MOLES!!!

For years we were plagued by moles. Not only did they damage the roots of my roses but they also taunted my Foxy Bella who spent most of her days digging from one end of the garden to the other. My Lawn was a mess!

Now I don't dislike moles. Having grown up listening to tales of Mole in The Wind in the Willows I could never harm one but I had just about had enough! We had tried all the humane remedies to chase them out of our garden but nothing worked..... so I decided to think like a mole. What would frighten the hell out of me if I were a mole? What would send me scurrying off to take residence in the neighbouring forests ?

Brain wave! Whilst scooping dog poop off the lawn one day I decided to shove it all down the mole holes. If I were a mole I would think a big animal had taken residence in my burrow and to add insult to injury it had pooped in my territory....thus making it his territory.





The plan worked! For a year I never saw a mole hill in my garden. One morning I heard my neighbour bemoaning the fact that his lawn was riddled with mole hills so I popped my head over the fence and told him my remedy. He didn't take me seriously and besides he didn't have
dogs. I persuaded him to share my dog poop and to humour me he shoved it down the holes for a few days. Guess what? All the moles fled from his garden and came back to mine.




Once again I doctored the holes and continued to pass a packet of poop over the fence to the neighbour until we were both sure they had all left the neighbourhood. And they did! Another year has passed with neither of us being bothered by moles. Try it! It really works.

BOOK WEATHER

After a spell of wonderfully balmy weather we now have rain and a wind blowing straight off the snow capped peaks of the Drakensberg.  Brrrr..... it's books, jigsaws and hot butternut soup weather. My daughter is the jigsaw fanatic but I prefer to curl up on the couch with a good book. Poor old Ben is not too enamoured with the state of affairs but he ventures out to inspect the rain soaked garden once in a while and then he's back under his blanket with just his nose sticking out.


I feel guilty reading when I've so much work to do but since I do most of my work outside the rain gives me a good excuse to read. 

"The wonderful thing about books is that they allow us to enter imaginatively into someone else's life.... But the real surprise is that we also learn truths about ourselves, about our own lives, that somehow we hadn't been able to see before." - Katherine Paterson

BREEDER IDEAS

Dancing Class by Edgar Degas

I sometimes amuse myself by paging through art books to spot each artist's breeder ideas. Degas and his dancers. David Hockney and his swimming pools. Hundertwasser and his spirals. Paul Klee and his strata paintings, Joan Miro and his Constellations series. Louise Nevelson and her compartmental sculptures. Apparently an artist has about 4-5 breeder ideas in his lifetime, when one good idea leads to a whole sequence or series.

Painting by Joan Miro.

Years ago I read a book called Notes for a Young Painter by Hiram Williams. It must have struck a chord because I wrote out big chunks of it into my quote book.

"The possessor of an idea, possessed by the idea, lives a compulsive obsessed existence. He becomes derelict to all other responsibilities, he is devilish to live with, he is caught up in a kind of rapture others seldom understand and usually find difficult to tolerate. Yet the possessed artist is by and large happy - all suffering and all consumed and all-creative, perceptive, alive and selfishly entombed away from ordinary less fortunate men. But it all ends when the idea ceases to lead and has run its course. Dense black gloom shrouds the once possessed and life indeed seems little worth living. The once possessed finds he is now again an ordinary man. These periods of lost faith in art are due to loss of confidence in oneself. Several people have really given up art entirely during this gloomy period. We are difficult to live with when possessed. Unpossessed we are impossible. But the good idea, the "breeder" idea continues to breed."

Royal Tide I by Louise Nevelson.

For the past year my carvings have revolved around the idea of Secrets (Tribal Secrets in particular) so I guess this must be one of my breeder ideas. While I'm enjoying creating the series the ideas continue to flow but I do wonder what I will do when the idea has run it's course. It seems to be a typical concern amongst creative people especially those earning a living from their work, that their ideas may dry up. I've learned from experience that the muse strikes sooner or later but of course we would all rather it were sooner than later.

