I am so shocked and upset to hear of the death of Stella Young. (If you don't know Stella Young, a great introduction is this TED talk she gave. She also wrote the world's most interesting and thought-provoking Facebook posts, and wrote for ABC's Ramp Up as well.) Stella influenced me in many ways, and gave a voice, over and over again, to experiences I've had as a Deaf person but couldn't quite articulate, and things I've wanted to say but haven't been able to find the words for. She reminded me that instead of lying down and sucking it up that we live in a hearing-oriented, ableist world, we should try to be visible and encourage the world to change. And it was this sentiment, and her words, that I was thinking of when I painted this painting just recently.
Last time I saw Stella was a couple of weeks ago when we sat together at a theatre show. As we were saying goodbye, I actually stood up and gave her a somewhat formal speech which Paula interpreted. I told her how ace I thought she was, how profoundly she has affected me, and how in-awe of her articulateness I am. I had no idea it would be the last time I would see her, and I was kind of embarrassed, but now I am so, so glad that I said what I did and that she went to her grave knowing how fabulous I thought she was.
Stella, the world is a poorer place without you. I was not finished being influenced by you or learning from you and am horrified that I'm now gonna have to try and figure this thing out on my own. But I'll do my best, in your honour, to do you proud. Rest in peace, girl.
I had the two loveliest Sundays with the women who came to my home to make journals with me. Preparing for the workshop was really good for me - I looked in detail at my journaling process and methods, and managed to describe it in somewhat formulaic terms. I was trying to break it down into step-by-step instructions for my students, and now as a result, I understand myself so much better.
A big part of my journaling process is creating the book itself. I deliberately like a book with varied-sized pages, and I have worked out a formula for what I think is the perfect number of full sized, medium sized and small sized pages. I've worked out exactly how many pages fit in my ultra-journal, and how thick to make the spine so that it holds all the collage I can possibly add, without bursting at the seams. I took my students through the process of making the book itself:
They assembled signatures, sewed them up on the sewing machine, and incorporated a whole mix of papers.
They made hard covers with a flexible gaffer-tape spine, upcycling old children's books.
They painted artwork to cover their books with.
At the end of the first day, everyone had a book, personalised, with their own mix of pages and papers, with a sturdy cover and a soft-spine that lets it open flat on any page.
The next weekend, we came together again to prepare the pages. When I'm tired and lazy in bed at night, I want to write a bit about my day. I want my page to look fabulous but I haven't the energy to thing about making it so. That's where prepared pages come in. I like to collage on my pages beforehands, in a strategic way, so that my pages will be interesting, varied, and still have plenty of space left for writing and images.
Through the week, I made my students collage-kits. They each received a pile of papers that I have painted and assembled from maps, vintage books and other sources. I took them through a step-by-step process to fill their books with interesting and varied collage-pages.
An important part of my process involves designing a "landing page" that you arrive at when you first open the cover of your journal. This is a beautiful, complex spread full of interesting papers, collage, pockets, tabs and more. It's there to draw you in and to be your home base from which you work every day in your book.
On the last afternoon, we spent time going through techniques for using the book. How to manage your privacy and personal expression while still ending up with a book that you can show people. When my students take their books into the world, there's no doubt, people will be curious about them. And being able to show them springboards so many conversations and can lead to surprising opportunities... We talked about a process for using the book as a life coach, a best friend, and still making sure the pages would be beautiful in a raw, personal way.
I gave each of my students a zine, full of journal prompts and reminders for the process I use to get the most out of my journal. That way they'd have something to tuck into their journal-pockets to refer to, and they wouldn't have to take notes during the workshop. Here's the zine:
I'm making it available to others.. if you'd like to buy the zine, you can get it from my Etsy shop.
While my students worked, in between helping them, I made a pile of journals myself, as commissions and gifts:
So, now that the students have gone home, and I've posted off the books I made, what's next? I have plans. I'm hoping to make an online course version of this workshop. Paula and Jesse video'd me making one of the books, and I've written up all my notes.
But.. I'm mired in technical problems now! How to make an epub book with videos, how to size them all correctly, how to export it... yikes! If anyone is in the mood to help me, is savvy with this sort of thing, please do sing out! In the meantime, I shall battle onwards, and if I ever solve the great Technological Humps before me, I shall bring to you an online journal-making coure. Stay tuned...
