Category: All

Citified Exhibition

Rosy Wilson’s debut exhibition was held at the niche Anvil Design Studio in the hipster hub of The Hamlet. Sadly this well-loved nook has been bookmarked for development ‘upgrades’ which will see Canberra’s alternative crowd yet again bumped…but don’t worry, it’s so good, it’s reincarnating.

Rosy’s Citified focuses on the fashion capitals of the world, New York, London, Milan and Rome with Sydney, Venice and Wellington also getting a look in.

As an architect Rosy’s interest in cities is natural but her paintings veer away from merely harsh, architectural lines by involving a human element through figures in the motions of daily life, softening the built environment and drawing the viewer into the action of city life at eye level. In her cities life is good, the sun shines and buildings are resplendent in the acrylic coating she has given them.

Favourites are the glint of light reflected off a passing London cab, reflections in the glass of a New York office block, the azure of a Wellington sea with tiny figures enjoying a sunny day and the relaxed atmosphere of a Sydney waterfront.

One can not help but feel somewhat cheery and optimistic after seeing cities beautified in her paintings. They are clean, friendly and assertive. It is refreshing to see an artist with such lack of pretension and obvious talent drawing our attention to what is positive in the world.

You can see Rosy’s work here and connect with her on Facebook or Instagram to keep abreast of upcoming work and exhibitions.

February 17, 2017
The Wife Drought {Book Review}

I have finally read the luminous Annabel Crabb’s The Wife Drought. Annabel Crabb is an utterly reassuring person. What she contributes to our collective, Australian psyche is hard, I think, to overestimate. The fact that she has also reproduced (both the paper kind and flesh-and-blood kind) gives me hope in our collective future. She is the new kind of Aussie Character, taking over from the “Aussie Battler”, smart, energetic, witty, well dressed and so, so nice with her self-effacing grin softening every probing question.

How could you not totally adore her.

I have long loved her via Kitchen Cabinet, that rare gem of good television (thank you, ABC, you little ripper), and this book firmly entrenches Annabel (let’s not defer to last names here) as my number three celebrity crush. (Adam and Hugh are alongside her in equal ranks. Adam because, like Annabel, he effuses a new kind of Australian: eloquent, engaging and erudite. Hugh because as much as I like to see upandcomers do well it’s also good to see a nice British toff get all environmentalist and reformist, though I’m sure he makes a bit of cash off the back of it. Nevermind. I like him.)

So, I guess you can see, I rate the book. I do. She offers stats, data and interesting little anecdotes supporting the need for more help for women wanting to get back into the workforce. She relates to our common humanity, my favourite line: “My definition of breaking point is when you communicate exclusively in shrieks and can only work while drunk.” Oh yes, you get us, don’t you, Annabel! You know what it is like to be totally and unshakeably human. She does not downplay the challenges in living a balanced, or even unbalanced, life in Australia. She knows the statistics tell personal stories. She knows these matters are complex, and often personal, so she gives them careful treatment in all their shades of grey.

Not least she skirts very close to something I have long held questions about. That is that, yes, people do need the fulfillment of meaningful work, people do need to invest in their super so that they can retire without having to go dumpster diving (though some might enjoy that…aging hipsters?) and yes, careers can be fun but…men too need lives…and so she flirts with the unstated question: Do women actually have it pretty good in being (culturally acceptably) able to take several years off work (notwithstanding what that does to one’s professional life), but are men, therefore, missing out? So, perhaps then the single thing keeping women out of boardrooms is not just inequality of opportunity (i.e. no wives). The opposite side of that coin is that, well…maybe women don’t want to be competing in the workplace, not because it’s too difficult, but actually because they’ve got it worked out: family life is the good life! (If only it paid Super) It’s the unasked question that Annabel doesn’t utter. And in uttering it myself I can happily say that I gladly “took time off” to raise kids (eight years in fact) and didn’t doubt myself or utter curses at the universe in the process. I wanted to do it. I would do it over. It would be nice if someone had contributed some super while I was doing it but…it was worth it. Many of the other mums I’ve met on the giggle and wiggle circuit feel the same. When I’m still working at 70 I’m sure it will still be worth it, because I’d rather work then than then, if you know what I mean. In fact, now, spookily mirroring the words of this book, my husband wants a turn. Having Annabel’s words cheering me on and validating this new turn of events is giving me the confidence and empathy to, why not, let him have it! It’s time for me to move over and let a man have a go, to switch the terminology around.

