fall into the river

Branches of Olive

2012-02-12T22:07:00.000+11:00

If anyone is in Melbourne next week.. I will have about 12 images in this exhibition and I would love to see you here - it should be a beautiful show with work by some wonderful female photographers - and hopefully raising some money for a very good cause...

Something borrowed..

2012-02-03T23:35:00.000+11:00

2012-01-22T22:55:00.003+11:00

I wanted to pop these up a couple of weeks ago, but I just didn't get to it till now... Two months ago I went to a pretty special place called Bedervale, which I blogged about here, and two weeks ago – or was it three – I got to spend another day there.

This time it was a right little photography expedition with Jude having organised shoots for a book project. We had in our party another photographer Steve, (whose work I admire very much), two dogs, a Wonderful poet, and several fabulous models who had agreed to cavort nude in the landscape for Jude's images. I had originally planned to stay back at the house and spend a little quiet time within its ornate walls and take some pictures for myself. But the book shoots were so fun and everyone was in such high spirits – running around paddocks and jumping in ponds – who could resist?

(NB: Thought I'd better ask permission from the models before posting any cavorting pics)

We were joined by another two Canberran friends for lunch who brought with them delectable cheese, bubbly and Belgian beer. I was relieved that Jude and I had packed enough food for eleven, (more luck than good management).

I did take a little time after lunch to explore and take some pictures. Last time I was there I only had eyes for the gardens and Victoria's art and I didn't go inside at all, except to the studio which is a seperate building a five minute walk away. The main house itself has more stories and secrets than I can begin to uncover or tune into in such short visits, let alone to describe in such late, sleepy blog posts. The first two polaroids here might give you a sense of the place and how it feels. There are many doors that I still haven't opened because it's not a place you can rush through. I feel as though I really need to make some work here in this place, but for now, I have these simple pictures of it.

(Victoria, I am definitely coming to stay for a few days sometime!)

(Paloma guarding her quarry)

As fascinating as and beautiful as the place is, it's still the people (yes of course this includes dogs) who make the visits so wonderful and memorable. Can't wait to go back...

Paloma's quarry

2012-01-13T09:21:00.001+11:00

And the great earth, with neither grief nor malice,
Receives the tiny burden of her death.

Saturday, and today.

2012-01-09T23:12:00.000+11:00

A gift for a gift

2012-01-06T13:13:00.001+11:00

My film, his everything.

Blue

2012-01-04T21:47:00.000+11:00

A busy Saturday..

2011-11-08T20:37:00.001+11:00

It's been a while so I thought it time for some pics! On Saturday morning I dropped te hound dog off at the RSPCA so his aunties could have a good catch-up and I could have a quick dash down the coast for the opening of an exhibition of South Coast photographers, a birthday party at Braidwood and most importantly - a few minutes standing on sand, in the sea. It's been about 18 months since I last got to the beach.

We got to Braidwood in the late afternoon, just in time to see the 4 wk old puppies (see below) and for me to see some of Victoria, the birthday girl's incredible artwork in situ in the gardens of the historic Bedervale, where she lives and works.

Jude (below) with Paloma, proud mother of a litter of ten wriggling, wormy little babes. I fell in love with Paloma in all of maybe, five seconds. We drank wine and ate Arabian Love Cake under a sky full of stars while a fire kept us warm. I met some really lovely people, many of them established artists whose work I look forward to seeing. I felt very lucky to be in such good company.

These last few pics, including the postboxes and the wonderful shadows in Bodalla, were taken with my new phone. New phone! Puppies! Sculptural installations in beds of forget-me-nots! What a beautiful week it's been....

Drowned out

2011-10-26T22:25:00.000+11:00

Nothing less than perfect.

2011-09-24T11:10:00.000+10:00

Last week I took two rolls of film in for developing. One roll included the pics from my last post and the other was from my little wooden pinhole camera. I've had some brilliant results from this camera and I've had some disastrous ones. But all were interesting to me.

When I went in to collect the prints the man there handed me one envelope and one set of negs. He had deemed the other fit for the garbage. I asked him where the pinhole roll was and he told me they were blurry and horrible. Nothing good there, he said. I had to go behind the counter where a girl reluctantly scanned the negatives and confirm that yes, I wanted all of them printed. They both looked bemused..

This last one I adore. It's a ship. A ship in night waters for Fred...

Small people

2011-09-23T15:36:00.001+10:00

August/September

2011-09-04T10:22:00.001+10:00

Romany and Arijana

2011-08-26T23:49:00.001+10:00

Angels, both. I can't look away.

Coffee in Williamsburg

2011-07-07T09:46:00.000+10:00

Vale Cy Twombly

2011-07-06T14:54:00.000+10:00

Lead pencil on paper

2011-06-28T14:14:00.001+10:00

Last night I was given my very first piece of artwork by my nephew, Emmy. Forgive me please, for being ridiculously proud and unbelievable smitten with him...

And you were all yellow..

2011-06-28T00:03:00.000+10:00

Dog. Paint. Soap.

2011-06-27T23:54:00.002+10:00

Thirteen years

2011-06-25T19:04:00.000+10:00

At a bus station in Montréal

2011-06-24T11:13:00.000+10:00

Saying goodbye..

The before pictures

2011-06-21T15:00:00.001+10:00

I've been trying to figure out how to turn this into....something beautiful.

Note: tv rests on a wooden bathmat...

Stay tuned for the after pics.

Oh..

2011-06-12T14:12:00.000+10:00

via

A day at the museum

2011-06-10T13:57:00.002+10:00

Just thought I'd pop up the pics I took with my phone when we were at the Brooklyn Museum last month... I took them as a memory trigger and because I was excited at the fact that I was allowed to; normally I run around with notebook and pencil and look things up online later.

I was amazed by the light in these two paintings, they just glowed.

These two sisters were just beautiful..

My endless search for moose!

Brooklyn has a thing with owls and nobody was able to explain it to us. In fact, not one local knew why there were owls everywhere and most hadn't even noticed. Karine and I noticed it on the first morning - so many shops featured owl jewellery and Tshirts, and in the vintage stores there were whole cabinets of owls; owl figurines, ashtrays, stuffed toys, mobiles. When we got to the Art Library we saw that their logo was an owl. I asked him why, what it means, why it was significant and he looked befuddled and he shrugged.

There's a storage section of the museum with all sorts of things stacked behind glass. I have a thing for chairs...

This was interesting to me as although I'm a big fan of Rothko's abstract panels, I haven't seen much of his early work. Subway, 1939.

Oh Georgia... The picture above is a small piece of a larger painting. I stood there, quite moved, studying her intricate brushtrokes...

My snapshot doesn't show it clearly, but these gloves were absolutely tiny! Whose delicate hands could they have been made for? I felt like a clumsy giant just looking at them.

Judging from the beds though, people were a little more petite back then..

Graciela Iturbide has stolen my heart.

Her photographs sing. And whisper. And shine.

