Red squares

I am not a saleswoman by inclination, so when I was forced to become one while selling my house, I had to have a stress mitigation strategy. My strategy was to knit something that required concentration, was rewarding (a pattern you could watch grow) and have some sort of artistic content to make up for lack.of painting and music while I was property obsessed.

I made a jumper using a Kaffe Fasset pattern of squares. You can mix colours at will (the artistic content) , you can watch it growing as you begin new colours, and you have to concentrate, but not too much.

I used wool from various past projects in red and brown. I already had the sleeves from a half unpicked jumper my mother had knitted. Brown wool was unavailable locally, so I dyed some. Orange wool was easy to dye brown but the greens and blues came out of the dye pot as greys and muted moss colour (which I saved for the next project).

As the open houses progressed, my jumper grew and on the day the house sold four weeks into the sales campaign, the jumper was finished. I didn't put it on until the deal was sealed in case I tempted the gods and my buyer backed out.

I have been wearing it ever since as it is warm and comfortable. And it matches my red jeans.

Red canvases

Three canvases painted bright red with 'artists professional underground paint' are sitting out in the sun drying. Our autumn has turned from chilly to warm, good weather for canvas preparation.  The large canvas is for a portrait but the others were painted just because I couldn't resist the red.

Rothko’s “Untitled (Yellow and Blue)”
  2.4m (8') high, created in 1954

I read that a blue and yellow canvas by the American artist Rothko sold for a record $46.4 million last Tuesday so perhaps I should just leave my canvases plain red.

People are reduced to tears when confronted with Rothko's work; the colour/vibrations of the painting have an extraordinary emotional effect.  I doubt a small canvas with one layer of red paint (Rothko's are many layered)  would have the same effect so I will continue with my plan of using them for portraits.

The Sydney Swans and I

Surrounded by a sea of red.

I was accompanied by a whole team of Sydney Swans (AFL football) when I flew from Wellington to Sydney on 26th. I had watched a bit of the demonstration game on TV the previous evening (AFL is trying to win some NZ fans I think and judging by what I saw I think they have a fair chance of success)  and it was rather odd being surrounded by the same faces.
They seemed a pleasant bunch of people - I was rather surprised. All the adverse publicity Australian football teams are getting at the moment has obviously influenced me. One of the players had a baby strapped to his chest while another spent a long time showing his seat neighbour photos of a baby on his mobile phone. That's the side of them we don't hear so much of. (Or perhaps I don't read the right publications.)

Electric Violin

Last Friday I saw Richard Tognetti play Brett Dean's Electric Preludes (commissioned by Jan Minchin) on his electric violin.  The violin is bright red .... very fitting.

Electric Tognetti

Review of concert  and chat between composer and violinist