I have been experimenting with porcelain lately. Porcelain has a lovely transluscent quality and porcelain pieces, done well, have a subtle glow about them.
It is also bastard stuff to work with. It rips, it collapses, it shatters if you breathe too loudly and then once you have finally gotten it into the kiln it warps and distorts.Gah.
I have decided that porcelain is far too temperamental for me at this stage in my life.It just doesn’t do anything for me artisitically, other than mess with my head. I need simple things at the moment. I need things to work as they are supposed to, with a minimum of fuss.
The last few months of Mum’s life were a whirlwind blur of doctors appointments,scans, radiation and all the minutae assosciated with cancer treatments. Nothing was simple or straightforward. Cancer is messy and awful and unpredictable.
Cancer also causes pain. Lots and lots of pain.
Friday 4th June (from Mum’s diary)
Ok this was the worst morning, reduced me to tears trying to get out of bed but I finally made it…
Looking back it really seems such a shame that we wasted so much time. We lived from scan to scan. There were four weeks in April/May when Mum was feeling really good and she was almost pain free.We wasted those four weeks, waiting about for doctors and having the bone mets in her spine zapped. With the benefit of hindsight we should have just taken off to Sydney then and had all the useless treatments after Mum had done everything that she wanted.
Caring for someone with a terminal illness is very difficult. It puts things into perspective and skews your way of thinking. I would have walked barefoot, through the fires of hell if I thought that it would help my Mother. But in the end nothing helped my Mum and I am here, bereft.
So life is far too short to be messing about playing with temperamental clay. Time is too precious to waste fiddling and faffing about with pretty clay that will just break your heart when you get it out of the kiln.
I need some inspiration.
The last time I needed inspiration I had a giveaway. A giveaway that my friend Jientje, from Heaven is in Belgium won (yay). When I had my last giveaway Jientje said that she would love something inspired by my photographs of the Tasmanian summer sky. That comment of hers then inspired my ’skydancer’ series of tall cups.
So now it is up to you my dear internetz. Inspire me. Leave me a comment telling me about something that you would like me to make for you. And I will try to make it. Bearing in mind that it will have to be posted to you so it cant really be a seven foot tall sculpture of the Goddess, or a 42 piece dinner setting for seven.
I will then use the random number thingy to pick a winner.
I have just reached 100 readers (woot) So this is also a chance for my readers that don’t normally comment to click over and leave me a comment. (pretty please)
Everyone and anyone is welcome to enter.You could be from Tasmania or Timbuktoo, I don’t mind. You could be a friend, a stranger, a relative of mine or even a colleague.You just need to be prepared to wait a bit for your prize. Petra waited 11 months and 29 days for her platter. Jientje won her cups in February and I will post them off to her in about two weeks time.
So come on my lovelies, help me to dream about clay again. This giveaway will be open for one week from today. I will announce the winner next Sunday, the 16th of August.
*edited to add You can comment more than once if you like, you can come back and comment every day for the week if you like. With a maximum of seven comments per person seeming fair enough.
**Comments are now closed. Good Luck to everyone and thankyou very much for making me smile.
Or for those of you who use the Imperial system of weights and measures that is about 200 pounds of hard fighting fish.
David went Tuna fishing on Saturday with a close family friend and his sons and they caught a 98 kilo Tuna. Here is a photo taken with Dave’s phone. My son is 6 foot 4 so that gives you an idea of how big the fish is. See those chomp marks near the Tuna’s tail? A Mako shark came up and had a bit of a nibble. Luckily the boys managed to land the Tuna before the shark came back for more. Well done lads!!!
Oh look, it is a meme, yippee.
I have been tagged by two Mom’s who blog. Ree the hotfessional and Hyphen-Mama.
This meme was started by Catherine,Her Bad Mother and David from It’s not a Lecture who wanted to see if they could go around the world in 80 clicks. So the rules include linking to them(done that) and nipping over to their blogs and leaving a comment that you have done the meme, so that they can follow the clicks(about to do that right now) around the world.
So here we are on a small island underneath Australia talking about 5 things I love about being a Mother, Hmm…
For me, being a Mum is all about the Five A’s
Art, Accidents, Acceptance, Avoidance and my special favourite Amnesia..
Lets start with the Amnesia shall we?
I suffer from child induced Amnesia. I was slowly recovering from this common form of Amnesia when I became pregnant with my second child. Sadly, once my pregnancy was confirmed, all hope of normal brain function returning flew right out the window.
My memory shrank in direct proportion to the growth of the child in my belly. Examples of this sometimes very useful form of Amnesia still pop up with alarming regularity in my life today.
I am generally reminded how useful this Amnesia can be, by one of my offspring managing to bring a conversation around to a point where they say, “Mum, remember that you said that I could have a pet snake/pony/dye my hair green/live in France for a year/pierce my eyebrow/bellybutton/nose.
I will graciously agree, that why yes I do recall agreeing to buy you a swimming pool/ant farm/lasergun/popcornmaker/fake lifesize dinosaur bone. And that the very next time we go into town we will have a look for these essential items.
This is where the children used to wander off, secure in the knowledge that I would cater to their every outrageous demand and my amnesia would kick in within a few minutes and everyone was happy.
Art: Look at this little gem..
Accidents: Life is full of accidents. My two favourite accidents are now 20 years old and nearly 15.
Acceptance: I learned very quickly to accept that I was turning into my Mother. Phrases that as a child, I vehemently swore I would never, ever ever, say to my children were suddenly tumbling from my lips, much to the annoyance of my own offspring, I constantly spouted familiar phrases such as…
” Because I said so”,
and
“Because I am the Mother, thats why”
and the perennial favourite,
“The wind will change and you will be stuck like that forever.”
Avoidance: please refer back to Amnesia..
There you go my lovelies, the Five A’s of Motherhood. Now I get to Tag some other Mothers who will then tag some more Mothers and off we go Around the world in eighty clicks. YAY
I tag:
Barbara in Britain who has two small children and a lovely wry sense of humour.
Jientje from the aptly named Heaven is in Belgium
Mrs C from America who has six children and writes with honesty and humour.
Hope, expectation, Bright promises.
The Moon is a card of magic and mystery – when prominent you know that nothing is as it seems, particularly when it concerns relationships. All logic is thrown out the window.
The Moon is all about visions and illusions, madness, genius and poetry. This is a card that has to do with sleep, and so with both dreams and nightmares. It is a scary card in that it warns that there might be hidden enemies, tricks and falsehoods. But it should also be remembered that this is a card of great creativity, of powerful magic, primal feelings and intuition. You may be going through a time of emotional and mental trial; if you have any past mental problems, you must be vigilant in taking your medication but avoid drugs or alcohol, as abuse of either will cause them irreparable damage. This time however, can also result in great creativity, psychic powers, visions and insight. You can and should trust your intuition.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
I am skipping in circles and jumping up and down with excitement..
If Amy was here she would be giggling with me and asking, “Chase Amy? Chase Amy?” and I would chase her. I do a bad, zombie impersonation, (without the groaning and the blood and guts) but with ‘Duuur Duuum’ sound effects when I chase Amy..
But that is a tangent for another day… We have a winner, we have a winner, YAY! YAY! YAY!
For those of you who weren’t paying attention, I had a giveaway for my birthday to cheer myself up.
Aaaand Jientje from Heaven in Belgium has won it. YAY!!!!!!
I am looking forward to making a set of drinking vessels (largish cup thingys without handles) for Jientje. And now just because I can here are some photos I took earlier on this week..
