Onwards and Upwards with Changing Art

For those who have been following me for a while you will know Im on a journey to regain my life after mine span out of control and combusted.  So forgive me for being self absorbed for the last month, lots going on and all happy stuff too, I just had little to share.  I am back out of that cloud again and miss you all alot so I am back to read your blogs and share some tales of coming Autumn delights.

I have to say that I love Autumn, Summer is just too hot for me so I finally feel I can breathe, we have been harvesting so much from our garden, but this year the shield beetle stink bugs have claimed alot, but you cant fight nature and they just want something to eat too, so we go a little easy on them and try not to get angry, the chickens love them so Indi collects them in cups and hand feeds the wriggling beasts to her feathered friends, poor bugs : (

I sent off my OWOH packages straight away and am feeling a little impatient at the fact that I live on the bottom of the globe and they seem to be taking forever to reach their destinations! How can overseas mail get here so fast but leave so slowly I dont know!

I decorated mermaid style and there was much chit chat about packaging prettyness at the dairy that morning, usually they all run from the counter when I arrive with worldly bound parcels.

Seeds are being collected from everything, my best haul was from a flat leafed parsley, one plant and I rubbed a whole litre of seeds from it, I have no idea what to do with the millions of seeds that makes up, I could make a parsley field perhaps.  We have been gathering personal seeds too, a time to do a stocktake of where we have been in the last year and what we have achieved, what is important this year to focus on etc.

I have changed alot, I have gone from the most frantic YES person who never let anyone down and was so overwhelmed but never admitted it, and now I am a NO person and when people ask me to do things, usually for free so they can raise money etc, I have got into the habit of just going...Naaa I dont really have time, and feeling no guilt what so ever. Who is that person??? its the new me, or the me for the next year or so, Im out to please myself and my family for once, its all about us which it wasent before....and I am so happy.  Charity work is great dont get me wrong, but it has to be in balance and you have to remove yourself from the whole giving time thing to really understand what that balance is.

Plus we have a lot going on, new babies every week to grace with lovely yellow earings (Indias theory on tagging) We are really taking our farming seriously now with breeding strategys and all, not just lawn mowers, I want to make my grandad proud so he can see I can do all this and he can relax.

Relax and enjoy life, a little hard to do at the moment with all these natural disasters happening around us.  Not that I would want to be in one but you kind of get the feeling that is has to be your turn some time, we have no worry of an earthquake ever happening here or volcanos but we do have to watch for Tsunamis, our little penninsula will be wiped out for sure, but we live on a very high hill, great for Tsunamis, not great for Cyclones!  But we just watch the flowers grow and smile.... for today is sunny, warm and calm and today is all that matters.

We went away for the weekend, a first for me in 1 and 1/2 years, I had to prove to myself that I could drive 4 hours away from home and not die, the common thoughts of some in a anxiety/panic attack phase of their life, notice I say 'phase', I am not allowing this stuff to stay.  We made it, survived and had fun, I went to markets with lots of crowds!! and went walking away from the safety of a house or a car, and we found a cute little thing with rather skinny black legs.  Indias new baby friend.

A six day old baby donkey, terribly cute, fuzzy and friendly.

A little girl was very in love, and so was the donkey too, he loved cuddles.

I picked all poppas apples before we left and they are in the freezer breaking their cells so i can put them down for cider next week.  its all about preserving, picking, scavenging and processing at the moment, I love it. I love food from natural places, like off trees and in nature that surrounds you, nothing more boring than shopping for food!  So we are filling our cupboards and getting back into our home pride.

I have been looking around my home lately and trying to see what is holding me in the past.  I had a fire and burnt all my childhood diaries and letters from school friends and diaries about break up, friendship ups and downs, the whole uncertainty of your early 20s, up in smoke it all went, I have no idea why i was holding onto such things, apart from the intial guilt of burning something I thought I treasured, I now feel free of them.. and now as I look at my walls I think I need a refresher of art work too, things that I loved about 5 years ago just perplex me now??  the whole "what are you doing here"???  So I am making new art, not to sell or take up space waiting to be sold, but just art for me because I love it.  here is my first piece.

I found the inspiration in a magazine and will be making it very different of course, I love inspiration and then doing it my way, the great thing about being creative!  I now go out on a Wednesday night with some girlfriends to a little cottage in the bush and we do art and learn from each other, so these things are my art night things, no money making ventures allowed.  I will be going over to the sunken ship for a piece of wood to mount my birds on.

So I made a mould.  First I made playdough and sculpted a bird and put this in the bottom of a round baking tin and then poured quick set concrete over top and left it, the next day flip it out and peel out the playdough, Voila a mould!, I set it in the sun to dry and painted the inside black to seal it.

I use it to make the clay birds, they come out rough and then you set about the wonderful task of smoothing them, a very relaxing process.

I have a set of Indian Bindi stamps made of metal and I used to pattern the tails...

so every tail is different.  So now they will dry and then be taken to a potter friend to be fired.  It will take a month or two to get this piece finished.

but thats ok because I can start on something else, Hmmm what Im not sure.

But I do like working with this clay, its very soothing.

So this is what happens when you dont post for a month, chitter chitter chatter.

hope you are all doing fine and loving little bits of your lives

although everything isnt always going our way, we are always allowed pieces of sunshine if we would just take a break and look around for them.

What needs a refresh in your house????

xxx

Sheree