Diabolical Clay

I really, really dislike blank pages. It doesn’t matter whether I am writing or attempting to draw something. I find the sight of that blank page is extremely offputting and intimidating.  If am writing an essay or  a letter once I turn the page and see a new blank page, my chain of thought is broken.

That is how I feel at the moment. Mum’s cancer has put a long row of blank pages in front of me and once again my brain has decided to give up the ghost and stop working properly..

I just cant seem to see the point at the moment.

I went outside and walked around a bit thinking about this post and about how I could word it so that it didn’t  sound like I was looking for sympathy. Because I don’t want sympathy. I want ? I want ?  I don’t know what I want.

I saw a white cockatoo flying across the empty blue sky. The sun reflected off the bird’s wing was quite metallic and  dazzling  and as I followed its flight I noticed some clouds. I was looking at the texture of these clouds and I began to think that a plate would look quite nice if it had just the same curve as the line of the cloud.  Then the thought of making some curvy-edged plates reminded me that I have a give-away happening and I started to feel a little bit of enthusiasm. yay!

Then as my mind was skipping along one of its merry tangents, swirlingly filled with ideas for bowls and platters and almost sculptures, I began to think about photographs and Bang I hit a great, fat, brick wall.

Where am I going with my photography? Can I be bothered with wordless wednesdays and weekly winners anymore? I am not a photographer. I am a ceramic artist who takes photos. What am I going to do with the trillions of shots that I have?

Blank pages started assailing me. So I went into my pictures and opened a random folder and found some comfort in the fact that a lot of my photos are not just shots of things, they are also ideas.

Ideas for work, for glazes, for a curvy edge to a plate inspired by the line of a cloud. They are tangible evidence of how I see the world. How my world relates to my work.

I took the top photo because I wanted to see how the swirly water would look in a shot. I then saved the photo because I liked the greens and browns.  I also liked the shape of the water tumbling over the rock. I started to think about how those greens and browns would look on the inside of a shallow bowl, or maybe on a larger bowl/birdbath thingy. I started to think about how the bowl would look filled with water and I wondered if a flash of blue in there would help, or maybe  pieces of mirror as a mosaic highlight, curving through in a stretchy S shape.

Then, when I saw the second shot, I skipped ahead to thoughts of water nymphs and I wondered if they knew I had taken their photo?   Something happens to the photo at such a high digital magnification, the lines of the water have become the brush strokes of a painting and I can really see what the bowl would look like with bold green, brown and white brushstrokes.

So whilst I might have a bit of a rest from formal photographic memes, I certainly wont stop taking lots of photos, because my photographs have become an important part of how I view myself as an artist.

I have a serious case of, ” The cant be bothereds.”  So I am sort of hoping that by simply starting to write something I might become more bothered.

Thankyou to the people that actually read my last  post, your comments cheered me up. I was giggling out loud as I read your comments and they were just the tonic I needed.

6 days ago Mum’s GP rang her to tell her that the tumour had grown and that it was now attached to the veins of her heart.

Fuck fuck fuckity ratbrainshitfuck.

On Friday Veronica and I went to Mum’s appointment with her. We have been going in as a threesome to all of Mum’s appointments. That way we remember to ask all the questions that we have thought of during the week preceding the appointment and we also manage to remember what the specialists have actually said.

The short answer is that Mum is not going to have anymore treatment. All care from now on in will be palliative. We had a lovely set of doctors on Friday. The head of radiation looked at Mum and said that she looked much too well to be in there. From looking at her scans he had expected her to be looking very ill and very blue.. Ha!

To make things a bit more real for you, here is a photo of my mum taken yesterday.

Now does this look like a woman with only a few months to live?

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I really cant think of anything else that I have to say at the moment. The enormity of the bushfire tragedy in Victoria has just left me numb.

So here is a link to various charities if you would like to donate.

So just to put more pressure on you, remember that my Mum reads my blog and if you say anything too morbid in my comments Mum will growl at you. So you should really just tell me a joke instead….

