Diabolical Clay

I can feel the subtle vibrations emanating from the corner of the room.

The pulse of a forgotten heartbeat.

Visions of lasagne and dark sourdough bread, rich chocolate cake and lemonade scones.

Oven dried tomatoes, charred capsicums. Osso Bucco and Milanese risotto.

The magic is returning.

I feel like cooking.

Drawing lessons have had some unexpected results, one of them has been the realisation that in order to avoid my husbands head exploding, I must employ a cleaner.

I do not notice dust. I am oblivious to mess. Clutter surrounds me and I don’t see the tottering pile of books on the coffee table until I realise that I can only see half the television screen. Considering I only watch bits of the world news and masterchef at the moment, I am quite surprised I even noticed at all.

There is a spider web growing at an alarming rate in the corner of the kitchen and when I first spotted it, I spent quite some time observing the fact that daddy long legs build an inverted cone shaped web that is really quite pretty.

I do the barest minimum housework that it is possible to get away with. I don’t wash windows, I don’t dust or polish, now that I don’t have small children who like to eat their food off the floor I don’t mop, sweep or vacuum.

I admire tidy people enormously. There is something quite soothing about a lovely clean space free of cobwebs and dust. Tidy houses are very nice to visit but they also make me nervous and I worry that I am shedding dog hair from my skirt onto their tidy floors.

Also, I  wonder where do the spiders live in a tidy house?  I wonder, if  the spiders aren’t happily occupied in a corner of a messy room, if they will leap out at you like eight legged ninjas and go for your throat from sheer frustration because you keep on wrecking their webs.

Now where was I going with this post? Oh yes that’s right distractions.

It was whilst I was researching myself for the written component of my drawing class,I found this quote in a book.

On the other hand if too absorbed in their special interests they can become careless or oblivious to more mundane concerns. Not uncommonly they rely on others to take care of these matters so they don’t even have to think about them. Thus although they live up to their responsibilities on the universal and sometimes on the social level, on the personal level they might quite regularly shirk their duties.

Reading that line was like one of those light bulb moments, except I resisted the urge to shout Eureka! I have long wondered at my total inability to create any sort of order around me and even when I try really, really hard to be neat and tidy, the clutter just explodes. It isn’t just  because I am totally disinterested, lacking the housework gene, or even as my father would tell me, lazy and useless, it is simply because of the day I was born. Phew. Now that I have worked this out, I no longer feel guilty about my total lack of orderly skills and I can happily employ a cleaner to come up here and create some order for me. And believe you me I will not be one of those women who embarks upon a cleaning frenzy before the cleaner arrives.

I have spoken on this blog before about how the subtle tones and lines of the clouds will make me completely forget, that I was outside for any reason other than to gaze at the sky, and think about those lines and tones on a pot.

Ten weeks with Glen, my drawing teacher has messed with my head a bit. Now instead of seeing twenty tonal variations I am seeing thirty. I was already a tad obsessed with shadows and light lines and the infinite possibilities of blacks fading into greys. Now I am tottering on the brink of something and I don’t know where I am going.

Whether this need to see, to look deeper will rend the fabric of my marriage as I become increasingly frustrated with “The Spouses” grumpiness and depression. Along with his maddening inability to see that even when my hands are not covered in clay, I am still working dammit, and that the housework isn’t even on my radar. I remember once, years ago when I was drinking he came in and nagged me about the mess in the kitchen whilst I was cooking dinner. I swept all the dishes off the sink onto the floor yelling that that now we really had a proper fucking mess. I am much less tempestuous now that I don’t drink but the principle is still the same. It is all relative.

Then I remember that The Spouse is broken and in pain and I love the grumpy old bugger. I am supposed to be his carer, not he mine, so I put my selfishness aside and I do the dishes and clean up a bit, all the while dreaming about large floor pots and stacks of woodfired plates.

