I like to make rocks. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from making ceramic rocks. As I am making rocks I go elsewhere in my mind and I find a place of beautiful stillness and in this space I am working at my most intuitive.

I enjoy making all the work that I make, otherwise I wouldn’t make it BUT it is these rocks that give me the most pleasure.

So without further ado here is the Ceramic edition of this weeks Sunday Selections. There are some rules to this meme but I am fluid, follow them or not, it is up to you. I do ask that you link back to me though.

The Blurb

I take a lot of photos and most of them are just sitting around in folders on my desktop not doing anything. I thought that a dedicated post once a week would be a good way to share some of these photos that otherwise wouldn’t be seen by anyone other than me.

I am also remarkably absent minded and I put photos into folders and think that I will publish them later on and then then I never do.

So I have started a photo meme that anyone can join in and play as well. The rules are so simple as to be virtually non existent.

Just add your name and URL to the Mr Linky.

Publish your photos on your blog using the “Sunday Selections” title.

Link back here to me.

The Photos

These little lidded vessels are about the size of a squished tennis ball. I call them puzzle boxes because it takes a few twists and turns of the lid to make it sit correctly. I had heaps of fun making these.

This is a candlestick and incense holder. We had a power failure recently and I didn’t have anything to stick any candles into.

This is the side view of the same candlestick and incense holder.

This is part of the first platter that I made in response to my recent trip up to Burnie. I can still feel the psychic impact of driving over the hill into Devonport and being smacked in the soul by the ocean.

This platter is available in the Off Centre Gallery in Salamanca Arts Centre

And then we leave my rocks and travel to the other side of my artistic brain and have this work, which I also adore making. These three pieces are part of the Rose Exhibition, which is showing now at the Lady Franklin Gallery in Lenah Valley. I have donated all of the sale price of this work to the Cancer Council.

Today is the day my lovelies.

I am not nervous today at all which is a blessed relief. On Tuesday I was extremely nervous and  every time I thought about The Shave my chest would tighten and I would have to concentrate on my breathing until the moment of minor panic had passed.

With the ever useless gift of hindsight I can now see that it was the scheduled trip to hospital on Wednesday that was making me the most nervous, not the impending shave. Though I am having a little hyperventilate now *gulp*

Tonight at approximately 7.30 (ish) I will be shaving all my hair off.

I wont be shaving my hair off in a quiet corner of a locked bathroom somewhere, oh no that would be far too easy.

I will be shaving my hair off in the middle of a roller derby match.

How did I get here? How did I go from thinking, “Jeez I am sick to death of my fucking hair”, to “Let’s shave it all off in an arena  chocka blok full of strangers?”

I blame you.

I lay the blame squarely at your feet, internet.

It is all your fault.

You make me feel like I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.

You make me believe that I can do anything, that my harebrained schemes aren’t that harebrained after all.

Every single one of you that reads this blog, or leaves a comment, or sends me an encouraging email.

This is all your fault.

And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

Together we have raised over THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS and my total meter thermometer thingy, on my fundraising page is flashing and blinking and saying GOAL ACHIEVED with a shininess that hurts my eyes.

So any Hobartians out there reading this blog, you should come along to the DEC tonight, it promises to be a fun night and all proceeds go to the Leukaemia foundation. The doors open at 5pm (cash sales only though) and the first bout starts at 6.10 pm.

Scott Bacon MP will be wielding the clippers and I will lose my locks at about 7.40 pm.

Scott Bacon is the Minister for Tourism,Hospitality and Veterans Affairs and I will be sitting with him before the shave. It amuses me no end that I will have my very own hostage, I mean politician in the box with me tonight. So any questions you want asking of the local member for Denison you have about 5 hours notice to email them to me and I will engage the minister in polite conversation.

Veronica is coming along with me as my personal photographer and I hope to have some photos up on the blog tomorrow.

Thank you all so very, very much and hopefully I will see some of you at the DEC tonight.

The other night we were all outside, doing outside things. The Spouse was watering the veggie garden and I was picking what was left of the plums whilst loudly bemoaning the fact that the bloody possums were destroying my plum trees. I gave Harry the dog a stern talking to about keeping up with his end of the bargain. I reminded Harry that it was HIS job to bark at the possums, not mine and that he had better lift his bloody game. Harry gave me a shamefaced woof and promised to do better, ten minutes later he made amends by showed me where a a blue tongue lizard was lurking in the wood pile.