Missing my hairies...

2011-06-07T16:10:00.003+10:00

I'm missing my boys right now...

And it's been really strange coming back to the same house I was in before, but with my girl no longer here with me. It's just over one year since she died and there are constant reminders in this place. But I'm determined to enjoy those memories, even if they still bring tears. I miss her fiercely and achingly..

I've been lucky though to have a daily visit from my next door neighbor, Bentley. I know I can't adopt any four-leggeds right now, with plans to leave again in the near future. But I'm hoping to foster dogs or perhaps even sign up for the Guide dog's first 6 mths puppy raising program. That's if I think I can live permanently in the house-training/chewing everything period!

Brooklyn

2011-06-06T13:56:00.004+10:00

Karine and I left at about 9am from the Greyhound station in downtown Montréal. After our stuff was loaded onto the bus, I stepped outside and held on tight to Fred for as long as I could bear to. The people on the bus watched us laughing and crying and hugging and then I stepped back onto the bus wearing dark glasses and buried my face in a packet of tissues. When I emerged, we were moving through my last Montréal morning and I tried to take it all in so I wouldn't forget.

We had planted ourselves in the very first seats on the right so we could enjoy the best views; of the beautiful scenic country between Montréal and New York City; of the rain that came down so hard that the road disappeared; of our grumpy bus driver swerving slightly as she focused more on sending text messages than on the highway....

I'm not even sure what time we arrived in Manhattan but it was at least a couple of hours later than planned due to insane traffic. We found that there were no trolleys at the Port Authority and I'm sure we entertained a few bystanders as we coaxed the suitcases containing my life up the escalators to the taxi rank. Sweet comical choreography...

Our cab driver was quite a character! Karine soon discovered, to her delight, that he spoke French and she was so relieved to speak in her mother tongue after a whole day of only English with her poor old monolingual friend. Despite not succeeding in luring us out to "Party! Party! Party!" or to offload some of his party drugs on us, he got us to Greenpoint safely and for only $30 or so.

It was dark and pouring with rain when we arrived. By the time we got the bags up to the fourth floor we were tired and hungry 'lil things and decided to get some pizza delivered rather than attempt to navigate the neighborhood in search of restaurants. I mention this because it was some of the best pizza I've had. Unbelievably good.

Thursday morning and the sun was pouring in through the windows. I woke up when K slipped out to get coffee and bagels and then saw the floors - see previous post. I think the first thing we did after breakfast was discover the roof - again, see previous post. Then we walked through Greenpoint and down into Williamsburg to see what we could see. We saw lots of Polish bakeries, little boutiques and bookstores and beautiful green parks. We made sure to drop by Beacon's Closet, recommended by the wonderful Kristin of Modern Nostalgic. I bought a dress... (pic by K)

Just wandering around Williamsburg was wonderful. The chicken caesar salad we shared for lunch was mouthwateringly good and the coffees enjoyed along the way were great. I wasn't quite so keen on the green cheesecake we ordered but people were friendly and the buildings were interesting - I was starting to think I could happily call this place home too...

FIN

Later in the day I happened to spot a gorgeous dog and as usual, I couldn't resist moving closer to say hi and get a puppy-fix. The dog wasn't terribly responsive but I sat down next to him for a rest anyway. Karine came and sat too. Then the dog's owner appeared and was very friendly. As soon as her dog saw we'd been approved by her he was totally ready for some affection! Fin's owner was artist Betsy Kelleher who had some fascinating stories to tell about the art scene in Williamsburg. It also transpired that she had been very close friends with a bunch of artists in Montréal years and years ago, particularly a Pierre who, as fate would have it, was a friend of Karine's and owns the gallery she exhibited in just a couple of months ago. Betsy told us that she's always had a feeling she would reconnect with Pierre somehow in Williamsburg and so she did. Thursday ended with a bottle of wine, Patti Smith's Dream of Life and leftover pizza.

ANGEL

Friday was a different sort of day altogether. One of those days you know you'll laugh about ....one day. It was raining and Karine suggested we go look at the H&M store 'a few blocks' south of Prospect Park. The plan was to catch a cab down there - which we estimated, based on our $30 ride from Manhattan, would be around $6 or $7. From there we'd walk through the park if the rain eased up, take some pictures, have lunch at some gorgeous cafe and head up to the Brooklyn Museum.

We started well.... walked through the rain down to the Williamsburg bridge where we dropped into the Brook Farm General Store that Brittany had told me about. From there we walked east in the direction of the park, all the while looking for cabs to flag. Neither of us had actually twigged at this stage that yellow cabs are a Manhattan thing - the only cabs in Brooklyn are those that have dropped someone off and it seemed that most didn't know the area too well.. We found one eventually and asked him to drop us down at the H&M, just below the park.

Forty dollars later we climbed, fuming, out of the taxi and stood facing a monstrosity known as Kings Plaza. Knowing that you're not where you want to be and knowing that it's costing a fortune to get there is awful - being completely helpless to do anything about it is a nightmare! And there we were, at the entrance to a giant shopping mall, aka Hell. We had a crappy lunch in a Chinese place, had a quick look in the H&M and in Macys but neither of us was in the mood for mall shopping. All we wanted was to get out and be cleansed by fine art at the museum!

Trying to leave was an interesting exercise.. after being called to by several guys near the front and told something about "taxi free zone" (?) that I didn't understand, we headed straight back into hell to ask the girl at the information desk. She told us the guys out the front were unregistered drivers and not to go with them. She pointed us to a car service operated by the mall itself and said we could trust them. Our driver told us he'd get us up to the museum for $25 flat and we could finally relax. It was after 3pm already.. We leaned back while our driver told us his life story, all the women, all the children he'd had - knowingly and otherwise - and shared his philosophy. He told us if we had Jesus in our lives, nothing else mattered. He told us that if we were as beautiful on the inside as we were on the outside, we were queens. And then he threw in some advice about men for good measure. Karine whispered to me that perhaps he was the reason we'd found ourselves so far out of our comfort zone, in shopping mall hell. I might have said he was an angel. And it was true - his name was Angel and he got us safely to the museum for $25 and lifted us right up out of the blues.

From the museum we decided to walk the ten or fifteen blocks to the nearest G subway station, which was great. It was nice to walk through different areas and see how the houses, the people, the restaurants and shops differed. On the subway there was a guy wearing a small piece of fabric draped across his muscles and he leaned towards us, staring. I was trying so hard not to laugh. I didn't dare point my camera at him; some people don't need encouragement!

After all our adventures and misadventures, both of us were pretty stuffed at the end of the day. There was a little restaurant very close to the loft that had a nice look. But the fact that it was completely empty at 7pm on a Friday night didn't bode well and nor did the pungent smell of cleaning fluid and the giant video screen above the tables. We walked back out and thought we could google a good place to eat. I kept seeing reviews for the 'Fireplace' that we'd left though - several saying they'd had similar first impressions but that the food was wonderful. So back we went... we had a beautiful meal and our gorgeous waitress, not long arrived from Poland, was a treasure. We ended up getting another meal from them another day to take back to the loft which was just as good and this time we were looked after by a girl from Bulgaria who was so sweet and promised to find us on facebook...

