when at first you don’t succeed . . .

I was rudely awakened in the early hours of yesterday morning by an earthquake.  The epicentre was some way off but here on the sand and with a house built on a concrete slab, it was noticeable.  It reminded me once again how, despite our best efforts to build a secure home life, everything can change in an instant.  It brings into  perspective that most of what we think are disasters are merely annoying and that nothing we do can withstand the forces of nature . . . wind and rain will triumph.

Recently I created some maṇḍala out of shells, raised a tepee of flax/harakeke stalks weighted down in the centre with a  net-covered stone that weighs about 7 kg or 15.5 pound.  I thought it would be strong enough to withstand the wind and rain until the flax stalks gave in to time.

Local stones, triangle shells/kaikaikaroro, horse mussels/hoemoana and flax/harakeke flower stalks.

One night the winds came in from the sea and moved the lot . . . again!   Some of the horse mussel/hoemoana shells and feather have since blown away as well.

So what do I do now?  Plan C, it’s idiocy to repeat plan A or B.  I need to splay the ‘legs’ out further, secure them to the ground (tent pegs perhaps) and bring the apex of the structure closer to the ground and replace the hoemoana shells with stones.

Hardly an earth-shattering disaster, nothing of that magnitude (puns intended), just annoying because I expected it to last the summer . . . when it gets here.

another obsession?

Over the weekend I attended a Journey Journal workshop with Carole Brungar and 9 other women, two of whom were friends who stayed for the weekend . . . what a lovely way to spend my birthday!  Carole will be posting more photos of the wonderful creations from the weekend on her blog in the near future.

I’ve made some small journals, usually with blank paper or lightly printed for someone else to write or draw in but not a journal such as we were making. Mine morphed into a journal for one of my grandhearts and another is going to be made to celebrate the passing of the older grandheart’s first decade.

The girls are wonderful as all children are especially when they have received conscious parenting, are not overly indulged but loved unconditionally. They’re intelligent, inquisitive, creative and a constant source of pleasure and pride: they are my muses.

At 7 Jeanne described her little sister as “awesome” and “definitely as cheeky as a monkey with a banana full of extremely funny medicine” so the book I deconstructed was perfect for Meg. Some pages in progress . . .

The cover has been embroidered in much the same way as the knees of her tights are repaired.

Monkeys are intelligent, playful, curious, thoughful, creative and endlessly entertaining . . . just like Meg

Hasn’t every little girl dressed as a fairy?  And sometimes they pull faces to show their monkey side as she did in the photo inserted in to the pocket above.

And in Brazel the say, “If you like bananas, you are a monkey.”

Some more pages, pockets and flaps ready for text and images.

time is of the essence

This morning I was reading a post on Diana Trout’s blog about Golden sending her nine of their new QoR watercolors.  She also talks about her recovery from her first eye surgery . . . it must be a very fraught time for an artist!

Any way, I started rabbiting on in the comments that I’d like Golden to send some paints to me as well but a little voice says “Don’t you think you should use some of the paint you have first?” And I agree, but I can’t sew,

More mended knees for Meg

and weave,

Dyed harakeke container

Detail of shredded harakeke, dyed flowers, beads and silver crimps.

and make thingies (very technical term that) out of shells and rocks

A beginning . . .

A shell mandala . . . a temporary sculpture, unfinished.

Centrepiece, prior to decorating with pearls and crimps.

Plus small green pearls and silver crimps.

A beach is to walk on.

and plant some veg and walk on the beach, AND paint . . . something’s gotta give!

Remember when I bemoaned a lack of time because of the day-job? Now that I am gainfully unemployed, it’s got worse, not better!  I shall simply have to rise earlier because Baby, as a fully fledged, pioneer Creative Leisure Consultant, I have plans!  LOTS of plans starting with sorting out all my travel photos, from the quirky,

Taken at the end of my street in Tokyo. Dispensing machines for anything and everything are everywhere but the advertising on this one got me every time I walked past it. Smoke and you’ll turn into a muscled westerner?

. . . to everything else.

Children of the Mekong