1.  What is your earliest childhood memory?

Not wanting to leave the warmth of the spaceship and my mother bending over me and gently tucking my tentacles behind my ears and telling me that our planet was doomed and if I didn’t climb into the pod, “Right now Missy'” I wouldn’t get any supper…

2.  What is your dream vacation?  Where would you go if you had unlimited funds and were excused from all responsibilities?

I would try to reclaim my pod which is in storage somewhere in an underground facility in the middle of an American desert. Failing that, The Spouse and I would love to go to New Zealand. We have always wanted to hire a helicopter and a guide and fish the Tongariro river..

After a week or two of successful catch and release trout fishing, where I caught the biggest fish as well. HA!!! I would then travel on my own to the battlefields of  France and stay at Villiers Bretonneux for the Anzac day service.

Then I would have to go to next door to Belgium and visit Jientje . Which in turn would give me the perfect excuse to jet set all over the world  visiting everyone else from my blogosphere.  Mmmm.. It is a nice dream.

3.  Where is your favorite place to be?

I don’t really have a favourite place. I am one of those rare individuals who is generally happy wherever I am. I tend to exist in the moment. So at this moment I am happy here, writing this because the words are flowing. I am not being bothered by David or nagged by Jeffrey.

The cat is sitting behind the computer watching the tadpoles and the dog is asleep on the floor with his head touching my foot. The balcony door is open and I can smell the honeysuckle. So at this moment right here is a pretty good spot to be. I wish I could find that pod though…

4.  Tell me about your favorite book or movie or song or something.

I am a voracious reader and generally have two or three novels on the go at the same time. So it has always been a source of frustration to me that I can never remember the names of books that I have read and whilst some author’s names ring clear as a bell inside my brain others that I have loved are forever on the tip of my tongue..*sigh*

As for music I like all music except for the shouting songs, you know the ones where the lead singer has swallowed the microphone. That type of music makes my ears bleed. I am pleased that David’s room is on the other side of the house because some of his music is very shouty..

The only music that I refuse to listen to any more is Midnight Oil because Peter Garret is a yellow bellied snake in the grass. I sent my cd’s to his office in protest at his wussy environmental policies.. GAH… Now if I could find my pod I would shoot him out to Pluto to be with all the other losers that suck their teeth and don’t know how to drive….

5.  If you were the supreme ruler of the universe, what petty little pet peeve would be a capital crime?  And what would be the punishment?  (Like, would people who suck their teeth at the table be banished to the outer rings of Pluto?  Or maybe people who drive for miles with their left turn signal on might be allowed to only ever make right turns…)

Mmmm???? I am starting to wonder if Julie is from another planet as well. How else could she know about Pluto?

Being Supreme ruler of the universe sucks. All you do, day in and day out is rubber stamp applications to extend terrestrial boundaries and deal with petty hoons who think it is fun to land in corn fields in Nebraska.. *sigh*

Or so I have heard *ooops*

My Pet peeve is people who say arks instead of ask..  AAAAARGHHH.  Apparently there is no cure for this habit so there wouldn’t be any point sending them to one of  the eight moons of Neptune to relearn basic diction.  They would have to be banished to Hollywood where they would be doomed to be Adam Sandlers stunt double, that would be punishment enough.

There is a meme doing the rounds at the moment and I decided that I wanted to play as well. So I asked Julie, she of Rats in laboratory cancer fame to ask me some questions. These are what she came up with..

There were rules attached to this post but looking for Adam Sandlers most annoying movies, so that I could link to one just for you, has made my brain shutdown.  If you would like me to ask you 5 questions that I have made up all by myself, just say so in the comments and you can be the next victim participant..

Cheers Kim

I don’t know if I am sulking or not but I am certainly stewing on something. Or is that stewing over something? Anyway I have got a serious case of the hmmmphs and my stormy teacup needs to be put away.

