About Me

My name is Asphyxia, though some of my friends call me Fixie, and this blog is a “shelf” where I put all things I’m passionate about. In the "check out" section, you can find a guide to this blog, to help you find things of interest to you.

Ours has become an age of overuse, waste and devastation, and in protest of this, I’m trying to find ways to live more simply, to use and waste less, and to turn my slice of the planet into a rich and beautiful place to pass on to our children.

To do this, I’m growing my own food – you’ll find plenty of food production and preservation tips in this blog. I’m learning to make truly sustainable textiles, from leaves of plants and by harvesting the fur from my pet angora rabbit. I live with my partner and our son in a tiny mudbrick cottage I built myself, with solar electricity, water and heater. It has a composting toilet and is surrounded by chooks, fruit trees and food plants. I’ve joined the Riot for Austerity – a project in which participants try to reduce their use of resources down to ten percent of what the average person uses. In my personal life, I’ve achieved this, though I haven’t counted work.

I work as a puppeteer, with my show, The Grimstones, a gothic fairytale with marionettes I made myself. I tour Australia and internationally with the show, which unfortunately means a lot of flying – something I try to counteract by living more simply when I’m at home. Recently I’ve also become a writer, as publisher Allen and Unwin have commissioned a series of children’s books based on the show. The books are coming out early 2012 and they look beautiful!

I homeschool my son, Jesse, and one of my aims is to equip him for a future in which oil is likely to become prohibitively expensive – meaning by the time he’s a man, he probably won’t be able to drive a car to work, and food will probably cost far too much to eat the way we do now.

In my spare time (ha!), I love making things. Art journals, sewing, knitting, spinning, weaving (all kinds of textiles!), and baskets are my current passion. I also love researching topics of interest, and as I learn new things, I like to write up my notes so I can remember it in a concise form later.

In this blog you will find:
- my notes from many topics I’ve learnt about, especially food and nutrition
- things I’ve made.. all different kinds of art and products for our home
- bits about our homeschooling journey
- heaps of info about living more sustainably and simply
- bits and pieces about my work, as a performer and a writer (forgive me please, for shamelessly self-promoting my new book series – I’m so excited about it!)…
- recipes and food ideas
- and some pictures of my rabbit because she’s really cute.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Please do leave a comment to say hello!

Asphyxia.