SATURDAY

Saturday began with a divine omelette at Ella's organic cafe on Bedford. There were lots of little street stalls scattered around and run by some interesting characters. I bought a few little presents for people and we wandered in to a cafe we liked for some more of their good coffee. Afterwards we dropped in to the Art Library to visit the sketchbooks that are part of the Sketchbook Project that both of us had participated in. I wasn't sure if our sketchbooks were there in the room or on tour but it was nice to see the place in person. It was in a nice area with a lot of converted warehouses and cool art spaces.

I loved the 'Rapture' signage and we went to look at the store - a little vintage place with lots of old treasures. I bought an old photograph that I find so beautiful... I wish people would write on the back of pictures more often so i could have some details... but the mystery is also sweet. I haven't got the scanner set up yet but here:

We finished Saturday with a trip to a small gallery located much further off the beaten track than google maps revealed.... and then 'home' to these incredible views and our last night in beautiful Brooklyn.

No sleep till....

2011-06-01T13:51:00.001+10:00

Brooklyn!

I have so much show and tell from the few days we spent around Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, I'm going to split them into separate posts. I have to start with the loft where we stayed, which belongs to the fabulous and gorgeous Zam. I am coming back to photograph you one day Zam!

It used to be a garment factory I think and is absolutely oozing character. We arrived much later than expected and Zam had been unable to wait for us, so we walked in out of the rainy night, pretty tired and anxious that everything be as planned and as hoped for.

The building itself was cool. Beautiful old floorboards just off the stairwells on each floor. There's a big manual freight elevator but neither of us had a clue how to use it so we lugged all the heavy bags up to the fourth floor, found the keys and opened the door.

Then we did a little happy dance.

It was dark out but Zam had left lamps on for us and it seemed so welcoming. I'll tell more about that first evening soon (including our mad taxi driver and the incredible pizza) but suffice to say, we two exhausted little chickens slept like logs.

When I woke, Karine had slipped out to find some coffee and bagels. I stepped off the couch and caught something on the floor that gave me a shock; there were all these words on the floor; man... souls... thou... thine... and in my morning sleepiness I thought they were actually carved into the boards. Now, I'm not the least bit religious and the fact that the Rapture was due in a couple of days did little more than amuse me - but this scared the bejesus out of me!

On closer inspection, I saw that the text was painted on and not carved, which made it seem so much less sinister! Zam filled me in the other day:

the poetry etched into my floors....a poet used to live here. he was italian, that much i know. it's a rather spiritual situation - thank god! could've been some demented nonsense but, it's nice and warm.

i think it's probably been maybe 15 years since its been like that.

Inside were big windows, unshaded or blinded and the sun poured in every morning, spilling across the floors. Some of our trip was overcast, even rainy weather but the light inside remained pretty amazing. I thought the views from each window were great but I hadn't yet climbed up the last of the stairs to the roof...

But when I did... oh!

Unbelievable.

Here's a small video of us enjoying the rooftop space. It's silly (and you'll see how Karine teases me) but I can't help it... I twirl when I'm happy.

And I'll leave you with the last few pics from the BW roll. Stories soon! xx

ps. If it seems like a big plug for Zam's loft - it is!! If you'd like to stay there, you'll find her here. Tell her I said Hi...

Australia

2011-05-30T14:06:00.007+10:00

I'm starting from here, now and working backwards.

I feel as though I've travelled back in time. I've moved back into the old flat, which has my furniture but none of my things in it. Bookshelves with no books, empty walls, the rugs rolled up and stored away. There's no trace of Fred here so it's like it was before, sort of. But my dog isn't here.

It's a distant, alien familiarity and everything's a little strange..

a roark summer

2011-05-27T14:06:00.002+10:00

My wonderful friend Meredith is having a show from June 3 to July 31 at the Tweed River Art Gallery in Murwillumbah, so if you're anywhere around that part of the country, pop in and see her work..

Front doors and hallways

2011-05-26T10:48:00.000+10:00

I'm back in Australia after a wonderful few days in NYC. I have so much to show and tell that I don't know where to start. But I'll start somewhere, and soon.

Dismantling

2011-05-14T08:31:00.002+10:00

It's Friday evening and I've opted out of drinks with friends in order to have some quiet time. I'm dismantling my favourite space; taking pictures down from the walls, clearing books from shelves and ornaments from the window sills. I have boxed up my paints and my collage things. I've put my favourite books on to the dining table but I can't decide which is the 'leave here' pile and which is the 'pack in the suitcase' pile. I'm split down the middle and next week is a pile of farewells and question marks. I've been welling up all afternoon. At least I get to play in Brooklyn for a few days in between the tearing down and the rebuilding.

I have some thoughts about leaving this beautiful city but I'll wait till I have my films developed, that way I can show you what I'll miss. What I'm starting to miss already. And who.

But here, apropo of nothing, are some collages I made yesterday in Karine's studio. They're not much but they did involve the breaking down of one form and the creation of a new one. And that's a start.

Le Lac Rouge in May - part 2

2011-05-10T11:57:00.001+10:00

Le Lac Rouge - part 1

2011-05-10T11:56:00.000+10:00

Off to the Lake... finally!

2011-05-07T05:30:00.001+10:00

Finally we're off to the lake - Le Lac Rouge - for a weekend. I've been wanting to get back since last summer when we had a few gorgeous days in the sunshine there. Fred posted some of his pictures here and I blogged about breakfast that weekend - which is typical as food is almost always on my mind!

From my facebook page:

This time I'm taking sketchbooks, colour film and a good deal of vodka. Have a great weekend everyone!

Let me just show you this...

2011-04-24T08:48:00.003+10:00

I've been meaning to post for some time now but life keeps getting in the way! I'm happy to say that work has been plentiful and has been keeping me very busy lately. So a new post soon - before I move back to the antipodes - with some news and some pictures.

I've been so inspired to paint again lately and I've found some gob-smackingly gorgeous art that I want to share some of here. When I have some more time. I'd also like to share some of my own.... For now though, look at the work of Melbourne artist Paul W Ruiz. I think he's incredible.

http://blog.paulwruiz.com/

http://www.paulwruiz.com/

I'd love to have tea with Mirka...

2011-04-18T10:28:00.010+10:00

Sex is like a beautiful wine, a beautiful drug, but love is something else. Love is men and women thinking.

A 2007 Interview with Mirka from ABC's Enough Rope

where she talks about Paris, Melbourne, war, love, sex, art , children - life.

