Rubber ducky gone to duck heaven ...

Rubber ducky (sadly deteriorated) has gone to watch the stars from close range and ...
the tulip paintings are packed which means the removalists must be just about on their way.

Full bath = 1/2 full washer

I wonder if I am the only person in Dunedin that uses my bath water for the washing machine? I discovered last year that the old and very inefficient washing machine in this apartment takes as much water per cycle as a FULL bath, and that is the middle setting. What is more, it sloshes the water about for about 3 minutes, then pumps it all out again.

Instead of getting upset about my inefficient washer I decided to make the most of it. On cold evenings I have wonderful hot baths then bucket the water into the washer. So I can bathe without being concerned about the energy bill. My double use strategy has an additional benefit apart from saving energy and promoting conscience free bathing. I like very hot baths which can make you giddy, but by the time I bucket the water through my (often very cold) hall I am cool again.

I must say I do look forward to using a machine that actually cleans clothes again, but in the meantime I am enjoying hot baths.

(check out this water efficient machine.)

Hotter than we are used to.

Phew it is hot in Dunedin. 30C yesterday, 30C today and tomorrow is going to be hot as well.

Although it is nearly 10pm it is still 28C inside. This apartment has two doors, back and front, and for the first time in the two years I have lived here I have both of them wide open to draw the breeze. I have just been for my evening walk and there are a lot of houses with windows and doors open. We are unaccustomed to such weather.

Tulip paintings

The boxes are filling, most paintings are packed, but not these tulip paintings. I am going to leave them hanging until just before I leave so it feels like home.

Dunedin had 30C today and at 9:15 pm the thermometer still reads 28C. Phew!

View to Ourangi

Why is it that the countryside of ones childhood retains a special place in ones heart regardless of how long one has been away? These are the hills where I grew up. The flat hill in the distance is called Ourangi and to its right is Pukeokahu (Hill of the Hawk).

Below is my aquarelle version, painted over Christmas.

Mellow yellow

Well not so mellow perhaps, but certainly yellow. I have just sewn a bag to put my painting backpack in so it can be sent in the hold of an airplane without loosing any of its straps. I hope the colour will stick out enough so I remember to collect it from the baggage roundabout. That was my last sewing job before packing up the machine.

Packing again... erks ...

I am back in Dunedin and it is wonderful to be here. But I am packing again.

Every shop has a sale on but I am discarding rather than acquiring. I am hopeless at discarding and I don't like packing but the task is made much easier with one of these fancy tape dispensers, which I bought, yes, at the sales.

I wonder to myself, as I tape the boxes shut, where and when I shall be opening them again.

Dun-Chch-Palmy... then Taihape

Flap, flap, flap .... vroom. I am off to Taihape for Christmas. Bags are packed, shuttle pick-up is at 7am tomorrow morning.

Tick tock

My clock, made in the ceramics class earlier in the year.

tick .... tock.... tick.... tock.... it measures the seconds as I write.

Kowhai

I read in today's paper that NZers do more exercise than most. Certainly we get enough messages that we should be more active. There is a good 20 minute walk up the hill and down through the park near me that I take when I decide I should be fitter. This Kowhai tree grows in the park.

Monoprint made in Frome, 2006

Six months before coming to Dunedin I traveled to Europe. I visited Stina in England who taught me how to do monoprints. I spent a delighted 3 days making prints in her studio while she was away at a wedding and it was then that I decided I should do art more formally. When I got back home I moved and moved again and only now is some of my stuff reappearing. Among them the print below which was made in Stina's studio. My first try at monoprints.

Ngauruhoe Music

I grew up in the shadow of the Ruahine Ranges to the S/E of Mt Ngauruhoe, an active volcano which, we children were told, had once erupted sending ash high into the air and later settling on the roof of my parents home.

This piece of pale green argillite (also found in the Ruahine Ranges) from the beach at Colac Bay reminded me of Mt Ngauruhoe.

The copper coloured sunsets behind the mountain viewed from my parents former home are often stunning. I like to think of the eruptions as Ngauruhoe’s way to make music - thus the musical notes in the volcanic cloud.

Tooth Ring

The brief for our three week jewellery module was to create something that links material and identity.

I made a ring from a tooth cap that I had worn for 25 years. It was replaced last year. Now I can wear it on my finger, admiring the way light flashes off its surfaces. My own brand of diamond.

Girl piper

The girl stood
piping in the sunshine
on the lawn in front of the
Dunedin Railway Station.

The music drifted over
the morning air
to the markets
next door.

Etching/aquatint

'Coffee pot'
This is an etching with aquatint. An etching is made by drawing on a metal plate - in this case, a zinc plate. Aquatints are nothing to do with aquarelle. Instead it is the process of applying a haze of dots to a metal surface and then dunking it in an acid bath. The acid eats away around the dots. The longer you leave it in the acid (with re-applications of the haze of dots)the deeper it eats into the metal and, when you ink the plate, the darker the image. (More at artsmitten.com)

Field trip down south

Jewellery class students collecting rocks on an argillite outcrop at Colac Bay, east of Invercargill. Argillite is a greenish stone, originally sedimentary rock.


The beach at Colac Bay with tutor Johanna taking pictures. Across the water is Stewart Island.

Our sexualised world

I was astonished to hear from a lecturer at art school that he found my video confronting. He is so used to semi-clad female forms dancing in time to techno music that he found the images in my video discomforting, singing mouths which panned back to show that the mouths belonged to small children. He thought it might be a very clever comment on the issue of sexualisation of children.

Today I read in Sydney Morning Herald that the Bill Henson photos have lead to a push to disallow artist's privilege for imagery of children which is pornographic. Writer David Marr says the problem with that is the "widespread notion that has been growing over the past decade that just about any image of a child naked or scantily or precociously dressed is pornographic." I suppose that if, like my lecturer, you associate techno music with scantily clad females, you could argue that my film is questionable.

The issue is not an easy one. There is a very interesting article on the art life that discusses Henson's early photos and the art world's reaction to them. In my view these early photos are not the work of a disinterested observer and that makes me queasy about the rest of his work.

Coffee pot prints

It took me a long time to warm to printing, but finally when I started experimenting with colour I got the bug. Our print course is finished and we had a free day today, but I spent the day (8.30 to 6pm)rolling the printing presses. These 2 etching/aquatint/stencils of coffee pots were the beginning of my colour experiments. Today's work sits under the presses at school. I shall be interested to have a look at it tomorrow when I have recovered from my marathon print day.

Self self

Our 5 self portraits are due to be handed in tomorrow. I am not sure they are getting any more like with time.
Self, in the style of Elizabeth Peyton. Little mirror is balancing on the clutter on my desk.

Self in the style of John Graham Self as an etching.

Stop the Stadium (in Stained Glass)

The stained glass window in the Dunedin Railway Station is one of the heritage objects in the city I like best. Dunedin is full of heritage gems but I doubt that the people who designed the proposed new rugby stadium were interested in integrating it into the character of the city as it looks like an overgrown oyster. A lot of people, even supporters of the stadium, are against council plans to provide tens of millions of dollars of rate-payer' money for a new stadium. That includes me as I think the reputation of ‘ the House of Pain’ should be built on, not squandered and I would prefer to see Carisbrook Stadium spruced up.

For my latest art school e-Art project I started with the beautiful Railway Station window and inserted anti-stadium images: the charter from the ‘Stop the Stadium’ group and photos from the protest rally on 2 August 2008. I see the new image as a reminder to the Dunedin Council that heritage matters.