This is only a small blue tongue, compared to the resident lizard that lives under the water tank and often scares the shit out of me by impersonating a tiger snake.

Normally blue tongues are quite shy and it isn’t often we see them out in the open like this one. He didn’t seem to be frightened of us at all and posed for a number of photos. Harry decided that the middle of the photo shoot was the time to make amends for his lacksadaisical  possum scaring performance and was keen to protect me from this vicious, vicious lizard, sigh. I am sure that in Harry’s doggy mind the blue tongue was about to leap for my throat with all the ferocity of a pythonesque rabbit. So The Spouse caught the blue tongue for me and after we had checked him over for tics, we released him into the garden near the frog ponds and he disappeared under a large rock.

The next day the blue tongue was out in the middle of the yard again and I spent some time filming him as well as taking some more photos. I don’t know how long this lizard will survive here, as he is very nonchalant about his personal safety. He spent ages out in the middle of the yard in full view of any passing predators and at one stage he decided that it would be nice to rest against my foot for a bit.

It is quite difficult taking a photo of a lizard leaning against your shoe, as I had my foot tucked under the chair and I was on an awkward angle but I think this photo is quite sweet, in a this is what my life is really like kind of way.

Here are a couple of the macros I took yesterday and from these photos you can see why it is that when the large resident lizard does his tiger snake impersonation I nearly have a little heart attack. Those few seconds between the thought, “Eek a snake” and “Oh its only you” make my heart beat rather quickly.

So there you go my lovelies I hope you enjoyed these photos of one of my favourite wild creatures that share my backyard.

I would like to start this blog post by thanking you. The words thank you seem so small when I write them down, they don’t really capture the enormity of grateful emotion that swells in my chest every time I receive help from you.

As each email telling me of a donation comes in, I feel an excited *squee* bubbling up and I am so very, very grateful to you.

The section of the internet that I frequent really is filled with lovely, lovely generous people. And due to your help in spreading the word of my shave we are going to be able to help the Leukaemia Foundation help families who are facing the darkest battle of their lives.

Cancer really and truly does suck. It is a terrifying reality to have to face.

It is the little things with cancer that you don’t expect.

I wasn’t prepared for how much I spent on petrol driving to the hospital over and over again, the car seemed to be continually running on empty(as was I) and all other household bills were put on the backburner as the costs of Mum’s cancer came first.

When you live any distance away from the hospital, appointments seem to take up whole days. I don’t think I cooked a meal for my family in the last few months of Mum’s life. I know I certainly didn’t do a scrap of housework.

Small things internet, small things that build up and can cause huge stress in a family.

It is my own experience of cancers destructive impacts upon a family that made me decide to join the Worlds Greatest Shave. I was grumpy with my hair and I saw an ad somewhere for the Leukaemia foundation and BAM just like that I signed up.

Now of course I am shitting myself and trying not to think about the impending haircut, as each time I think about it I start to hyperventilate a little bit.

I am impulsive and I never ever think about the consequences of my actions. I just decide to do stuff. I certainly hadn’t thought about the logistics of actually shaving off my hair until a conversation happened on facebook and I was given a link to this page, Miss Be Shavin’

And before I could say “Roller Derby looks like fun” I had joined up with these girls and the logistics of the shave are all being taken care of for me.

I just wont think about the venue, or the hundreds of people that will be there.

I will do my best Scarlett O”Hara impersonation and think about that tomorrow, internet.

On my birthday Veronica took some photos of my hair for me.

After all that hair modelling I was exhausted and the kidlets and I retired to the couch, with chocolate.

If you would like to support me  and donate a couple of dollars I would be most grateful.

So far internet we have raised Raised: $1,508.00

You can DONATE HERE. *grins*

Wow internet that is a long time.

Well it’s not really a long time if you are a tree or a rock or a giant squid.

BUT it is a long time to have been married.

Today is my anniversary, The Spouse and I have been together for 25 years.

I often flippantly say that I found him on the side of the road and decided to keep him, well that is true, up to a point.

I didn’t really decide to keep “The Spouse” until four years later.

What I don’t say is that I only went out with The Spouse for a few months when I  was seventeen.

“The Spouse” swears that for him, it was love at first sight. He says he just knew that I was the one for him.