The gas man slash plumber comes up here on Thursday to connect up my gas kiln. Whilst he is here he is also going to hook up the hot water cylinder to the slow combustion stove. After living with a temporary kitchen for over twenty years I am finally going to have my wood burning oven. It is all a bit sad really, after waiting all these years for my oven, I have lost interest in cooking.  Though I do have a good sourdough starter recipe I am wanting to make with the only apple from my tree this year. So we will have to wait and see if a working oven ignites my lost passion for cooking.

This is my temporary kitchen the photo was taken in the dark this morning. I am hard up against the slow combustion stove to take this photo

This photo was taken before I had my studio and I had set up a workspace in the space between the old kitchen and the new kitchen. I have put this photo in here to remind myself how frustrated I was when I didn’t have anywhere to work at all.

This is the new kitchen in the process of being built. I am leaning against the sink in the old kitchen so that you get an idea of the space. Once the sink is in and the water is hooked up I am going to get the cleaners in to dust the kitchen and living areas, which is a much bigger job than it sounds. They can also wash the windows and remove some of the older cobwebs. I will  be pointing out the cobwebs that they are not allowed to touch, as the spiders in the corner of the rooms are not hurting anybody and have as much right to live in this house as anybody else.

I am glad that I titled this post “Now I am even more easily distracted” as the title gives you a clue as to the rambly nature of the writing. So thank you for listening, now I am going up to my lovely large studio to finish off some work I started on Monday.

Wow! Sunday Selections has been going for twenty weeks.

Thank you to everyone for playing along with me and sharing your photos and your stories.

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.

Easy Peasy.

Here are my photos for this week.

Because if it wasn’t for her I would have stopped swimming long ago.

This blog is only a slice of my life, it is a tiny snippet of how things are. I use the blog to get the words out of my head. I write out the sad, press publish and then walk away. The simple act of writing out how I feel, helps me to make sense of my emotions so that my head doesn’t explode with the weight of the words circling like so many hungry buzzards inside my mind.

I think hungry buzzards as a metaphor was a bit over the top but the image  of words with wings flying in lazy circles is making me smile.

I like this internet connection I have with you. I like the fact that Jess can hear the stones whisper, that Achelois completely gets where I am coming from, Janet sends me dragonfly notebooks and youtube clips, April sends me chocolate and Christmas ornaments that remind her of dragon eggs.

There are far too many of you to list but you all help me and I am grateful.

But there is a dark side to the internet community as well. A darker side that is giving me the shits. Trolls are not uncommon, plagiarism is rife, a holier than thou attitude is starting to come to the fore, cronyism is becoming more obvious and mini dicatorships are springing up left right and centre.

And now the Australian mummybloggers have a manifesto.  I will not be signing the bloggers manifesto. I will not be told what to do. I will especially not be told what to do in such simplistic terms, as if I am a child tottering about within the interwebs being told to “play nicely now.”

I like my manifestos to have a little more substance, to be a little heavier in weight, I like a manifesto that makes me think. My personal favourite is A Humanist Manifesto. Then there is the Dada manifesto, or the Communist manifesto or even the SCUM manifesto to give my brain an early morning work out.

But this post isn’t about blogging this post is about Dory whispering to me, to just keep swimming.

I took my teenage son to the doctor yesterday with the sole intention of getting him a prescription for anti depressants.

No mother wants to hear their child tell them that there isn’t any point in living because life is just too fucking hard.

The pressures of a new school environment where every bogan bully wants to fight the big guy in order to prove they don’t have small dicks. The constant pain from his Ehlers Danlos syndrome. The ongoing grief and loss from the death of his confidante and main support person, his Nan. All these things combined with the normal adolescent pressures were enough to send my son hurtling into a well of darkness and despair.

Our family GP could tell I meant business and he wrote out a prescription for David. He talked to David about lifestyle choices and the need for exercise and sunshine.

He also in one sentence totally dismissed David’s Ehlers Danlos Syndrome as being a contributing factor towards his depression.

For Fucks Sake.

This is the reality of living with a rare genetic condition in Tasmania.

Sometimes it is all just too hard for me as well.

But I am an adult, with 45 years of life experience behind me. I know that nothing is ever as hopeless as it first looks and I also have the clay which grounds me and gives me an outlet for my rage.

