I have no idea what I am doing.

Luckily I am very good at making stuff up as I go along, otherwise I would be totally buggered.

Life is hectic here at the “frog ponds rock” household. I have been a woman of  many hats lately.

The artists co-op Off Centre has moved premises  from upstairs in the Salamanca Arts Centre to a smaller shop downstairs in a better retail location. The move has been stressful, as any move is, and there have been endless meetings discussing new signage and the layout of the new retail premises.The only small negative associated with the move downstairs was the loss of Off Centre’s gallery space. To offset this loss we have decided to create a Micro Gallery in the smaller of our shop front windows and I am very excited about the possibilities of this new space. I will be painting some small plinths a charcoal colour today to help define the gallery space from the shop space.

I am sure that you gathered from the zillions of photos of fire that I have been posting this week that my Slow Combustion Stove is up and running. Well not actually running as it doesnt have legs but you get my drift.

I had been concerned that the installation of the stove would be too little too late as I had lost my passion for cooking. With the heart of the household finally restored I am pleased to announce that I am cooking again. The only difficulty has been trying to find my assorted tools of the trade as they have been in storage, or given away, for example I cooked lasagne last night in my large cake tin as I couldn’t find my lasagne pan. I see some custom made ceramics in my near future as I don’t like using the wrong pans.

This is the last week of term and the last week of my drawing class, there will be more about the profound effect learning to draw has had on me later. Next term I will be studying introduction to sculpture as well as attending a night class where I learn video editing. The video editing has come in the nick of time as I have two film projects about to happen. The first project involves my friend Dr Jenn Lavers, next week I will be filming the dissection of a number of Short Tailed Shearwater’s that Jenn confidently predicts will be full of plastic pollution. It is very distressing to think that  birds here in Tasmania are ingesting the same amount of plastic as the birds on Midway Atoll.

The second project is still in an embryonic stage of pre-planning, so more about that later.

I have also had a meeting with some educators who work with high school age kids that for any number of reasons are unable to attend school and they are quite keen to have me on board. Doing what, we don’t know yet, but I am sure I will be able to make something up as I go along as I am passionate about the role art plays in giving people a voice.

The local primary school has asked my branch of Tas Regional Arts if there are any artists willing to help the students create art for an end of year exhibition and sale. So it looks like I might be playing in the mud with some primary school children very soon. Speaking of playing in the mud, I am also working on an application to work with some pre-school age children in the far south of the state and that will be a wonderful adventure.

So life is busy and I am about a week behind on my emails. I should go up to the studio and start painting these plinths but I think I might make a fruit cake instead, or maybe a loaf of bread, hmmm scones anyone?