All you need to do is say YES.
Say Yes! I can do something about this.
Say Yes! I can help.
Say Yes! By saying No to plastic.
I know it is hard.
I know we are surrounded by the rotten stuff.
But if we each decide to stop buying one item of plastic.
Just one item.
I have said no to plastic water bottles.
So just Say Yes
And we can make a small step forward.
Say Yes to the planet and say no to unecessary plastic.
Our grandchildren are depending on us.
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My very best friend Tanya, arrived on the morning of Veronica’s wedding with her car boot packed full with brightly coloured gerberas.
Gerberas are such a happy flower.
These images make me smile.
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This week I am linking up with Shae from Yay for Home for her “Things I Know” weekly meme.
Which is so simple it is beautiful, all I need to do is share the things I know and link back to Shae and check out the other bloggers that are joining in.
I know that I have been meaning to join in with this meme for months now but I keep on forgetting that it is on a Friday. Time just slips through my fingers as the days race by merging into one another, and I always think I will join in next week. Next week is finally here and I dreamed about writing this post last night.
I know that the internet is full of lovely people that come out of the ether at the perfect time and give me heart. Tim is one of these people, he sent me an email in response to my, “Cardboard has no soul” post. Tim’s simple words and beautiful photo of his cardboard sculpture cheered me up no end, after a particularly cutting comment had floored me. Tim’s email put a lid on the looming pit of depression that had been in front of me, threatening to swallow me up and I am seriously pleased that Tim spent those few minutes writing to me.
you must cram the soul back in2 the cardboard….from the lost souls of the trees,.., like a forgotten secret hidden in a shoebox deep under your bed………..
I know that an angry post blasting a bullying troll, full of swear words and written in haste will get more comments and page views than the much more important post written about dolphins being slaughtered but I don’t really know why.
I know that since my mum died I have struggled with depression but I don’t like to talk about it for fear that if Iacknowledge it, the depression will win and suck me into a pit of doom.
I know that small things make me incredibly happy and the sight of two pardalotes digging a nest into the bank, close to my front door made my chest swell with delight and I skipped around the house having little *squee* moments.
I know that depending on my mood I call myself a potter, ceramic artist or ceramist but it all means the same thing. I turn mud into art and get exceedingly messy while I am doing just that.
Thanks Shae for this opportunity to share some of the things I know
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I spent my whole parenting life raising my children to be independent free thinkers. I raised my daughter, Veronica to be a strong feminist, not by quoting her tracts from Greer or De Beauvoir and hiding the razors, but by example. I tried to show my daughter that all you need to succeed in this life is determination and hard work and that no man or woman can tell you what you can or can not do within the bounds of the law.
My daughter has found her own path, she is marching to the beat of her own drum and is now raising her own strong willed daughter, Amy. The more my grand daughter grows into her personality the more I see myself reflected there and I am equally terrified and exhilarated.
As a child I fought the restraints of parental control every step of the way. Every single curb was met with a defiant why? Followed up with a detailed counter argument as to why I should be allowed to do exactly as I pleased. There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth and dramatic flouncing and I now know that I was an extremely difficult child to parent.
Primary school was the single most isolating and lonely place I had ever been forced to endure. High school was just an endless clash of wills, with the Catholics determined to teach me to submit and to accept without question the ridiculous notion of a virgin birth and the subservience of women to God’s law. I didn’t like to break the rules by walking out as overt rule breaking makes me extremely uncomfortable, so I just endlessly argued against everything instead.
I faked illness after illness to avoid going to school so that I could just stay home and read in peace all day. One faked illness went a little bit too far and at age twelve I had a perfectly good appendix removed. Of course I lapped up the attention a stay in hospital brings but unfortunately for me I didn’t have any more disposable organs, so that avenue of school avoidance was closed.
As my grand daughter grows up I hope like hell that I live for at least another twenty years to see her through the challenges she will face. And this is where Mum’s untimely death has left a huge hole in our lives. Mum related wholly to Veronica and was Veronica’s support person where as I relate wholly to Amy and I am of only minimal support to Veronica as I relate far to strongly to my grand daughter. I am forever looking to explain or question why Amy behaves the way she does instead of just giving my daughter my sympathetic ear.
In this life you just have to make the best of what you have and try to understand each others limitations.
I am pleased that the education system isn’t as rigid as it was in the seventies but I still worry that there are far too many children out there that are getting lost in the system. I know as I watch my daughter parent her two quirky children that they wont be swallowed up by the machine but I still fervently hope that I am around to throw a few spanners in the works just in case.
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Last weekend I spent an amazing four days in Deloraine attending Woodfire Tas 2011. I met artists from all over Australia and overseas and my head is full of ideas. Someone also very kindly gave me a cold that has decided to settle in my chest so apologies in advance if this post is a bit rambly, as it is hard to keep a train of thought happening when I have to stop and reach for the tissues every five minutes.
I am trying to reflect on what I got out of the conference and to put it simply I received confirmation that I am on the right track. When I meet new people I am often a bit flippant and will fall back on terse one liners which often do not accurately represent me at all. By chance I was having lunch with one of the presenters at the conference and in passing I said I was too lazy to be a woodfirer, as the conversation progressed she commented that lazy wasn’t a word she would use to describe me and that I must stop using it.
I thought about her words for a bit and decided that she was right. I really need to banish those whispering ghosts once and for all.
My work is all about economy, economy of effort, economy of resource and most importantly, economy of time.
I have a strong sense of place here in the Tasmanian hills. I am influenced by my landscape, by drought, by early frosts, by the cold and by the heat. I need my work to reflect that sense of place.
When I am digging local clays to use in glazes I need these glazes to reflect where I am. There is no point using a clay gathered from a coastal region if I am trying to illustrate the tensions of living inland. Though it could be argued that Tasmania is so small that nowhere inland is far from the coast but that is a topic for another day.
Economy of time is of critical importance as often the ideas are fleeting and I need to make the piece all in one go. Grab the clay, make the pot, decorate the pot, put it aside and move on to the next piece.
Demonstrations and talks by Steve Williams and Graeme Wilkie helped to reinforce the ideas that had been swirling around in my head. Graeme Wilkie makes wonderful large work and he talked about working intuitively and finding the quiet space within yourself that allows the clay to direct the work.
Steve Williams says that, “To come back to a form when it has firmed and rekindle a relationship to turn and decorate is for me an ‘alien’ process”
I don’t like to come back to the work either and that is one of the reasons I have been thinking about the raw firing process, so that I only have to mess about with the pots once.
This is some of the beautiful work that was in one of the exhibitions, curated by Ben Richardson.
To finish here is another photo, I took when I was on top of Mount Wellington. I cant see the mountain from my home here in the Southern Midlands and I fretted for a long time. Even though I can see her when I drive down the hill, it isn’t the same as looking out of your window and watching her change through out the course of the day.
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