Disposable love

2011-04-16T03:19:00.000+10:00

These were taken the night we drove back from Ottawa, with a disposable camera Jérémie gave me (thanks J! I have four that you took to give you). The first picture was taken from the backseat of the car and I had no time to frame it or check where I was pointing the camera (not that I really bothered to do so with any of these!). All the little 'white lights' are migrating birds reflecting sunlight...

Birthday flowers and other loveliness..

2011-04-15T02:14:00.001+10:00

Soft woollen comforts and other pleasant surprises..

2011-04-12T06:39:00.002+10:00

Fred came with me to Nathalie's today; he played piano while I played with the puppies. I came home to find a package for me in the mailbox. Inside the package was a beautiful new hat, hand-knitted for me by a girl I've not yet met, but who has inspired me for a long time. It's enough to make a lass happy to be going from winter into another......

A Love Letter From A Stray Moon

2011-04-08T00:52:00.003+10:00

I am Frida, and I am not Frida. I am the moon, hollowed out by remorse. I am many women, I answer to many names. My prayer is from the forests of Mexico, from the molten heart of the earth. Fly closer, fly nearer to me.

I glimpsed Diego first when I was just a kid, long before the accident. He was painting The Creation, and I saw him as a man unbowed by any god for he knew he was man the creator. I saw coasts in him, volcanoes and forests, a geography of mind painted in all time, from the long pre-Columbian verde of forest-mind in its thousands of generations before the peculiar regency of history. And that is the time in which I write now, to plead in those longest cycles of time, for now as I write this, my love letter from the moon to man, I am using my heart as a palette and painting in my own blood.

The text above is from A Love Letter From A Stray Moon by Jay Griffiths. It's an intriguing autobiography - in that it's not an autobiography - but written as one. A fictionalised portrait, written as though Frida herself wrote it. I just listened to an interview with the author on Late Night Live: mp3 is here if you want to listen too.

I can't wait to get my hands on this book....

Coming home

2011-04-05T07:13:00.000+10:00

Last Wednesday we drove to Ottawa. On the way home I looked up and saw that the migratory birds were also returning home. Hundreds of them in the sky above us...

Free accommodation for creative types!?

2011-03-27T04:43:00.000+11:00

Oh how I wish this place was in New York...! (I've been hunting for somewhere to stay there and it's tough on a small budget!)

An overnight at Creators Inn offers all the standard features and comfort associated with a modern hotel but the crucial difference is that you as a guest do not have to pay anything. It's totally free. No hidden fees. The aim with Creators Inn is to promote the local area and give something back to travelling creators whose presence contributes to a more interesting city, whether they are in a band, DJ, designer, artist, writer etc.

I think the Swedes are onto something good here - there's also LAT:

LAT offers a free guest room & work space for visiting creators in Gothenburg. Creative collective LAT has built their own version of a joint work/living space at Lindholmen in Gothenburg. The space contains 4 small sleeping quarters, a big collective workspace, kitchen & dining area, a music studio and an equipped work shop in the basement.

Besides that you get the usual Creators Inn benefits such as clean sheets, bathrobe, slippers, free wifi and consumables.

http://www.creatorsinn.com/

http://www.creatorsinn.com/index.php/2009/02/lat-%E2%80%93-an-alternative-free-alternative/

From one winter to another..

2011-03-25T11:46:00.000+11:00

Polaroids

2011-03-24T08:20:00.009+11:00

I was going through a bunch of image folders today, looking for something I still haven't found. What I did find though, was a few old polaroids I haven't looked at in a long time. Oh I miss instant film.. For Christmas I got Fred some of the new Impossible Project Silver Shade film and it's divine! I'll have to get myself some soon as I can afford a little treat...

Birthday blessings

2011-03-20T13:09:00.000+11:00

I celebrated a milestone birthday on Wednesday and after a delicious dinner with Karine and Jérémie, I was sat down in front of the tv and presented with a video of birthday messages from near and afar - mostly afar - that had me laughing and crying simultaneously.

I've been asked to show the video but I've chopped a good deal out of it for this showing; some things are really personal and I know those friends would hate to be aired publicly, and some messages were just too long to play in full or too full of private jokes that would require too much explaining. All of it meant the world to me.

So here are some snippets of a gift that moved me more than I can possibly say. To everyone who was involved, I love you and I can't wait to see you. There could well be tears. There will be bear-hugging.

ps. I got two videos sent from Berlin and couldn't edit either of them. There must be something in the water there... whatever it is, I love it!

Thursday

2011-03-18T13:42:00.001+11:00

It's midday and I sink into this seat, breathless. I've hollowed out a cavity in my chest; it gapes from my throat, down through the space where my lungs should be, back to my shoulder blades and the thin skin stretching over them. It's hard not to sucumb to the hum of the metro and sink into sleep. An Asian girl standing in front of me has the most incredible hair. I eye her skinny legs tucked into fabulous boots and am reminded of something I read recently: "There is a special place in hell for fashion bloggers". So that's all I can tell you. Across from me there's an older woman with a pinched face and a just-sucked-on-fresh-lemon look. She looks me right in the eye and then down over my bag, my jeans, my shoes with an expression of distaste. I'm tempted to hiss at her but I don't. I start to cough again and she looks away.

All together now: Awwww......

2011-03-16T05:14:00.000+11:00

So while we're on the subject of old family photos... I give you - Little Frédéric! Apparently his love of cameras started earlier than I thought! And as for the shiner on his right eye? He fell down three stairs. One, two, three.

A tiny little bit of my history - Pt. 2

2011-03-12T06:00:00.000+11:00

My grandmother waving her hankie to the ship. I'm not sure if it was a send-off or a welcome, but I love this picture..

My mother with my grandparents

More of Mum - I love her with this haircut..

No caption required here, right?

I think this was a birthday celebrated on the ship where she met my father..

I really was a cranky looking baby. Apparently I was the first of the bunch (Mum's close circle of girlfriends) so nobody had much experience and it took a long time for them to realise that I was lactose intolerant.. It can't have been easy.

This was the first little house Mum owned. Cute and colourful in Chifley.

Yes. Excited by an iron. Thrilled to bits even. How things change!

I had to include this one. My stepfather couldn't be more seventies!

This was my neighbor, Andrew West I believe. We played Abba in the backyard and believed we were Swedish megastars.

It's always fun until someone loses their entire lower body....

And then there was a baby sister. Cass was the cutest child you've ever seen. I would post so many of my favourite pics of her here but I fear she wouldn't forgive me. Cass hardly wore any clothes until the age of four and I used to love showing pics of her wearing nothing but a string of pearls and a pair of knee-high boots but she was less than impressed! Maybe now that she has her own 2 yr old.......

Homeward bound

2011-03-09T15:31:00.003+11:00

May 22nd:
Montreal --> New York --> Los Angeles --> Sydney --> May 24th: home.

A tiny little bit of my history

2011-03-04T12:17:00.002+11:00

A few days ago a friend dropped in with an old photograph she needed to scan; she had bought it from a woman in Havana last month who sold it to her on the street for a dollar. It reminded me of a very old picture I have of my (great?) great grandparents, posing for a portrait before being presented to the Queen. Why they were being presented to the Queen I have no idea (Mum, do you know?) but the photograph itself - ragged and yellowed with age - is really something.