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Meet my mum, Jan. I gave her this painting for Christmas. It's not meant to be a perfect likeness but it is a very lovely representation of her. And her hair really IS like that, even though she's 62! Happily for me, I think I've inherited her hair genes. Her mum (my grandmother) didn't go grey until she was about 70, and if nothing ruins my mum's hair, that will probably be her story too.
A couple of months ago, Jan was diagnosed with breast cancer. She went straight in for a mastectomy and was frightfully brave about it. She started anti-hormone treatment, which reduces the chance of a recurrence of her kind of breast cancer significantly. Then for the very difficult decision about whether she should have chemotherapy or not. Chemo does reduce her chance of a recurrence by few more percent, and eventually she decided she'd have to do it.
Jan is not a vain person. It's probably her influence that I've no interest in shaving my body hair, wearing make up or perfume, or restocking my wardrobe every season with the latest fashion. But Jan does love her hair, and for good reason. It's gorgeous, naturally gold, silky, shiny and it always smells good too. She doesn't mind "feeling shit for six months", as she said about the chemo, but she does mind about losing her hair. However, she figured it'd be better to be alive and sans hair than dead in a few more years from a recurrence, so she took a gulp and signed up for the chemo. And she bought a wig.
But the day before her first chemo treatment, someone mentioned on the phone, "Did you know if you put ice on your head during the chemo treatment, your hair won't fall out?" Well it sounds like just another lot of spin, but my mum was definitely interested enough to give my dad a poke. He jumped online to try and work out whether there was any truth to this. He ended up staying home from work, and spent the whole day on the net. What do you know - it's for real! Some hospitals overseas actually use this method. You have to apply ice packs for about half an hour before treatment begins, and replace them every half an hour with a fresh pack, until four hours after the treatment is finished. Most people can't stand it and give up after the first or second time - you have to do it every time you go in for chemo therapy. But if you can hack it, there's an 80% chance of keeping your hair!
You need special ice packs though. You can't just whack some freezer blocks on. You have to cover every single part of your scalp completely, evenly, for the entire time. Luckily, special head-gear has been manufactured for this purpose. My dad jumped on the phone to work out where he could buy some, but unfortunately the only company selling them in Australia was in Perth, and we are based in Melbourne. (To give you perspective, if we were to drive to Perth it would probably take us nine days. Others would manage it quicker, but that gives you an idea, in case you don't know Australian geography.)
My dad got a quote from a courier - $1800 to ship them overnight, to get them in time for the first chemo treatment. Ouch. But my brother had a better idea. He put an ad on Gumtree: Free return flight to Melbourne from Perth, plus expenses, for someone who will deliver the icepacks. He got a call within ten minutes, and several hours later a girl walked in the door of my parents' place, carrying a large box of head-shaped ice packs. My mum sat up late, chatting with her, and ended up inviting her to stay the night. Next morning, as my mum left for chemo, the girl was poking around in the kitchen, helping herself to breakfast. You got to love my family and their problem-solving skills.
Luckily my dad is the ultimate problem solver, because when he rocked up at the hospital with his chest of icepacks and a huge box of dry ice, ready to administer to my mum during her treatment, the hospital wouldn't let them in. Health and safety: someone could burn themselves on the dry ice. Too dangerous. Two and a half hours of arguing later (my dad is not one to give up - he always sounds perfectly reasonable and respectable, and I would hate to be his adversary.. he probably just wore them down) they finally conceded that my dad could keep his dry ice in the car, and he'd have to go out every half an hour to fetch the replacement ice pack.
When I visited later in the day, it was as if my mum was giving birth, and my dad was timing her contractions. He was watching the clock, fiddling with his thermometer to make sure each ice pack was exactly the right temperature at the time he applied it, flexing the packs to make sure they weren't too rigid. As I walked in the door, my mum said, "I can't talk for the first five minutes - it hurts too much. After that I'll say hello." I made myself scarce and my dad fitted the fresh icepack.
Two weeks later, her hair was scheduled to fall out. But it didn't. She's still got it. She'll have four chemo treatments all up, and each time she'll have to do the icepack rigamarole, and each time she'll have a 20% chance that two weeks later her hair will fall out. But I'm crossing my fingers, for her sake, that it holds.
