'm sure - positive - that spending more time over it would have resulted in a better piece. The problem of how to blend the hill the Landy's driving over with the rest of the landscape for example, I'm sure a solution would have come to me had I stepped back for a bit and come to it with a fresh outlook. But I couldn't.
I had to carry on.

I'm quite pleased with my sky though. I loved using tissue paper for texture and fluffiness. I know the fall of the light in the whole piece doesn't always carry through - light and shadow are two elements I still find really intimidating.

I really enjoyed combining collage with montage too. It was fun finding textures and pictures to mix up in interesting ways.

I'm looking forward to getting a critical appraisal in class this week. And some ideas on how to meld it all together better.
This will be my last class for the month (boo hoo), but I hope to do more lessons this year, once the looming craziness abates.

You know that work I was moaning about? The hurry-up-and-wait contracts? They've both sprung to life, it's going to be one hell of a week!

paul auster day

I spent yesterday in bed with some weird lurgy. Possibly explains the grumpiness on Wednesday...

It was a public holiday so Husband was home, lucky him, and I could just rot quietly upstairs ... with Paul.

Sunset Park, not one I'd read before, and not going to be my new favourite (Oracle Night will be a tough one to oust), but god it was a treat to spend a day in his head, in a world of his creation.

Always, always, while reading Paul Auster I want to write while I'm reading. Makes no sense right? I don't want to copy his content at all, but the way he writes is so very inspiring that my fingertips tingle ... and then stop as soon as I put him down.
Second best would be to read him with a notebook on my knee, and jot down the thoughts that flow. But I'm too immersed, loving it too much, to step outside of the book even for a moment.

So it was a blessing really to be able to read this novel in one sitting lying. And I did!

I must get started on my 2014 book list ... more noise!

niggling

Things irritating the pants off of me right now:

- decorum - like, having to wear pants
- endlessly debating the state of education, and how it's apparently killing our kids creativity
- recycling, and the accompanying guilt of binning a plastic tub of mouldy hummus rather than scooping it out and washing it for the green bag
- anti-vaxxers, obviously
- having to re-examine every word in every conversation for fear of insulting somebody
- doing the 'right thing'
- not always being able to say fuck out loud.

Being PC and middle-class can be fucking boring.

Oh, and did I mention 'hurry up and wait' work contracts in which everything was sooooo pressing and urgent last week, but this week ... dead air.

Grrrrrr.

doctor stella

For the 3 of you who aren't facebook friends ...

Outfit made by the super fun Lula by Emma, and gifted by the girls' beloved Auntie B (who's rapidly becoming dress-up-giver extraordinaire).

toes in heaven

Aside from Frieda nearly biting off her tongue while doing a gutsy jump off a high wall (true story - very gross, lots of parental props for not fainting and one very sore, very brave little girl), our annual family retreat was totally wonderful.

Yup, I'm still wearing my stupid and badly-named 'speed brace' - the ankle is vastly improved but not fully-functional - but this weekend I wore it in a beautiful place, surrounded by very lovely people.

My family are the best. For me. And that's the most important thing right?

collaaaaage!

One thing I'm learning about myself is how I like to make a grand sweeping statement (e.g 'next week I'll be doing something else other than the fish'), and then renege on it.

I spent all of my second collage class obsessively finishing my fish, and loving it. 

I'm not entirely happy with the tail, but I couldn't keep tinkering with it any longer, and think you get a sense of movement? I love the giant eyeball and the pink punk fin, my fish is a bit of a badass.

I also love that the fin, and the darker red and black curve under it, is Gwen Stefani's ass from Vogue magazine. Ha ha ha. 

Incidentally, fashion magazines have the best colours.

There was a Brazilian guy in class this time, a guy so tattooed it was difficult to focus on his true outline. He kind of blurred with his surroundings, a bit of a collage himself. I'm hoping next week to be able to say this to him, and maybe get a photo.

He is a montage artist, and looking at pictures of his previous work I realised that that is really what I'm more into. Intricately cutting out images and sticking them together in different ways.

The project I'm planning for next week is a bit of a combo of both ...

Loving this class!

why can't we all just get along?

In the light of the atrocities happening in Uganda, and the recent distressing news from Arizona, picking up this in the waiting room at my GP's office was a real shocker.

What the actual fuck fuckitty fuck?

I calmly read it, photographed it, and folded it up under my arm when I went in to see the doctor. I asked her about it before we went any further with the consultation, it being a bit of a deal-breaker in the continuance of our until now valued doctor-patient relationship.
Thankfully she was as horrified as I, and clearly from her reaction already suspected which staff member was responsible for disseminating this filth.
Really left me with a horrid taste in my mouth (and not just from the antibiotics either).

On Monday I took the girls out for fish and chips and were seated behind a table of men, all speaking Afrikaans.
The girls don't provide much in the way of stimulating conversation while shoveling hot chips, so naturally I eavesdropped.
Turns out this bunch of friends were counselling one of their group as he prepared to come out to his family.

It was a wonderful conversation to listen in on. The young guy's angst was real, and that was sad, but his friends were amazing, offering such insightful and affectionate advice - telling bits of their own coming out stories and really working to help him overcome his fears.
There was some joking too, and teasing about the kind of questions he needed to prepare himself for:
'Who's the man and who's the wife?'
'When did you know?'
'Have you ever slept with a woman?'
The group all laughed wryly at these, and made comments on how straight people just don't get it do they?

We're all so different, negotiating our way through this crazy world. But we're all so similar too, we all just want to be happy, and accepted. Even poor old 'Janet' in the article above.
And we all need friends to help navigate our way along this journey.

I left feeling so happy that this guy had such good friends, whatever the reaction from his family will be, and saddened that 'Janet' has clearly distanced herself from hers, and maybe her chance to really be happy.

so.much.noise

I did a software upgrade on my phone recently. It's been really slow since then.
'Have you done a factory reset?' asks Husband.
'No, of course not.'
'You got to back everything up first.'
'How?'
'With Kies.'
'The Kies that keeps crashing my laptop?'
'Reinstall it.'
'So, uninstall it and then reinstall it on the laptop that keeps crashing?'
'Well, move to the PC I built you.'
'But before I do that I have to back up right?'
'Yeah ... well start with your phone and then everything else.'

Everything else.

I'm really too young to be a tech-philistine. I can't let it start intimidating me yet. I don't want to be that person. But jesus I'm tired of having to learn to do a new thing when I just want to draw a line under an old thing and get on with living my life.

The To Do pile wrt to Things To Back Up and Move and Save for Eternity just joins the list of all the other things that need Sorting Out.
Like my desk.
And the art room.
And the piles of junk I stashed in various cupboards before the birthday party on Saturday.
And the photos, don't get me started on the photos.
And the girl's closets.
And the toy room.
And the at least 5 projects I've got on the go.
And the upcoming contract I'm starting soon.
I could go on but really it's too boring.

Sorting out and backing up and clearing the decks is not how I want to live my life. Not. At. All.
All this stuff makes so much noise.

the 4th!

We had Stella's 4th birthday party here at home yesterday afternoon. It was spectacularly good fun.

So grateful for family and friends and food and love and laughter and beauty.