I searched my mac for this and several other family pictures I know I've scanned, but they must be on a hard drive at home. I did find these, mostly of my mother and myself; though not quite as aged, they've satisfied tonight's burning need for 'old family stuff'. And seeing that I'm about to turn fdzxhcfzjhdx years old in a couple of weeks, these must be able to pass for ancient documents right?

(The last two won't quite pass for childhood pics but they were in the folder and I like them)

Friperie goodness

2011-03-02T08:35:00.003+11:00

So on a brighter note, I picked up this little bundle of books for the princely sum of $3.50. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek came with a small shipping fee but has provided me with such beautiful respite from the tedium of the metro rides in the last week, it's more than earned its keep! Thanks to T for the recommendation - I'm so enjoying it.

We took a walk down by the river yesterday and took some pictures. I only had BW film in my cameras so I took a few snapshots with my phone.. but it couldn't capture the beautiful colours against the pale of the landscape. It's a shame we can't get any closer to the river itself near our place; the railway and the industrial buildings along the shore are well fenced and inaccessible. Still, it's a nice walk anyway.

Do I stay or do I go? (Thinking aloud)

2011-03-01T06:04:00.004+11:00

It's a winter wonderland out there today; big snowflakes waft down past my window, blanketing every surface that last week's sunshine exposed. Inside the cat sleeps to Leonard Cohen and Nina Simone. I lost all of yesterday to a migraine; I lay in bed avoiding daylight, munching on ibuprofen and codeine between sleeps. Today I emerged from the cocoon, grateful that the miniature climbers who spent all of Sunday scaling the walls of my head with crampons and icepicks have finally left. Today all the curtains are open and the whiteness of it all doesn't faze me.

I've been grappling with a decision that is proving difficult to make. Anyone who knows me will know that I'm hopelessly indecisive at the best of times so when it comes to something important I'm a mess. I have a plane ticket from New York to Sydney on March 9 - the return leg of my ticket. So I haven't got long to change the ticket to May, when my current visa expires. Unfortunately the change will incur a fee of around $250 plus the difference in fare to secure a new flight home. And I don't have a spare $250 right now. I don't even have enough to pay my rent this month. Much of my work has been postponed or in some cases, projects have been cancelled or had their funding cut. One of my government clients is being investigated for fraud and another has recently retired.

If I let the ticket go, and instead stay here in Montreal, Fred and I will have to apply for the de facto visa - where he sponsors me as his spouse - but this will cost us almost $1500 to apply. It will still be months before I can (legally) get work here. If I go I won't have enough to get back here for a long time and Fred won't be able to cover the rent. I'd also have to get to NY (rideshare maybe...) and travel insurance for my computer and other work things I'll need wherever I go. No choice strikes me as being the better one.

Maybe it's time to get that lottery ticket!

There's a curious sense of freedom in not having a clearcut answer, knowing that I could go anywhere in the world really... no one place has a clear advantage over another; anywhere I chose would/could have the same struggles, the same opportunities.

I've been clicking through rental listings in some of my favourite places: the Blue Mountains, Melbourne and here in Montreal too (with lower rents!) I could browse Brooklyn or Reykjavik or some tiny country town somewhere in the middle of nowhere. As long as it had an internet connection or a dire need for graphic designers...

Where would you go if
you had nowhere to go,
...or everywhere?

Other people's clothes

2011-02-27T07:50:00.000+11:00

I always noticed an awkward, clumsy mark or move that kept showing up in my work and I felt that if I could just get rid of that my work would be so much better. No matter what I tried though that clunky thing kept popping up again and again! It took me years until it finally dawned on me that that odd goofy thing was actually me! Everything else was just me putting on other people's clothes.

Robert Kingston

Found here

Dog days

2011-02-25T10:18:00.000+11:00

Inhabited wilderness(es)

2011-02-21T10:41:00.000+11:00

Free breakfast!

2011-02-18T16:20:00.013+11:00

Warning: this be a long one. A couple of reds, a jagermeister and a good deal of walking in deep snow have made me want to tell you every little thing about my day – but made succinctness and editing impossible. There is however, a short video of puppies and kittens that will hopefully ensure your forgiveness.

Today was a scorcher! I think it may have stayed above zero all day today (32F) and for the first time in a long time, I could wear my hair up, free of the hats and beanies. It was also nice to have my hands free of gloves/mittens – fully functional, unfrozen fingers able to successfully put keys in doors and manage zippers. Spring was definitely showing her face around today - poking her grassy fingers through gaps in rapidly melting snow. Warming my face as I walked along slippery paths into the sunshine. (Photo below was not taken in today's lovely sunshine!)

I set off today determined to enjoy the day. It's been a real rollercoaster of a week with my fortunes changing by the hour and too often for the worst. A great many stops and starts and steps backwards. But today I marched along at a brisk pace towards the metro station in the wonderful sunshine. I was stopped by a French-only-speaking woman and was yet able to help her get where she needed to go. That's always a nice feeling.

I was headed for a house where my two new charges were waiting for me. I have taken on the daily walk with two beautiful huskie pups - a 4 mth old and a teeny 2 1/2 mth old who we think may have some wolf in her. She has the most piercing ice-blue eyes I've seen. They belong to an actress here with a wonderful presence and a larger-than-life energy about her. She's going to help me with my French and I think she'll be a great teacher. Today we three ran in/through/under snow to my knees, (muscles I've been out of touch with for years are all making their presence felt tonight!)

On my way back home I passed a small dog being let outside on a long lead while his owner remained on porch near the front door. I smiled at his cute dog and then smiled up to him and was taken aback to see what looked like a huge bullet wound right in the centre of his forehead. I wondered if it was real or if I had become a seer of things not yet come to pass. It did kinda mess with my mind a little...

The doors to the metro station are heavy and require the right push at the right time. I was close behind a young guy who entered and had no intention of holding it for me and it flew back into me with a fair bit of force. My knee took the brunt of it. I found a seat for the longer leg of my journey, reached for my book and started to read about how the recently seeing blind (i.e.,patients immediately following eye surgery that has given them sight for the first time in their lives) have incredible difficulty adjusting to the sighted world, where they may have no depth perception or parameters with which to contain and understand this new dimension. I'm sure that's terrible paraphrasing on my part but you get the gist. It was fascinating. I tried to see the world, as the author too had tried, in the way one such patient had described it – it requires some measure of unlearning our methods of seeing... something I'm keen to keep trying.