So.. the moral of the story is this: if you are having chemo and you really and truly and deeply don't want your hair to fall out, there's something you can try. The hospitals and doctors here should be telling us about this option, but they won't because they don't want the hassle of icepacks and dry ice cluttering up their chemo rooms in the hospital. If you want it though, you can make it happen. But I'd say it gives a new meaning to the term "icecream headache".
I've been loving my course: Soul Garden, which is about planning your life through art. Our teacher, Suzi Blu, leads us through a process of goal setting for each month. Although I'm a pretty goal oriented person, until I started this process, I didn't realise how much I wasn't doing about things that are important to me! I don't do this process monthly, but rather make plans for each block of time that I am home between tours. Here's my plan for this block, between my last tour and when I head overseas to New Zealand:
On the right is a calender where I mark events and any jobs that need to be done on a particular day. On the left I have a master list each for general jobs, admin, garden and art. I add to these as I think of things I want to do in this block, and when I'm making my daily to do lists, I check these master lists and pick items off them to include. I've also got a section for my exercise goals - I colour in each circle as I achieve them. Eg each time I go for a swim, I colour in one of the circles, and my goal is five swims in this block. I've got a similar section for foods I want to cook, and for some of my art goals. Top left, I added a little green swirly tab, so that I can easily find this page. Just having my goals so clearly set out like this, with little spots to tick them off, is making it much more likely that I actually achieve them.
Every night, I spend 10-15 minutes creating a page in my planner. I've made myself some sticky labels (printed at officeworks onto label paper), that have my artwork on them, and a space for me to write down what I've eaten (I'm tracking my food at the moment and need a detailed record), and space for to do lists. Here's my page for 8th Sept:
All the elements on this page are sticky labels that I printed in advance, and then I handwrote on top the items relevant to the day.
With the to do list, I choose a new sticky label for tomorrow, create a list of tomorrow's tasks based on my master lists and items I didn't get done today, and then I keep it handy through the day, for quick reference and to tick things off as I go. When I go shopping, the list is in my pocket. At the end of the day, I stick it down into my journal.
Sometimes I draw in dolls, or stick down affirmations and patterned papers:
I don't prepare my pages in advance, because some days I want the freedom to write a lot and fill a few pages, other times I just want a page or even only half a page, to record my day. The pre-printed labels make it very quick to do a page if I'm tired or short of time.
I've also been including pockets on some pages. Here you can see where I created a pocket and included cards relating to my trip to Brisbane for Brisbane Writers' Festival. I created a food plan for my family, and on the back of the card was a shopping list of the things we'd need to buy when we arrived. I had another card as a packing list. The great thing about the card is that they can easily be taken out, for the shopping trip, or stuck on the fridge at the hotel, and then returned to the journal for safekeeping in between.
Overall I'm finding this process very enjoyable, and I'm definitely moving forward with my goals in a way that I wasn't before. The process of identifying what I needed to do to make my life better and take charge of everything, and then breaking it down into small steps and creating a planner page based on that, has been fantastic. Also I love my journal - the colours, the artworks, the pretty things. It makes me WANT to stay on track!
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My little family and I are on the cover of the current (Feb/Mar 2012) issue of Grass Roots magazine. I love Grass Roots - I used to read it back when I was building my house, for inspiration. Then somehow I lost track of the mag and hadn't read it for years. But this year it's found me again, and I'm eating up all the great stories as fast as I can - so many tips and ideas for living sustainably, sufficiently and so on. I've realised there's a great community out there of people who can already do all the things I'm trying to learn to do, and that I can access them via the mag. So thanks, Grass Roots, for coming back into my life :) And thanks, for publishing such a lovely story too.
The story is a nice run down of all that is self-sufficient about the way Paula, Jesse and I live. You can download and read it here. (PDF file: 9652.5K)
I think many of us have an eccentric uncle lurking somewhere in our family. I went to visit mine yesterday, and have to say I came away rather stunned, in a very good way. Let me give you a guided tour.
Here he is: Mark, my father's twin brother.
