Slimming down before a move

Next time I move I hope it is with a bit more warning. In July I moved rather suddenly, taking all sorts of things you would normally discard (or eat) before moving. Frozen food, fridge food, an enormous bag of organic Penne pasta, a whole net of oranges and various kitchen items I should have discarded long ago. Thank goodness I had had a big clean out a few months prior to selling.  My house looked uncharacteristically bare when I was selling it, but I have moved to a smaller space and once again I have too much stuff.

Pictures I had not looked at in years appeared during the move. They include a collage made when I was in my early 20s living in Singapore. It features Buddhas, but only 20 years later did I discover Vipassana meditation and learn something about the Buddha. I also rediscovered a watercolour I made of my mother knitting. She didn't like but it still reminds me very much of her.

My mother knitting

The old eggbeater

Eggbeater
Acrylic on canvas
38 x 67 cm

My 'domestic items' painting spree continues, this time my mother's old eggbeater which I remember being used when I was a child.

Mother's passion was gardening, but she was also an excellent cook and her eggbeater got a lot of use, right to the day she died.I don't think she ever owned one of the more modern mixers.

Couple

I painted over an old picture of two life drawing models done at wonderful a Michael Taylor workshop held in Grafton nearly 10 years ago.

The eggbeater is an improvement on the original painting!

Painted Egg-beater card
by elizabethgw

Being a mother

Smiling through the clamour
Oil on canvas 45 x 60 cm

It is not easy being a mother, especially when your two  boisterous younger children are eternally in competition,  each demanding 150% of their mother's attention.

It is a gift to be able to keep smiling through the noise and demands, a gift I esteem very highly (not having inherited it myself). Greta has the gift, as you can see. Her lucky children are too small to know how rare it is, but one day they may look back, reflect and appreciate.

1920's Christening robe

Back among the roses in my Mother's garden, my days are spent sorting.

Today I found a wonderful surprise right at the bottom of her camphor chest. It is, I think, my Mother's own christening dress complete with long cotton petticoat (*see addendum). Perhaps her own children were christened in it as well. This 1920's treasure says so much about the lives of my mother's generation.

Christening robe, 1920.

Addendum: It turns out the Christening gown was my fathers. This morning I found a note in the chest that had been with the robe.

My Mother

Frances Ruth Gordon, 1920 - 2013

My mother Frances Ruth Gordon died last Thursday aged 93.  She was a passionate gardener and left behind a trail of wonderful gardens, dug from virgin soil. Her first garden was under the Ruahine Ranges on a Taihape farm that Dad and Grandpa created by clearing native bush (so close are our colonial roots).

Mother and Dad moved closer to town 30 years ago and again she created an extraordinary garden. At 84, mourning the loss of my father, she moved into a town section with an empty back yard and from that she once again fashioned the most beautiful garden. At her farewell on Sunday her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren chose flowers from her lovely springtime garden to lay on her coffin. Vale dear Mother.

My mother's rocking chair in her last garden

Mother's Hydrangeas