At the fickle age of seventeen I just thought he was rather hot and very fuckable. I went out with him for a few months and then dumped him when he started to talk about long term plans.

At the words lets settle down,I went WTF and bolted.

I bumped into Jeff at the pub again when I was 18 or 19 and one look into those eyes of his and I was immediately smitten again. But once again he vowed and declared that I was the only one for him and I was off like a shot.

At the age of 20 I was living a rather torrid life. The share house I was living in was full of crazy people doing crazy people things. I was working night shift in a popular blues nightclub and I wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends, I was putting a blow torch to the middle of the fucker  as well.

Enter “The Spouse” into my life again

Third time must have been the trick because on my 21st birthday I decided that maybe there was some merit to settling down with this bloke and so I jumped onto the back of his motorcycle and we have never looked back.

I like this photo very much, even though I joke that I should have moved the knife block a bit closer.

“The Spouse is often underneath my car fixing it for me.

I was telling him to pose for the camera and we got the giggles.

This is my favourite “Arty” shot of the Spouse.

Hey Jeffrey Foale. I do Love you!

Melinda Tankard-Reist shouts a lot.

She shouts about porn and the exploitation of women, she presents herself as a feminist and campaigns against the sexualisation of our girls.

Playboy bunnies on eight year old girls knickers make me a bit shouty as well and I think we should all be making a lot more noise about the sexualisation of our little girls.

BUT

What Melinda Tankard Reist would prefer that we didn’t know about her is that she is a fundamentalist Christian.

A god botherer of the first order who attends a Baptist church.

I didn’t know this, because to be honest even though I follow Melinda Tankard Reist on twitter I find her hysterical screechings to be a bit exhausting and I only notice her occasionally.

Once I was made aware of Melinda Tankard Reist’s religious leanings a lot of her opinions were immediately put into context.

A context that Melinda Tankard Reist doesn’t seem to like me having.

And it also seems that Melinda Tankard Reist  would prefer that her religious preferences aren’t talked about.

Melinda Tankard Reist says,

“She tries to follow Jesus, but she doesn’t want anybody focusing on her religion because that will distract from her work.”

I tend to disagree.

I think it is of critical importance that we have a context within which to frame our responses to Melinda Tankard Reist’s anti porn and anti abortion campaigns.

I think that  Melinda Tankard Reist’s religion is very, very important to how I perceive her and her work. It doesn’t distract me from her work at all, it gives me the previously mentioned context.

Dr Jennifer Wilson has been persistent in her  public questioning of Melinda Tankard Reist and Dr Wilson writes that she is now being sued by Tankard Reist for declaring on her blog, “No Place for Sheep” that Tankard Reist is a Baptist and attends a Baptist church.

MTR threatens Sheep with legal action if we don’t censor our posts about her immediately

In the conversation that ensued on twitter between No place for Sheep, Weezmgk and myself, I offered my public support to Dr Wilson

This conversation in turn inspired  Machine Gun Keyboard to write this post in support of Dr Wilson

Melinda Tankard-Reist is not the internet nor sex police

So here I stand on my soapbox on my blog declaring loudly that I am Spartacus, because it is incredibly, incredibly important that WE DO NOT LET THE SHOUTERS WIN.

We the public should always, always question the motivations of high profile public campaigners,politicians or anyone else that purports to speak in our name.

I AM SPARTACUS!

In the middle of raising the funds for Annie’s iPad, unbeknown to me, Paypal limited my account. That is why some of you were unable to donate.

Luckily for us and for Annie, Paypals actions didn’t affect our outcome as the gorgeous Nathalie had teed up a discounted iPad from her local Apple Store.

Marita went ahead and purchased Annie’s iPad on her credit card, knowing that the funds that you had generously donated would be available.

Mission accomplished internet. Annie has her iPad.

Can you imagine my dismay that same afternoon, when I went to send Marita the money and I saw this message.

Basking in the happy afterglow of our achievement, I should have been skipping around the house saluting the generostity of my lovely internetz. Instead I was left with an administrative headache that I didn’t want to talk about online, in case it put a downer on the collective happiness we were all feeling.

I was presented with a series of hoops I was required to jump through in order to get my account up and running again.

I managed to confirm my identity without any problems. I then had to upload a recent bank statement which I was loathe to do. Giving paypal that sort of information about my recent financial history made me very, very uncomfortable, but I did it.