When I changed trains for the last little bit of my trip, I found myself standing above an albino boy. He was reading – holding the book up to about ten cms from his face – and I could not stop gazing at the nape of his neck where the pale pink skin met the white white hair in an overlap like the space where two colours meet on a Rothko canvas, the pink of his scalp clearly visible below the fine white hair. I found him beautiful. Yesterday I marvelled at punk winter fashion – teenage style. My favourite piece was the black woollen beanie with large studs around the edge. Wool is a bit soft really isn't it, needs to harden the fuck up. I love watching people on the metro. I never complain if I have to go several stops.

Tonight, when I least wanted to get out of my pyjama pants and back outside, I had to drop something off to a friend (that should have been someone else's responsibility). I got the still-wet jeans and socks back on and, grumbling to myself, went out into the rain. By the time I reached her place I had remembered how much I actually love walking at night and was pleasantly surprised to find a bunch of gorgeous girls with a bottle or two of wine and six newborn kittens. By the time I left a couple of hours later, I was in a dandy mood!

Peut-être un petit peu pompette...

On the way home I stepped in all the slushy puddles, amazed at how much of the footpaths' white cover has melted in just one day. In some wierd way, I will miss Montréal's winter when it's passed. I expected to find it such a challenge and such a trial, (I'm a girl who feels cold when everyone else is sweltering), but to my surprise I found magic here that has no part of winter back home. I thought snow might be fun, on occasion but couldn't have known what calmness it brings and what a mood elevator it is as it wafts down and softens the world.

But I will say this: freezing rain carried on a strong northerly wind horizontally and right into one's face – eyes – is no fun at all. And I always feel a quiet moment of exhilaration as doors close behind me and I can finally open my eyes, feel the icy, icy cold of my cheeks begin to flush in the warmth.

OK I'm done. Anyone who made it to the bottom here gets free brekky: pancakes with maple syrup. I'm unable to help with transport though...

Over and oot.
xx

Dance, dance...

2011-02-16T03:04:00.000+11:00

Otherwise we are lost.

When all else fails...

2011-02-14T06:31:00.001+11:00

...there's chai spice pancakes with maple.

Incidentally, is lemon & sugar on pancakes and french toast just an Australian thing?

Split screen

2011-02-12T06:06:00.004+11:00

I like that this is how it came to me.

Today I'm off to spend the weekend at Lac Rouge. Snow covered forests, icy water, roaring fire inside and lovely friends to share it with. Sounds like the perfect ending to a week of high highs and shitty lows. Hope your weekend is magical.

Edit: Weekend at lake cancelled. Bottom lip quivering.

A small conversation

2011-02-10T11:36:00.003+11:00

Well, we did it. We're up on a wall. Perhaps not a fancypants gallery wall (yet) but a very nice one nonetheless.

There's an inevitable sense of anticlimax after something you've looked forward to for so long – but that shouldn't necessarily detract from the event. And it doesn't. We had a great time and both of us – myself and Karine – are very proud of our little exhibition. The two of us have talked about having a joint show since we first met and I was so happy to finally have this come to fruition.

We called it A small conversation, which seemed appropriate to us on several levels: the connection that we share as both friends, collaborators and partners in crime; our individual relationships with our environment and the natural world in general; a very personal inner dialogue that art can often be the sole communicator of.

(I have to add right now that this is not an artist's statement that we prepared earlier – I'm writing this off the top of my head with little or no editing, so please read it with that in mind!)

We didn't have an official opening or vernissage as the French would say. Instead, we invited people to join us in a small celebration of our work, a friendly meal and a few drinks. It was so good to enjoy this in the company of family, old friends, and new acquaintances. Highlights included Karine's elderly grandmother ordering a 'sex on the beach' with a twinkle in her eye, and my long conversation with her equally elderly and incredibly special grandfather, who forgot that I don't speak his language. Sometimes it just doesn't matter.

I was a little sad to discover that I only had a few shots left on my camera and no extra rolls of film. But I filmed a bit with my phone camera later in the evening and have thrown this in with the few pictures I took, plus some from Annie and Lucie, (thanks girls!) into a delicious mélange of Le Barbare and us and Foux du Fa Fa from Flight of the Conchords. Enjoy!

And please, if you're in or near Montréal, pop into 'Le Barbare', 4670 Rue St-Denis and have a look at our work. We'd love to know what you think.

ps the camera was recording on the 'night' setting which might explain the blur and general trippy vibe...

Early in February

2011-02-10T04:56:00.001+11:00

Sticks and stones

2011-01-31T14:15:00.000+11:00

I am about to turn forty. Not for six weeks or so but it's looming, and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought about it. Forty. Me. But I'm just a baby – I still don't know who I want to be when I grow up! I've been trying to unravel what it is that scares me about this one. I've never been too concerned about age and in truth, I've never looked my age – or acted it.

I remember turning thirty and feeling liberated somehow. I loved being thirty. There was something in the discarding of the two and claiming the three... something about being able to feel comfortable in your own skin – while it's still relatively smooth and unwrinkled. Something about looking at where you are and where you've been and maybe even allowing yourself to feel proud of who you have become. A gentle evaluation. Particularly considering that at twenty-eight I hit a metaphorical wall head on at great speed and spent two years edge-walking a fine line between sleep-deprived, drug-exacerbated madness and complete shellshock.

A little hello to everyone who knew me when.... and still loves me today. Don't think I don't know it was difficult.

In the relative calm that followed, I was able to put myself back together with glue and sticky tape, small sticks and pieces of string and to come out the other end with some semblance of balance on the highwire. I could see myself as a woman who had something to give that might even be worth something. But that was nine years ago. Almost ten. God, where did it go?

Forty carries with it a somewhat harsher feeling of appraisal. It seems more frank, less generous. It politely declines a biscuit and gets straight down to business. It asks, what have you got to show for it? And I'm turning and looking for someone's legs to hide behind. Because that's not a question I can easily answer and it's not asking in a nice way. And if I'm completely honest with you (read: myself), it's even hinting at mortality and asking me what I will have built/created/achieved that I can leave behind.

I'm a bit of a square peg in the proverbial round hole and I always have been. I'm the classic example of the "has potential, needs to focus, is disruptive in class, could do better" girl. Who went on to be always in between jobs, didn't settle down with anyone monogamously, needed a little help to get on her feet. A good friend of mine once comforted me with the prediction that she would end up behind a white picket fence reading postcards that I, her bohemian friend, sent from around the world. And while I'm writing this from the other side of the world, and while I wouldn't be anywhere else at this moment, something niggles inside.

Could it be that there has been a distinct lack of (conventional) milestones..?

mile·stone / ˈmīlˌstōn/
• n. a stone set up beside a road to mark the distance in miles to a particular place.
∎ fig. an action or event marking a significant change or stage in development

And I'm only now starting to realise that the stones I haven't set down by the roadside actually weigh a fair bit. Only now, with forty just up ahead. Stones like career or artistic achievements. Stones like the children I didn't have. The weight of the things I said no to. The chances I was too afraid to take. Forty needn't suggest the end of everything – in so many ways I feel right at the beginning of everything – but I think my friends who are happily enjoying their forties and fifties, even sixties and seventies would concede that it does augur a time to accept certain truths and embrace certain changes.