Dear internet, here are the words that are in my head.

I give them to you, so that they stop flying around my mind.

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.

Easy Peasy.

In a far away country across the sea, my crazy English friend has decide to walk 26.2 miles to raise money for Breast Cancer Research.

26.2 miles is 42 kilometres and Douglas Adams fans all know that 42 is the answer.

Whatever 42 is, it is a bloody long way to walk.

You can go here to donate a dollar or two if you want. Barbara Southby is my friends name.

Closer to home and guaranteed to make you need to do a bit of a walk yourself, Bakers Delight are donating 100% of revenue from sales of pink finger buns to the Breast Cancer Network of Australia

In 2011 it is estimated that over 14,000 women in Australia will be diagnosed with breast cancer, affecting thousands of families and communities across the country.

Bakers Delight is passionate about supporting Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA), the national voice of women affected by breast cancer, raising more than $4.5 million over 11 years of partnership. And from 28 April – 18 May more than 613 bakeries across Australia will once again donate 100% of revenue from the sale of their Pink Finger Buns to BCNA.

You don’t have to walk a zillion miles to help raise money for Breast Cancer Research you just have to buy pink finger buns from any of the participating Bakers Delight stores. Easy peasy.

The closest Bakers delight to me here in the wilds of rural Tasmania is the Claremont store in the Claremont Village.

My favourite girls went in and iced pink buns and had heaps of fun.

* images blatantly pinched from my daughter, Veronica Foale’s blog SleeplessNights as it was far too early to ring her and ask permission.

Your friends either suggest lithium or nod their heads and smile.

This is The Mountain that is the backdrop to the city of Hobart. I grew up under the shadow of The Mountain and one of the hardest things about moving inland was not being able to see the changing moods of The Mountain every day.  

I haven’t been up the mountain by myself for a long time. As a young teenager I used to ride my horse all over the mountain, from Lenah Valley to Fern tree and back again. As an older teenager we used to drive up the mountain and light cooking fires with the wood provided in the huts. We would drink cheap wine and try to count the lights of the city below, before turning our attentions to more serious teenage concerns.

I have been feeling restless lately with a wistful yearning in my soul for something. The practical side of my nature ignores the fanciful and mockingly whispers that a midlife crisis isn’t a good look. Whilst a small part of me feels like crying out, “Can you see me? Can you tell me that I am not invisible?” I push the thought of any sort of crisis away and ponder instead what it means to be 45 and overweight in a society that worships at the altar of anorexic youth.

I am teetering here on the precipice of my next great adventure and as I spread my wings ready to leap, I am filled with an unbearable sadness that my mother isn’t here to help me on my way.

Mum would tell me that it is normal to feel like this at 45. That it is normal to have quiet moments where you feel old and ugly, withered and useless. That the drumming I hear in my ears is my biological clock banging away erratically and that I need to get my shit together and just ride it out and to remember that I am only invisible if I choose to be.

My grief has settled into a cycle, in tune with my own lunar cycle. The grumpy irritability of PMS has been mostly replaced by a week of tears and longing and introspection,which is annoying as I would much rather slam a door in anger and be done with the shitty mood, than reach for a box of tissues and cry like a child for my mother.

On a whim I drove up the mountain and had a good talk with the stones. I let their ancient energy wash over me and I opened my mind to who I am and what I do.

The stones told me that it is okay to feel old as long as I don’t act old. To remember who I am and where I come from and to not lose sight of where I am going. To remember the ley lines and to feel the power of the earth through my bare toes. I think that is half the problem, I have been wearing shoes for too much of this year and I am losing touch with that energy that only comes from walking barefoot in the garden.

I bought a small stone down from the mountain with me and I think it will make nice marks in the clay. I met a twitter friend the other day who gave me some bones to use as tools, in return I am going to make her a ceramic altar to hold her offerings from the sea.

This feels good.

When I just do what I am supposed to do without thinking too deeply, when I let the clay guide me and I rest in that sweet spot, that silent intuitive space, the work just flows and I feel complete.

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.

Easy Peasy.

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.