Then I really hit a stumbling block, as I had used a donate button I had to explain my charity’s mission statement. Oh dear. I am not a charity I am just a person who wanted to harness the power of the internet to give a little girl an iPad. This is when I  rang Paypal and began the five day process of lifting the limitations on my account.

Luckily for me, Marita was happy to wait until the Paypal funds were cleared and she refused my offer of paying her the cash myself.

Five days from start to finish, three phonecalls and various administrative hoops later, your money internet, is in Marita’s bank.

And I am sitting here trying to work out  all the reasons why I am grumpy with paypal.

I am grumpy because paypal took $27.00 in charges.

I wasn’t aware of these sort of fees being applied. When I have donated in the past using paypal I just assumed that all of my donation would go through. So I am grumpy with my own naivety as well as Paypals business practice.

When I was talking to one of Paypals customer service representatives he told me that blogs were in a regulatory grey area and that the sort of limitations that were put on my account were quite common. He gave me the usual spiel about terrorism and money laundering and financial laws, etc. etc.

As I went higher up the corporate food chain the attitude of the employees wasn’t exactly condescending but it was  tinged with a subtle arrogance. There was an undertone in the conversation that suggested that I was swimming in murky financial waters.

I am writing this blog post as a warning to other bloggers to be careful when using  Paypal to raise money. Because even though a Paypal donate button with the tracker widget is a lovely and convenient way to raise money. It is also quite a headache trying to get your account up and running again if Paypal decide to limit your account.

All in all 32 lovely people donated $725 minus the $27 in fees and I was able to transfer $698 to Marita last night.

Now the question I ask myself is, “Would I do it again?” Yes I would, but I would have to think of a better way to collect the money raised rather than being at the mercy of Paypal. I think the fact that I presented myself as “high profile” Australian blogger helped to hurry along the procedure.  As once I started to google Paypal complaints I found that some people have been waiting a long time to sort out these sorts of issues.

Anyhow internet, once again thankyou so very very much for helping to make this Christmas so very special for one little girl.

And as for you Paypal, I havent quite decided what to do about you just yet.

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.

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.

I am joining in with Shae’s things I know meme again this week because I know a lot of things and this is one way for me to share them without sounding like a know it all.

I know that reading Shae’s blog post this morning where she declares that she is farticus made me smile. No woman, I AM FARTICUS!

I know that small things often have a very big impact.

I commented on a post written by Eden Riley the other week and Eden sent me the shell she had photographed. This tiny tiny shell only a bit bigger than my thumbnail will soon have inspired a whole series of work.I pinched this photo from Eden’s blog.

When I am absentmindedly doodling, or when I let myself be transported to the quiet space within, these swirls in the shell are a recurring feature in my art work. Whether they are lines drawn in the clay with a wet finger, while I am thinking of other things or pen marks on the back of an envelope drawn while I am on hold to centrelink. These marks are always there just below the surface. I asked Eden for the shell because I liked the tiny blue swirl on the flat side and thought to use that as decoration in a pot. The  ridges and swirls on the underside of the shell were an unexpected bonus and I felt slightly disjointed for a while as I thought about beauty and destruction. I felt very strongly that the Earth Mother was saying, “See Kimmy, here I am again, listen to me,you need to make work of the earth.

I am trying not to listen to the planet as it screams at me to make more work, as it takes me such a long time to recover.I have held myself back from making any earth pots as the energy it takes is enormous. I am faffing about making bread and butter items for the shop, instead of dead bird bowls. I am more concerned with paying my rent than paying my dues and I have deliberately kept my shoes on to minimise the humming in my soul as the birds keep on dying.

This next series of photos illustrate what I mean. The post is here if you want to read about it Blood and Ashes, Oil and Despair. I couldn’t get the birds out of my head. The dead birds nagged at me until I made the work. And it took me weeks to recover from the making.

I know I started this post out on a humourous note declaring that, “No Shae, I AM Farticus!” and then I went to a darker place. It was as unexpected a journey to me my dear internets, as it was to you. I had just planned to touch lightly on the surface issue of friendships and small things making large differences when, “Bam” the birds ambushed me.

And so, here we are together again internet, just you and I on the cusp of another journey. I think I would like you to hold my hand please.