Which is my fluffy and overly careful way of trying to say that it is finally starting to feel too late for a whole bunch of things I thought I would always have time for – all the while trying not to frighten my younger friends or offend my older ones. But if I can be blunt and if I can be totally self indulgent for a minute, (it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to), it scares the hell out of me. I worry that the report I give myself will be less than kind. It will say "Had potential, needed to focus, could have done better, (starting to look a bit frumpy)".

Are we too tough on ourselves? Or not tough enough..

I will probably edit this before you get to read it.
Or maybe I'll leave it as is and be in the kitchen eating chocolate and drinking wine.

Sreshta Rit Premnath

2011-01-26T05:14:00.000+11:00

Blue Book, Moon Rock

If, as Vilem Flusser says, “texts are a metacode for images” and codify them, and likewise, photographs are a metacode for texts and are a second degree abstraction, what then happens when a fragmentary reality (the “word,” the “rock”) collides with the photograph. The moon is the rock. The moon is not the rock. The moon is (not) the light. The light is (not) the photograph.

A promise made in the past, to discuss the meaning of forgetting in the future, is then altogether forgotten. The word. The forgotten word hovers like light bouncing off silver. “Is shiny a color?[2]”

How do we fix an object, dress it, give it a name?

The rest is here.

January

2011-01-25T10:59:00.001+11:00

My first Montréal exhibiton!

2011-01-22T04:45:00.000+11:00

Shared with the loverly Miss Karine Léger.... Vernissage (opening night drinks) to be announced asap - if you're in Montréal please come and see us!

I have truths I have yet to claim

2011-01-20T11:11:00.000+11:00

Angela Veronica Wong

LIFE AS A GIRL

the written boundaries. the blue lines. my body grid into streets. skin against wetness.
wetness against air. movement; resistance. a red dream. a read dream. a clothesline.
scission.

the ocean is on the bottom/ of everything. like being/ in an echo—without language, with
only/ the interruption of the body/ in space.

i can see from here what is left— your rhythms opened.

fuck me like cleaning
a pumpkin plunging a hand
into cold, wet, pulling
out a fistful of slippery seeds,
clumps of tangled
hair, a tumor leaking
between fingers

This body brought to surface—
I was
a girl at her first bleed, thinking
there it is, there it is, I thought
it would never come. This
bald thing, this
clenched muscle, smooth
and still like silk, like
a forgotten lunch, it is
heavy with lost purpose.

and

still

caught

in the net

i have truths i have yet to claim:

there is no such thing as one-way action like:

i read you. stop.

you fuck me. stop.

geometry is divisive. lines, angles, bisection. parallel and // paralyzed.

divisive is strangely pleasing to the eye, a futile // symmetry.

triplets // in 4/4 time.

Sometimes I forget I share
language.

You use
the same words
I use.

But not these:

monsters the sea creates

to desire is to live, if only a little, in the possession of an object.

maybe we were never meant
to raise to the surface that
which lives in the depths—

to have/ is to lose/ the grammar/ of

in freedom—fluorescent in their
self-illumination, gargantuan and
strange-skinned they are
unquantifiable

landscape and borders oceans open in deserts

skin, bones, blood distinguish pronouns

from other pronouns

may/be an/echo/ as zero/ as language completed

Fold me in the direction of origami arrows.

Lantern Review: A Journal of Asian American Poetry
Issue 1 | June 2010 | pp 5-14

Upsidedown Insideout

2011-01-20T05:18:00.000+11:00

I went back to sleep twice this morning, in an effort to shake off the bad dreams and dream some new dreams... nicer ones.

It didn't work.

At odds with the world at odds with me.

When we were six..

2011-01-18T15:51:00.002+11:00

Actually when she was five. That was so last year. Happy birthday (for the fifth) EllaBella, I only just found these pictures again. I miss you so much xx

Seamless

2011-01-13T08:41:00.001+11:00

I just saw this here and had to share the joy myself - I adore this. I feel as though I'm teleporting out of control, never knowing where I'll be when I open my eyes.

Somewhere between a home-video mixtape and a postmodern travelogue, "oops"—a ten-minute art video composed entirely of appropriated YouTube videos, seamlessly stitched together via a motif of camera drops—serves both as transportative adventure and metaphorical elucidation of YouTube itself (i.e. endless related videos), exemplifying the Internet's infinite repository of "throwaway" social documentation. From suburbia to subterranea, the radically shuffling environs induce a vertiginous yet aesthetically contextual thread—a transcendent, reincarnating POV; our omnipresent Camera—by which, the nature of the ultra-verité videos, eschewing any filmic grounding, plunges the viewer into a relationship of fleeting immediacy w/ its many videographers: a self-portrait at arms length, the digital blur of an obscuring thumb, a disembodied narrating voice. This abstractly voyeuristic portrayal of an ever-filming generation (who won't let the transcendence of being in A Moment inhibit their document-everything impulse) presages a future where every instant of our existence, from the mundane to the sublime, is preserved and catalogued for all to see.

"oops" || appropriated digital video || 2009 || concept by Billy Rennekamp
// j.mp/oops-about
// billyrennekamp.com

A winner of the 2010 Vimeo Awards! vimeo.com/awards/about
Official Selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival! bit.ly/sundance2011

Water, water all around

2011-01-12T11:11:00.002+11:00

My heart goes out to Queensland and Northern NSW this week. The flash flooding yesterday in particular looked incredibly frightening (see video). I can't help but think of the people (and animals) in places like Bangladesh, where flooding on a huge scale is an annual event, and wonder how they manage...

In my inbox this morning

2011-01-06T06:07:00.003+11:00

Karine sent me some pictures today. The first three are from les Grands-Jardins where we went ~~camping~~ glamping in October. I hope it won't be too long before the next great moose-hunting expedition...

This is our new favourite place to wait for films to be developed. I absolutely love this chunky old table. And the rooibos tea and the cushions in the window seat... and the apple bread with caramel sauce... oh.

Rilke

2011-01-02T11:11:00.002+11:00

That was the deep uncanny mine of souls.
Like veins of silver ore, they silently
moved through its massive darkness. Blood welled up
among the roots, on its way to the world of men,
and in the dark it looked as hard as stone.
Nothing else was red.

There were cliffs there,
and forests made of mist. There were bridges
spanning the void, and that great gray blind lake
which hung above its distant bottom
like the sky on a rainy day above a landscape.
And through the gentle, unresisting meadows
one pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.

Down this path they were coming.

