It is always feast or famine isn’t it?
The past week or so I haven’t had any words. It took me three days to write my previous post and each word was a struggle.I just kept on plodding along adding and removing photos, adding and removing sentences, fiddling with the structure of the words until I was sick of the sound of my voice.The post still feels stilted but that is just me being picky.
Now the words are tumbling around in my head clamouring to be let out to play and I need to be quick or I will lose them all again.
My plate received an honourable mention in the plate a day contest. I was thrilled to bits. As an artist I am hyper critical of my work and once I saw the qualityof the other submissions I very nearly deleted mine. I am glad that I didn’t but it was touch and go there for a bit.
The spouse and I went salt water fishing yesterday. Normally I am a keen angler and the spouse and I have a healthy rivalry going but lately I have been getting a bit bored with it. The tide was very low and I was beachcombing along the shore looking for interesting rocks and things to use with my work.
I find that I am increasingly steering away from plastic and steel tools. I was picking up pieces of flat stone and thinking about how they felt in my hand.I liked how they felt like a natural extension of my hand and I knew the clay would like them too.I intuitively knew that the clay would respond better to these tools than to plastic or steel ones.
Thinking about stone tools led me down a darker path. I began thinking about the original Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania and the recent shameful destruction of an aboriginal mia mia.
There is a dark, racist history in Tasmania and it is still there just under the surface bubbling away. In these sanitised days of political correctness you could look around and see a polite civilised society that on the surface mouths words of care and concern for the environment and each other. But travel a bit deeper into the heart of Tasmania, scratch beneath the surface a bit and you will find that racism and contempt for the environment is well and truly alive and thriving.
I find it very interesting that the mia mia was found on private land that was earmarked for logging. Forestry Tasmania had temporarily halted plans for logging that particular coupe until archeological surveys and heritage assessments could be done, and then bugger me dead if it isn’t destroyed.
It is very easy for me to surmise that a couple of ‘good ole boys’ drinking at the pub would think, “Bloody abos and fucking greenies aren’t gonna stop us from making a living”. Fuelled by alcohol and contempt they decide to solve this little problem on their own. No mia mia anymore, problem solved. Of course this is just a theory but the talk in my local watering hole goes along very similar lines.
In other news Peter Garret has finally grown a set and reccomended the Tarkine wilderness for emergency world heritage listing.
This photo I took when I was fishing yesterday sums up how I am feeling at the moment.
Also here is a shot of the cucumbers I planted out yesterday. I am a limited for space in the kitchen garden so I had to think outside the square.
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Hearing you Kim. My blogging mojo has gone AWOL at the mo.=)
Congrats on the honorable mention!
I think the blogging funk is at a universal high these days. *hugs*
I clicked and looked at the pic, and if I were a logger, I would have NO IDEA that this was some sort of aboriginal structure. Was it marked at all? I was a bit unclear from looking at the article.
I lived in Aus. for about two years and never met an Aborigine. Apparently they did not exist in my suburb. Not one.
Racism and contempt. There is far too much of that in the world. If only there were some way to make them all see that we’re ALL people regardless of colour or heritage.
congrats for honourable mention 🙂
I love Tassie but there is a lot of subtle racism.
Honourable mention – that’s great news!!
hi kim – just wanted to say i have been growing vegies in pots for a few years due to space and avoiding dog damage and the climbers love a circle of wire – i use dog fence wire – which i usually put in when i first plant so it is deep in the pot.
also congrats for the mention of your lovely plate! and thanks for the link to this website as well as i have been really enjoying the exposure to some ceramics…. thinking of the future…
I get that feast or famine of words, too. 🙂 Lately I’m feasting. Two weeks ago? Famine.
Racism sucks. That’s all there is to say. Haters suck, prejudices suck.
I love your little cucumbers. They look so healthy!
You’re in good company with those beautiful ceramincs, Kim. Well done. Working with raw materials that require a kiln or annealer is the amazing activity. I miss my ceramics and glass blowing days lessons.
The racism that floats not so deep below the surface in this country is not the sole problem of Tassie. Our Indigenous people feel they are treated and seen as less than every race, by every race, including Indians, Asians and Muslims. Sharing life with an Indigenous advocate has been an enormous eye opener, leading to disillusionment on my behalf.