Sydney ...

I love Sydney and as I sort through my Sydney paintings I find I have a lot of the Sydney Opera House, a building which has an aura about it not unlike that of Uluru.  Perhaps others like this building as much as I do, and for them I have a Christmas special this year

Sydney Opera House (2008)

Garage shelves

At last, 7 months after moving, I am screwing together my Ikea shelf. It is probably the tenth time this shelf has been dismantled then reassembled. One of the wood props is a little bent and it is a fiddle to assemble. The ants had been busy in the corner of the garage. The planks propped there were covered in ant eggs, so I took them outside and lay them on the grass while the ants scurried around rescuing their eggs.

After assembling the shelf I realised I had measured the garage corner incorrectly and the shelf doesn't fit. So I have stopped for a cuppa while I figure out whether to put it somewhere else or if I should bite the bullet, unscrew it and start again.

Later: I unscrewed my shelf then screwed it together again in the smaller configuration but it still didn't fit. But it fits sideways and that is perhaps better as I will be able to check it for ant activity. Ants are very active in Australia. When I first arrived here I put some boxed ceramics in the garage. A couple of weeks later when I unpacked them they were full of ants eggs. Luckily I had stored ceramics and not paintings in the boxes.

Jacarandas at Patonga

Last Tuesday I joined my local 'paint out' group despite cloudy skies as it was the first Tuesday since I moved here that I have had time to join them. The group painted at Jacaranda Avenue in Patonga (NSW).

Watercolour: Jacaranda tree in Patonga

The ground under the trees was carpeted in purple, so by next week this view will be green/green instead of purple/green. Jacarandas might be pretty, but they don't provide any food for local birds so I wont be planting them in my garden.

Ducks in Woy Woy

Ducks are some of my favorite creatures. Their body construction makes it almost impossible for them to hurt anyone (try pecking with a duck-bill, or punching with a flipper) but  ...

their mothering skills leave a lot to be desired. Ducklings seem to survive more by luck than good management.

This mother duck took her eleven very little ducklings on sightseeing tour through the back streets of Woy Woy.

Wagner homage in the garden

In among the Agapanthas and palm trees sits my largest ceramic piece: Homage to the Music of Richard Wagner

What people have said about Wagner's music and what Wagner said about himself,  are inscribed along its belly.

Would Wagner be surprised that a ceramic piece called Homage to the Music of Richard Wagner sits in an Australian garden? Oh no, I don't think so. He would probably regard it is only fitting.

Garden dancers

A little bit of fun from the ceramics workshop.
These dancers ....

now dance on the old BBQ in the garden.

Our throw-away society

The knob on my coffee machine got so tight it now needs a spanner to turn it. The place I bought the machine has closed down so I rang the makers (Sunbeam) to ask where I could take it to get fixed. They gave me the address and told me to take the original receipt.

Coffee machine, spanner and small ceramic music bowl made at NAS last year.

"That's all okay, " said the man behind the counter after he had had a look at the receipt. "You can take it home again."
"But the knob doesn't work."
" Oh you'll get another sent to you within a week or so."

 Addendum: the new machine arrived today (14 Nov) - a newer and much flasher model. Ah, but will it make better coffee?

Sunbeam coffee machines : Old Model 1400C on the left and new model 4820 on the right (with functioning knob).

Little fridge, big fridge

Is a barfridge big enough? My experiement started yesterday when I bought a bar fridge from Aldi. Everything that was in the old 1978 brummer fits in, but I am not sure the little fridge will be big enough when guests are in the house. Still, if I never try I'll never know.

Little bar-fridge with big old 1978 model (which has a painting by Sam Sharpe of  Dunedin propped on top).

Engobe Pot

My experience is that it takes time to evaluate your own works of art. Some paintings I've liked on completion remain my favorites, others get turned to the wall. It can work the other way as well.

I didn't like this little pot, an experiment with engobes, when I took it out of the kiln in Dunedin but now I find it rather cute. It is easier to evaluate others work and my teacher Jim liked this pot from the start. (That touch of green engobe was his stain.)

The Love of the Nightingale

Richard Mill's (pic below) opera The Love of the Nightingale was well worth going to the opera to see. It re-told a Greek myth, was very violent but also thought provoking. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. What had I been expecting I wonder?

Richard Mills

Tomorrow, Tuesday, I am looking forward to seeing Richard Mills conducting his own opera The Love of the Nightingale at the Sydney Opera House. It has got great reviews.

Richard Mills, sketched on 25 October at a 'Ring Cycle 2013'  function in Sydney.

Native Australian Plants

My long term project is to transform my front garden into a more useful space and today at the Woytopia Festival I joined the initiative to bring small birds back into the garden. In return I was given two native plants, a native Geranium and a Lomandra, a long leafed plant that has big spiky flowers the birds love.  Then I bought a rosemary plant to add some scent.