Despite being as Australian as they come, I think Mark would prefer to be English. He dresses like an English gentleman, every single day. I remember him from when I was very young, skulking in the background of my grandparents' stunning and magical garden - all Mark's work. Mark has never had a paid job in his life, nor a driver's licence - jobs and the driving of cars are terrifying prospects, he told me once.
When I was a child he bought a large, empty block of land, and set about creating an English manor, along with his very own garden. He and his partner, Michael, dreamed, planned, schemed and worked together. Here's the result:
Lacking the funds to fit it out in the true Victorian English style he longed for, they went for a DIY method for creating grandeur. For the main lounge room Mark painted portrait after portrait. He wasn't having any prints - they had to be the real thing. He copied old masters.
When I expressed my amazement that he was so skilled with a paintbrush, he pffted and told me not to be silly. "They're just copies."
They created a true gentleman's library:
However, most of the books are empty covers. But you can't tell they're fake unless you look real closely. In a closet, Mark has a real library, winding shelves upon shelves of reference books that have helped him create this dream. When I was a child, he opened his books about Queen Victoria's doll's house for me, and I think the intricate details I fell in love with then planted the very first seeds for my love of miniatures that eventuated in The Grimstones.
The rest of the house is peppered with decorative shelves of old books:
Mark made these shelves himself, including the ornate gold trimmings.
The house has many guest wings. My favourite is this one:
Mark made the four poster bed himself. He sculpted these mouldings, made a cast, poured them in resin, and painted them:
However, after fitting out about half the rooms of their magnificent home, Michael became ill with AIDS and died. Tragically heartbroken, Mark wondered what was the point? Why create this beautiful place when he had no-one to share it with? For years, the project floundered.
He did maintain his garden, however, which was magnificent. Filled with beautiful pathways, they led us as if through a complex maze:
Last time I visited, which I think was about ten years ago, the garden was a series of these lovely nature walks. Yesterday, I set off with Jesse to walk and enjoy.
Before long, we came upon something that wasn't there last time I visited:
Curious, Jesse and I ventured in. We discovered the stone floor had a hole:
Beneath the grate, there was a statue! And maybe two metres below that, burbling flickering water! I glanced around, thinking the ground had been flat, wondering how this came to be. Was it a glorified well? I realised that beside the path, the hillside cut away, and that by walking down it further, we could see under the floor. We climbed down, and found:
A cave! Hidden from view from the pathway - a little gothic surprise. We went inside:
There stood a statue of Zeus, surrounded by green-tinged stalactites, and a magnificent burbling pond. Wow!
At that point, Jesse and I went back to fetch Mark, to ask him about it. We didn't realise that if we had continued the way we were going, we would have come upon many more surprises. Mark led us a different way towards Zeus, and we found:
A pond guarded by the river gods, Yarra and Barwon. And then the jaw-dropping piece of information: Mark sculpted these enormous, larger-than-life statues himself! Just like the four poster bed mouldings, but on a much grander scale, he used clay to sculpt the gods, then latex and plaster to create a mould, and poured them in concrete. They were made in several pieces, so that each could be carried down individually and set into place. It seems Mark has moved beyond the English Manor and into the realm of ancient Roman gods. it also seems that he's no longer floundering, since Michael's death.
Hidden amongst the greenery was this, invented and sculpted by Mark himself, not based on any ancient god:
And then we came upon a grotto, so hidden by the trees I couldn't get a photo of it. But we went inside to meet the god of Pan, represented by a pair of statues:
Once again, these were entirely sculpted by Mark, along with the stalactites and all the mouldings in the columns. With the head of a goat at his hips, Pan is ornate and magnificent. Mark is waiting for the day when he is stained and mossy, reflecting the true ruin he is supposed to be,
We found serpents guarding the gates of hell (hell must be a spectacularly beautiful place):
And enormous fish:
And fountains set in the junctions of the pathways:
Again, everything was envisioned and sculpted by Mark, realised with the aid of Sebastian, who poured the concrete and lugged the massive pieces into place.
At one place we came across a pallet of pieces that had not yet been constructed:
These, Mark told me, are to be Marion and Hawksbury. "They'll be set into the hillside here, feet to feet. Shadowy. You'll hardly see them. Perhaps you'll do a double take."