In front, the slender man in the blue cloak —
mute, impatient, looking straight ahead.
In large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk
devoured the path; his hands hung at his sides,
tight and heavy, out of the failing folds,
no longer conscious of the delicate lyre
which had grown into his left arm, like a slip
of roses grafted onto an olive tree.
His senses felt as though they were split in two:
his sight would race ahead of him like a dog,
stop, come back, then rushing off again
would stand, impatient, at the path’s next turn, —
but his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.
Sometimes it seemed to him as though it reached
back to the footsteps of those other two
who were to follow him, up the long path home.
But then, once more, it was just his own steps’ echo,
or the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.
He said to himself, they had to be behind him;
said it aloud and heard it fade away.
They had to be behind him, but their steps
were ominously soft. If only he could
turn around, just once (but looking back
would ruin this entire work, so near
completion), then he could not fail to see them,
those other two, who followed him so softly:

The god of speed and distant messages,
a traveler’s hood above his shining eyes,
his slender staff held out in front of him,
and little wings fluttering at his ankles;
and on his left arm, barely touching it: she.

A woman so loved that from one lyre there came
more lament than from all lamenting women;
that a whole world of lament arose, in which
all nature reappeared: forest and valley,
road and village, field and stream and animal;
and that around this lament-world, even as
around the other earth, a sun revolved
and a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-
heaven, with its own, disfigured stars —:
So greatly was she loved.

But now she walked beside the graceful god,
her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.
She was deep within herself, like a woman heavy
with child, and did not see the man in front
or the path ascending steeply into life.
Deep within herself. Being dead
filled her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit
suffused with its own mystery and sweetness,
she was filled with her vast death, which was so new,
she could not understand that it had happened.

She had come into a new virginity
and was untouchable; her sex had closed
like a young flower at nightfall, and her hands
had grown so unused to marriage that the god’s
infinitely gentle touch of guidance
hurt her, like an undesired kiss.

She was no longer that woman with blue eyes
who once had echoed through the poet’s songs,
no longer the wide couch’s scent and island,
and that man’s property no longer.

She was already loosened like long hair,
poured out like fallen rain,
shared like a limitless supply.

She was already root.

And when, abruptly,
the god put out his hand to stop her, saying,
with sorrow in his voice: He has turned around —,
she could not understand, and softly answered
Who?

                           Far away,
dark before the shining exit-gates,
someone or other stood, whose features were
unrecognizable. He stood and saw
how, on the strip of road among the meadows,
with a mournful look, the god of messages
silently turned to follow the small figure
already walking back along the path,
her steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain, gentle, and without impatience.

Orpheus. Eurydice. Hermes
Tr. Stephen Mitchell

I was on my way home..

2011-01-01T07:49:00.002+11:00

I was on my way home on the metro yesterday when a man sat down close to me and carefully arranged his belongings on the floor in front of his feet. He then leaned forward and turned his head, staring at me. I didn't respond. The younger man in the corner between us exited at the next station and once reseated, the older man proceeded to again lean forward and stare at me.

This time, I turned and met his eye and smiled. He gave a huge smile in return, and a small nod of his head. At the next stop, he gathered his things and as he got up, he leaned in and said to me, "I'm in charge of the whole world". I watched as he walked through the train doors, straight to an empty bench and settled in for the evening. He didn't look up as the doors closed and we moved away.

I was on my way home having spent the afternoon walking through Parc LaFontaine with Karie. We had two films each to finish before dropping them in to the photo lab. The park has been completely transformed by snow since I was last there and it was beautiful seeing dogs cavorting in it, and watching skaters on the ice.

Having changed plans several times in the last few days, I think we are now going to bring in the new year quietly at home, with some warm mulled wine and perhaps a Madmen episode or two. It's been a big year in so many ways and I think greeting 2011 calmly sounds pretty good.

So, happy new year to all my friends and family who I love and cherish, laugh with, break bread with, am inspired by. And all those who I miss and wish I could give bearhugs to. And to all the people I hardly know but who take the time to drop in here and read my blog sometimes...

Bon Année !! xx

Shards of Glass in the Heart of Mens

2011-01-01T03:10:00.011+11:00

so much to say,
so much to cry for, so much to live for.

this year's been one of many storms,
as strongs and grandiose as they could became,

beauty does feel unbearable,
sometimes.

A year in the life of..

2010-12-28T09:37:00.000+11:00

I made this (a little hurriedly) for Fred on Christmas Eve - some of our year in pictures. It was such a big year that this is just a tiny fraction of it, and in random order, but I think he liked it anyway.

This Christmas, a snapshot

2010-12-26T15:03:00.002+11:00

From top left: Fairy lights and rummikub; catalogue poses and more catalogue poses; darling Grandma Dorothée; Fred with his polaroid gifts; I think they liked it!; She who has no idea what's in there; What was in there; Frédéric.

I hope you all had a beautiful time celebrating family and friends, good wine and good food. I had a wonderful white Christmas with new family and far away family, and the thoughts of those who were painfully absent this year.

I felt very blessed indeed.
And if I may say so, I was ridiculously proud of my Christmas dinner!!

"Winter for Greer's blog"

2010-12-24T11:54:00.000+11:00

Karine made me a video today as she walked across the Viaduc... and I love the music!! Merci K, je t'aime!!

Figures in the snow

2010-12-21T06:04:00.001+11:00

Fred took these pictures with the pinhole. I can't wait to capture my first winter here on film. Tonight there will be an eclipse resulting in a blood moon - a beautiful winter solstice! Perhaps that explains the strange mood and sleeping patterns we've been in....

I'll take my camera out into the forest sometime after midnight...

This last picture looks like fun - in truth I was absolutely freezing and hadn't dressed for snow up to my knickers! Fred found it highly amusing...

sheeplight

2010-12-20T15:37:00.001+11:00

I want this.

Having seen the pricetag, I won't be having it.

Still, I love this. A felt sheep, with a warm glowing belly light.

They also make the most beautiful felt balls that look exactly like riverstones until you pick them up and the (complete lack of) weight surprises you.. and you can see the other lamps they had further along the wall.. but no moose. That would have been the clincher.

Paper wishes

2010-12-18T10:57:00.002+11:00

Add caption

For everyone I'm thinking of...
(inspired by something I saw here.. executed far more beautifully but surely no more lovingly)

Three kinds of silent

2010-12-14T08:02:00.001+11:00

Two years ago today..

2010-12-12T17:44:00.003+11:00

My little sister had her first child. I watched my nephew, and now godson, make his grand entrance into the world. Today I re-read what I wrote for him on his first birthday and naming day one year ago, and then at his first moments, caught on my camera one year earlier..

I miss him but skype makes that easier...

My tummy is rumbling...

2010-12-12T17:21:00.001+11:00

tomorrow will be a baking day.

novembre

2010-11-23T03:03:00.004+11:00

novembre n'est pas au cœur des ténèbres.

Little things on paper

2010-11-20T08:58:00.000+11:00

A day in the woods..

2010-11-17T14:43:00.006+11:00

fall, falling

till we came upon this road,

till we came upon this road

You held a doll in your arms at the station, I held the sun
and commanded it shine through the all the decay and straight to my pale, pale skin

I felt so small under the tall trees.
the best kind of tiny.