Last week I commented somewhere and my comment was deleted, the post was then subsequently edited to bring attention to my deleted comment. I was treated like a troll when in fact I had used my name and url. Hmmmph!!!

So I have been thinking about my own comment policy, which before last week was non-existant. Policy? What policy? Gah! I sound like a politician. I like Mrs C’s comment policy, so I have decided to steal it adopt it. (just like a politician)

You can say anything you want if you’re respectful about it and don’t cuss. :]

I think that is fair enough too..

So now because it is my birthday and I need to stop thinking about the troll thing. I am going to giveaway two ceramic drinking vessels. I haven’t made them yet so if you are prepared to wait, (Petra waited 11 months and 29 days for her platter) all you have to do is comment and I will use a random number generator thingy to choose the winner on Valentines day..

I took a lot of photos this week. Lots and lots and lots and lots.

This is a Brown tree frog, Litoria ewingi.

If you look closely you can see that it still has its tail.

Click here to see more Wordless Wednesdays…

It has been a huge week in the frogpondsrock household. And thanks to Lotus and her wonderful,weekly winners I can share part of my week.. YAY. Veronica has safely delivered Isaac into the world and I have been inundated with  demands requests for photos of the new baby. Even though Isaac is now a week old I only have the photos that I took in the hospital when he was one day old. So those will just have to do…

Mother and Daughter with identical expressions…

and one more for Luck…

Hi, it’s Veronica from Sleepless Nights, filling in for Mum for a bit.

When I last saw Mum, she had printed out all her Weekly Winners, sticky-taped them to a giant board and was standing at the top of the driveway, trying to hail a passing satellite in order to broadcast them to you.

Yes, her internet has died. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know when she will be back, as her computer tells her it is a Network problem, yet her provider tells her it is a computer error. A fine case of pass the buck, which unfortunately Mum is losing out on badly.

So! Hopefully Mum is back soon, otherwise she might just end up pulling out all of her hair and murdering my father and brother (not that they don’t deserve it sometimes).

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In other news and shameless blog whoring, I somehow managed to end up as a finalist in the 2009 Bloggies – Best Australian Blog category. I know! I don’t know how I managed it either!

Disbelief aside, I would be so grateful if you would head on over and vote for me. In fact, I would probably even be tempted to post photos of my 5 day old son just for you if you voted for me.

Please?

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Edited to Add:-

Yay!!! I am back online *phew*. I finally got through to a good technician, one that actually knew what he was talking about. Thankyou Manesh.

More photos of the new baby, Isaac will be published soon. Well as soon as I unstick them from the whiteboard,  Gosh satellites are speedy little buggers.

Cheers kim

As is always the case when I have a zillion things to do, the universe intervenes and presents me with an opportunity to just savour the moment..

Yesterday when I got home from visiting Veronica and Isaac in the hospital there was a ladybird hunting aphids in the garden. I pushed my camera to its absolute limit trying to get a good shot.

I spent ages trying to get a good shot of this ladybird and I was fascinated by her methodical hunting methods.. I managed to watch her catch and eat an aphid. I was also a bit  frustrated that my camera isn’t quite good enough to give me the extreme macro that I wanted. I really wanted a clear shot of her chomping away but the camera just wasn’t up to it.. *sigh*

If you look closely at that top shot, she is nomming on an aphid but I just couldn’t get any detail.

If any manufacturers of a digital SLR want to give me a new camera, I will give you as much free publicity that I can..*hint hint* but I dont think the people from Canon read about ladybirds..

If anyone else is interested in Ladybirds I have found a really good website..

Veronican and Isaac will be coming home from the hospital today, I want to thank everyone for the gazillion emails I have received and all the lovely comments here and on Veronica’s blog . Thankyou..

Here are some photos of Veronica and her family  that I took today. Isaac is lovely and healthy and he really looks a lot like Vonnie. I can see flashes of David in there as well…

I love the identical expressions on Veronica and Amy’s faces in this one..