October 2009

The sky is blue today

by frogpondsrock on October 27, 2009

in ceramics,David,Ehlers Danlos Syndrome,Love and Loss

I have this photo of Mum and Amy as my screensaver.

Mum and Amy, a few months before Mum died

I look at this photo every day but I cant bring myself to really have a proper look. If I look properly at this photo and look into my Mother’s eyes I feel myself begin to get all teary. So I quickly look away or I focus on my grand daughter’s face instead.

The enormity of the hole that Mum has left in our lives is only just now starting to become apparent.

Thankfully I have stopped crying every time I think of Mum,though I am crying a little bit as I write this because trying to articulate the depth of my loss makes me examine it in more detail than I want to.

Veronica now has two horses and she reminds me so much of Mum, in that she never does things by halves. Mum was an accomplished and knowledgeable horsewoman and watching my daughter with her two horses I am confident that it wont be long before Veronica is the same.

Mum on Prince

I don’t know where I am going with this post at all. I only know that today the sky is blue and it promises to be a lovely day and for that I am thankful.

David has been formally diagnosed by the geneticist as having Classical EDS with a score of 7 on the Beighton scale. ( a non bendy person might score a 1 if they could touch the floor with the flat of their hands) I am not very flexible at all so my score would be a zero.

The cardiologist has decided that a non-interventionist approach is best for David. Yay. I am all for non intervention. We go back to see the cardiologist in late January 2010. The irregularities with Dave’s heart mean that he will have to take extra care of himself and always be aware of the “heart healthy options” which is a big call for a fifteen year old boy who, like his peers thinks that he is ten foot tall and bullet proof.

My mouth is all healed up as is my self esteem. I can wear my teeth all day now without any major discomfort. I have plonked my teeth into the same category that shoes and bras belong, annoyances that must be worn outside the home for the sake of vanity. The first thing I do when I walk in the door when I get home is kick off my shoes, take off my bra and rip out my falsies. aaah.

I have been in touch with the trustees of a local nature reserve and they were quite excited about my idea of a sculpture trail. I was so nervous before I rang them,that I had to wander around the house psyching myself up to make the call. All the angst was for nothing and I was incredibly relieved and excited by the end of the phone call. I am meeting up with the trustees early next February on site. All I need to do is submit a written proposal to the committee and once that is approved I can begin working towards a major interactive exhibition in a lovely bush setting in February 2011. YAY.

I am also excited about our upcoming exhibition Perspectives of Fire and as soon as the invitations have been printed I will publish one here and then invite you all to the show.

I am working on some different bowls at the moment and Chris Jordan’s photos of the dead albatross chicks have really touched me. I am going to make a dead albatross bowl later on today and I will publish photos of it as a work in progress early next week.

Here are some bowls I made last week. These bowls are the sort of thing that I am thinking of making for the outdoor exhibition. If you mouse over the photos you can read the descriptions of what I have done.

I am off outside now to enjoy the sunshine.

I rolled the clay over some gum leaves.

This is what it looked like when I peeled the leaves away. I should have let the leaves burn away in the kiln, because by removing them I weakened the bowl.

It broke when I picked it up. but I am still going to fire it and use it in Mum's garden.

I have been experimenting with layering thin pieces of clay over each other.I am trying to get a landscapey effect.

the two bowls side by side so you get an idea of the size of the larger bowl.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Plastic rubbish kills baby albatrosses.

by frogpondsrock on October 22, 2009

in environmental stuff,fauna and flora,headfuck,On my soapbox

I was reading this article this morning.

The photos will make you stop what you are doing and have a really good think about where the plastic that we throw away ends up.

I followed the links in the article and ended up here.

Midway.

The clip is only 42 seconds long. Please watch it.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Sometimes the words escape.

by frogpondsrock on October 20, 2009

in Distractions galore!,thinking out loud

And once they have escaped, I have nearly always lost them for good. A sentence or an idea will pop into my head and I will examine its beauty, entranced by the possibilities and then the words will vanish.

I am left silent and wishful. Nurturing a small regret that I hadn’t written them down, trapped them on paper or contained them here so that I could revisit them at my leisure and ponder what they meant.

seduction

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

Eating gluten is poisoning my grand daughter

by frogpondsrock on October 17, 2009

in Amy,Gluten is EVIL!