From left: ceramics made in Dunedin, then Geranium, Lomandra, and Rosemary 

What the tags say:
Pelargonium australe, Wild Geranium soft hairy sprawling perennial, tolerant of coastal conditions and sandy soils. Mauve flower heads appear Nov - May.
Lomandra longifolia, perennial to 1m. Glossy mid green foliage. Tolerant of sandy spoils. Full sun to part shade, well drained soils, benefits from extra water and fertiliser.
Rosemary: doesn't have a tag but my mother recommends that plants with sweet smelling leaves be planted near paths so you can touch the leaves as you pass and take the scent with you.

Fishing

Hot weather equals fishing-from-wharf weather. Yesterday was over 30C and this couple were sitting right on the end of the wharf to fish. Just as well they fished yesterday because today it is cold, windy and wet.

Fishing from the wharf at Patonga

Rugby World Cup 2011

Last night I watched the NZ vs France Rugby World Cup final in a small local NSW pub, one of a group of four NZ supporters organised by an English woman whose partner was in New Zealand for the game. Apart from our group and two other New Zealand women, the whole audience cheered France and jeered New Zealand.
The French played a great game but the Aussie cheers weren't for good French play but against New Zealand; they even cheered when nasty injuries to NZ players were shown close up. I suppose their reaction was exacerbated because their own team was beaten by their little New Zealand cousins the weekend before but I was not prepared for the extent of the hostility.

New Zealander Piri Weepu in action (picture from the official RWC website)

Oh well, I suppose this is one of the reasons I have never been a great fan of football. I never heard one vioinist jeer another, regardless of the passion involved.

Perhaps we were just on the wrong side of the Tasman. In New Zealand the mood seems to have been a bit like that in Sydney during the Sydney Olympics. A party atmosphere and lots of visitors from as far away as  Ireland and Georgia.

Addendum: a NZ-based Englishman wrote a piece for the Telegraph about who to jeer/cheer for, he drew all sorts of crabs from the woodwork. You gotta laugh.

Life Drawing

Classes have finished for the year and I am  looking forward to some down-time. My last class was life drawing:

One minute sketches drawn while trying not to look at the paper

A bit of the more sustained drawing.

I am not sure whether I can show a life drawing on this site. Probably if I uploaded a violent movie no one would object. We live in an odd society.

Android

In 2006 just before I left to study in NZ I bought a mobile phone, a Nokia, the simplest I could find at the time. It has just carked it ... the screen blacked out intermittantly.

As a result I am now the proud owner of an Android smartphone. It is very similar to a prototype I tried a couple of years ago ... but much smarter. Its also a good deal heavier than my wee Nokia, even without all the apps loaded.

Ski fields are disappearing

Back in Australia the  newspapers are predicting the melting of Australia's snow fields if climate change progresses as predicted but...

politicians are still playing to climate change deniers.
Someone wrote a song about them:

Train to Sydney

Back to reality ...

... and back on a on the early morning train to Sydney. If you close your eyes it feels as if you are whipping along just like German trains. When you open your eyes you realise sounds can be deceiving and in fact you are trundling along... probably as fast as the tracks will allow.

Tulips on the wall

After several trips to the hardware store and lots of reading of the backs of packets of screws I have my first picture rail up and my first paintings hung.

Putting up picture rails taught me that it is a job for a more muscular person than I am who owns a more powerful drill than mine. I plan to have someone else put the other rails up but in the meantime I am pleased to have pictures on at least one wall.

Stud finder blues

I bought a stud finder yesterday and planned to put up my gallery system today but it is not as simple as one might imagine. In the dining room the stud finder found so many electric wires running along the tops of the walls I decided I had better not to touch it. The bedroom had more regular studs and no electric wires so I decided I could install picture rails there myself.
I went off to the building materials shop to get a drill bit (to drill holes in the metal picture rail) and appropriate screws. I asked a couple of blokes at the shop about building methods in the 1960s and whether the wiring was pulled along the top of the walls.
'Oh an old house could be built any way at all,” I was told.
“So what type of tradesman would hang gallery picture rails?”
"Oh just a handyman!".
I remembered the handyman who had cleaned out the gutters for me and said "Oh but he might not know much more than me!"
Both gentlemen looked appalled at the thought.
"Oh yes he would!" one of them said.
"Oh be careful" cautioned the boss, "are you saying she is stupid?"
We joked about that but I could tell I had hurt their feelings.
I explained that I was worried about the electrical wires and the boss gave me the name and number of a local builder. He looked very put out though, like a doctor whose patients who come in with information or misinformation off the Internet.
Its a new world they have to get used to, patients who think they know more than the doctors and women who think they might know as much as a handyman.
I left the shop without the drill bit or the information about whether to use dry wall or wood screws. (I think the latter.) Tomorrow I will go to the friendly little hardware shop in Umina and get the drill bit and I am sure I can find information about screws on the Internet!