Highway and Byways by Paul Klee

CREATIVITY IS BREWING

Glorious, glorious morning!

Hot frothy Ethiopian coffee. Early sunshine warming the step where I sit contemplating the day ahead.

Sounds of water rushing down stream. Though out of sight it is my constant lullaby. Loeries fly between the trees calling for their mates. Monkeys watch silently from deep within the wild fig tree, waiting and hoping a door will be left unattended.

For me it's a day for developing ideas! Having completed my last carving on the weekend, I'm paging through books and sketching ideas with a bubbly feeling of anticipation, knowing that the whole day lies open to play. Creativity is brewing!

..........Oh and Hubby is home from his fishing trip. Fresh Shad for supper!

SPIRIT TAKING FORM

I've been reading Spirit Taking Form by Nancy Azara and at the moment I'm enjoying the chapter on Visual Diaries. Azara speaks of the workshops she used to run called Consciousness-Raising, Visual Diaries, Artmaking. A group of women gathered weekly to discuss topics relevant to women such as the essence of birth, life as a woman, the traditional ways of working, crafting and arting etc. During these sessions each person would draw and doodle in a personal diary while listening to the discussions, making visual conversations , using colours, signs, symbols, shapes, marks and "primitive" drawings. These drawings were personal diary entries to be shared only if one chose to share.

"It was thrilling to be part of their discovery" writes Azara "I watched women change their processes, many returning to art after years of being stuck. Others shifted gears and made more authentic images. We drew and made collages, built up pages in our books, and made substantial and powerful diaries." "In these books were new visions, ideas, ways of seeing - shadows from the past".

Hickory with hands - by Nancy Azara. Carved and painted wood with gold leaf and encaustic.


She goes on to suggest incorporating these diaries into daily life, keeping a blank notebook at hand and markers and crayons or whatever else takes ones fancy to record feelings and happenings by means of images.


Leaf Alter for Nunzia - by Nancy Azara. Carved and stained cedar plank with aluminum leaf.

Joan Arbeiter, one of the first participants in the workshops, writes that her visual diaries were made from the "stuff of my ordinary daily life. Mundane notions such as shopping lists, appointments, and phone numbers were used along with philisophical commentary, overheard bits of dialogue, and other sayings that came my way. These words were often grouped into shapes that 'read' as images along with doodles, designs , and sketches. It was in fact soon after the workshop that I began to integrate these ideas into my own large format paintings and drawings".

Although I don't belong to a discussion group I think I have been doing something similar whilst having long phone conversations or listening to audio books. While my mind is engaged with the discussion my hand creates intricate designs which are often intriguing. Abstract doodles, created without interference from my inner critic. These I tear out and glue in my journal where I sometimes develop them further. As Azara experienced, I am coming back to the same forms over and over again. I suppose it's a way of discovering one's own personal symbolism or art vocabulary.

"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for." - Georgia O'Keeffe

www.nancyazara.com/

A PERFECT DAY

Another perfect Autumn day. All is quiet except for the rushing stream, a Wagtail calling for company and the rythmic sound of chisel slicing through wood.

"I have visited this quietude before but I often forget that it is a subtle fertile healing place that offers up new ideas and insights." - Shelley Klammer

SECRET PORTALS

In Africa there are secret portals where objects used for rituals and ceremonies are hidden. Some sacred objects are viewed only by those who have the proper rank and knowledge to do so. I carved these doors with secret portals in mind..... pondering about treasures that are kept hidden behind closed doors.

Ancient scrolls are hidden in small Axumite chapels nestled in caves high above the earth. The Tabot (representation of the Ark of the Covenent) is said to be hidden in an Ethiopian monastery and guarded around the clock.

For centuries ancient manuscripts have been kept secret in Timbuktu. Recently archaeologists, archivists and treasure hunters have been pouring into Mali hoping to excavate volumes buried in desert caves and underground chambers. There have been amazing discoveries. Suddenly the world is taking interest and are wanting to help save the manuscripts before it is too late.

"Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.