And that's when I realised that the surprise Jesse and I had when we discovered Zeus, the magical moment when the impossible seemed to be lurking far below the surface, was all planned by Mark. A sort of theatre, as an innocent garden walk of overgrown trees rustles to reveal murky but magnificent surprises. He's waiting for the plants to grow over his constructions, to hide them so that you see them from one angle but not another, and for time to age everything so that they blend into the garden.
As Jesse said to me, "When Mark's dead, this will be a museum." And I imagine his home will be an incredible guest house. I asked Mark once, years ago, if he would have his house as a B&B. "God no," he replied, "Imagine doing all that work. I couldn't bear it." And yet, this is a man whose work is so prolific, I cannot believe he's created so much in the ten years since I visited.
He told me he only does an hour or so of sculpting a day. Mark rises in the afternoon, and ventures into his garden. He comes in to eat an evening meal and some chocolates, do his hour of sculpting, and then watches television until dawn. As the sun rises, he retires to the most modest of his bedrooms, scarcely more than a closet, to go to bed. Well, that's what I gather based on what he told me years ago. Yesterday I could barely get an answer to my questions, as the rest of my family was there too, and he was much in demand.
I told him of my plans to create a sculpture to go by my pond, until now a vague, shadowy idea which I had no idea how to implement. Mark outlined exactly how I should do it, and invited me to visit to make it. Hopefully I'll get more answers to the thousands of questions I have then.
The other day I set up my sewing machine, and within five minutes Jesse was moseying around asking if he could sew something. I was inspired in a homeschool-ish way, and was happy to work my boring sewing repairs around a fun project for him.
First he leafed through my journal at all the rabbit pictures, and chose one for basic inspiration. Then I let him choose from my special-fabrics bag, and I thought he chose a really lovely combination.
Next I drew up a pattern for him, and he chose which fabrics would go where. He did the machine sewing himself, and I did the fixing-up seams where things had gone wrong. There were a lot of tears when bunny was half-turned-through because she looked so appallingly wrong. But hopefully some sewing-learning happened after that when we finished turning her through and Jesse discovered how sweet she looked.
Jesse stuffed her, and I smoothed out the stuffing-bumps. I helped him sew the eyes and nose. By this time a whole day had gone by and he was exhausted. I did the last bits for him - handsewed the face to the body and closed up the opening.
All done and he was soooooo rapt! He's already given her a mad personality and has sucked down one ear so it flops forward. Very cute.
Now he's dreaming of making a robot doll...
Back when my cousin was six, she used to be afraid to lie in bed alone at night, fearful that wicked witches such as Cruella De Ville and the various evil characters in stories I used to tell her would come and get her. I would lie with her, but my aunt called me out, concerned I was preventing her from falling asleep.
My solution was to stitch her a crown, a silver crown, inspired by Robert O'Brien's book The Silver Crown. The crown, I told her, would protect her from all evil, and keep her safe. She just needs to put it on where she is afraid. My cousin, all grown up now, still has the crown, and although it's too small for her now, she keeps it by her bed and holds it when she needs comfort. She tells me its magic still works.
This week Jesse turned six. He has his own fears - he's afraid to go to the studio by himself, and various parts of our garden, in case he be spirited away by ghouls or ghosts. This is not my doing! I never told him any scary stories! But I have been working on a solution. I stitched this crown from him, making it as magical as I possibly could. I chose an exquisite blue and gold fabric that shimmers, and when I gave it to him I explained the fabric was made from mermaid hairs and threads of the ocean.
I wasn't sure what he'd make of it when I gave it to him. He wanted lego for his birthday, and transformers, and toy cars.... and I suspected that a handmade crown might rate rather lower than a pile of brighly coloured plastic. I didn't give him the crown in the morning when he opened all his other presents. I saved it until just before bedtime, and then finally pulled it out, a last secret present.
When he opened it he was overawed. "This is the BEST present in my whole birthday!" he told me. He put it on and he could feel the magic. I was so touched - I really wasn't sure... but since then he's worn it every day. He wore it when he hurt himself, and said it soothed him. He wore it after an argument with Paula. He wore it to go to the studio by himself... and sometimes he puts it on just to enjoy it. I hope he gets to enjoy its magic for as long as my cousin....
And secretly.. I'm proudest of all that my boy can recognise and value something handmade above a piece of lego.