In the little over two weeks that Amy has had to eat gluten the change in my grand daughter’s behaviour has been quite extreme.

We went to visit yesterday and found Vonnie and Nathan cleaning up poo in Amy’s bedroom. Amy had pooed on the carpet and then played in it.There was shit everywhere, on the floor, on the toys, up the wall and all over Amy herself.

After Amy had been cleaned up and allowed out of time-out up she came to snuggle on my lap and we had a bit of a talk about how dogs poo on the ground and people poo in the toilet but I am not sure it sunk in at all. As Amy wasn’t really there and had difficulty making eye contact with me. *sigh*

Later when we were reading a book together and talking about the pictures in the book, it was also glaringly obvious that Amy’s speech patterns have regressed as well. Half of her sentences were a nonsensical babble.

If I didn’t know that gluten was causing these issues I would be inclined to think that Amy was destined for a life on ADHD medication and/or a classification of being on the Autistic spectrum.

I know that last sentence is a huge call BUT I cannot stress enough how drastically different Amy is. She is all over the shop the poor little darling.

Amy has lost her ability to concentrate for longer than a few seconds. She has a rash on her face and her back. Her speech has regressed. She doesn’t listen and wont make eye contact.She has stopped using the toilet. Her sleep pattens have changed and the tantrums and meltdowns are back with a vengeance.

As I left Veronica yesterday I hugged my daughter and we both said the same thing, “Six more days.” Six more days to go and then the evil gluten can be eliminated from Amy’s diet again and we will have our little girl back. I am looking forward to hearing some happiness in my daughter’s voice again as well, because I am sure that Veronica is only just hanging on by her fingernails.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }

I don’t know how to start…

by frogpondsrock on October 14, 2009

in Arty stuff..,ceramics,thinking out loud

I need to write a three or four thousand word essay/research project in the next few weeks. I have known about this project since the beginning of the year and up until now I haven’t really given it much more than the occassional passing thought.

My initial idea was to research a specific type of glaze and then write about various tests etc. that I had done with that glaze, as well as put together a glossary of glaze terms. But with this year being what it has been, I have only had unbroken blocks of time in the studio since the middle of July. The kilns aren’t firing properly and so any sort of glaze testing on my part has been cursory to say the least.

So with only a few weeks to go before my assessment I had no idea at all of what I was going to do, until a fellow student said she was in the same situation as me (phew). We brainstormed with our tutors and I think that I have a sort of an idea of what I am going to do.

I am going to… and here I stop. My brain just shuts down with the ernormity of the possibilities in front of me. I want to explore the use of text in art and why text isn’t valued as an artform in itself. I want to try and express the impact that the destruction of Tasmania’s ancient forests has on me and why it is important that my art work expresses my despair.

So yesterday, instead of continuing on with this post I emailed my tutors and asked for their help again. My slipcast tutor Dawn Oakford replied and spun me off into yet another wonderful tangent with this idea.

Example 2: Create several ceramic objects (functional or non-functional) and place them along a forest track where they can be readily seen,handled and most importantly their “anti-destruction of forests messages read.

whatever occassion you decide to create, you could photograph people engaging with your ceramics and reacting to your messages – the documentation could then be your research/work

With this suggestion of Dawn’s all thought of my research project happily flew right out of my head and I was left mentally organising an outdoor exhibition and bushwalk. I started to squee with excitement as the possibilities coalesced in my mind. I need to get in touch with the trustees of a local wildlife sanctuary and see if Dawn’s idea would be possible.The images of future work are tumbling through my mind at a rate of knots and and and…

I will keep you posted.

You might remember I made a small sculpture called ‘Silence’ I have been wanting to make her some sisters for a long time now but I have always had the excuse, that I don’t have anywhere to make larger sculptures stopping me from starting. Now I know that I don’t need to make large sculptures at all. Silence’s sisters can be now be made because they only need to be about tweve inches or so high. YAY.

Could you imagine just walking along and finding Silence and her sister “The despair of the Goddess” just sitting there underneath a tree. When you walk further along the bush track there is a bowl with the words useless residue inscribed into it. Or a shell covered with graffiti. Squeeee!

I still need to write my research project but I will think about that tomorrow. Right now I am off to make some phonecalls.