Despite only fully unpacking one side of this coin, Annabel moves between stories like mine and national statistics (or lack thereof) taking us along on a rollickingly good ride with herself as the compere. She does a bloody good job of it and by the end she has us all convinced (not that we weren’t already) that yes, women do need wives! And also, yes, men need lives! I’m all for her advocacy of a little bit of switcheroo happening in the spirit of give-and-give so that we can all ride the merry-go-round together in a spirit of sharing the load, whether that’s domestic servitude or corporate slavery, power broking or block building.

February 14, 2017
How to make your own doors

Ooookay. So this post has been a long while coming and I guess the only reason why I am putting it down now is that I am seriously procrastinating on my uni studies!

I think this is pretty important for me to share. In terms of Our Bus this has been the story of every single little thing.

Here’s how it went. Early on in the building process, probably a week after we’d set to building, Henry went out and bought two doors, they were 50mm deep doors, much too high and (it turned out) just a few cms too narrow for our needs on the bus. The idea was that we could saw these down, which we did, only to find that we could actually make the door frames just that fraction wider, meaning these doors were too narrow. In the end Henry was pretty glad about that because it meant he could make his own doors and save 25mm in depth. In a bus every mm counts and if we can squeeze a few of these precious things out of a door or two then that is that.

Building the doors turned out to be pretty straightforward. The first was slightly less than perfect and the design was changed. The second was a pretty good rendition of the second design and the third was a perfect turn out of the perfect second design.

However, the doors have been in the bus for, oh, well over six months now, and they are actually getting a little marked (not too badly mind you, but it grates on the mind of the maker). Perfection never lasts long it seems.

So we managed to recycle the aluminum which had been used in the walls of the previous bus fit-out. We simply glued these in place onto a sheet of the ubiquitous (in this bus!) Alucobond (or Aluwell, which is the brand we are using – it is basically aluminum bonded to a plastic core). We then filled the space with a foam which we had managed to get from our local tip shop.

It was most crucial to glue every join and bend – to add strength to these potential weak spots.

We have mostly used Sikaflex 252 or 221 or marine grade glue throughout our bus.

After scratching up the aluminum and cleaning it with Methylated spirits (and letting it dry – Metho is basically the only thing which can remove this glue), we sikaflexed the aluminum, ready to fold the door over.

You can see above where Henry has routed in the grooves in order to bend the door over. We were a little unsure as to how the door would bend and whether it would bend square, but it did like a charm, it was surprisingly easy actually. Henry also cut grooves into the aluminum for the door runner to sit. This was entirely his department and I just had to look impressed once he’d finished…which I did – and I was!

Glued over. We left the back end of the door uncovered. There was really no need to cover here. One door used one sheet of Aluwell perfectly and the tail end would be hidden in the wall anyway. Sometimes it’s not worth getting into a tizz about something that will never been seen or noticed at all.

And done! How neat is that fold!

Installing the doors was another effort, particularly as our bus is sitting on a slope and sort of leaning sideways as well. It is all kinds of not square! I left that, again, to Henry’s genius. He has them now sitting inside our walls, entirely hidden as the mechanism to open is a push-to-lock/push-to-open, all of our doors and drawers use this mechanism – makes sense really. No one wants to be walking into handles, something which is made more likely when squeezing through tight spaces.

July 26, 2014
Model Child

My sister Hannah is a Textile Artist in her final year of Art School. Her latest project was designing a range of children’s wear which she needed Sophia and my nephew, Zebulon, to model for her. On Sunday morning we were at the ANU Art School with the kids where they did a stellar effort and modeled about 15 outfits between them.

Hannah’s clothes were just amazing, absolutely designer children’s wear, not the kind of thing my kids wear every day. Sophia went from her usual scruffy self into glamour girl in minutes.

Here are a few behind the scenes shots.

May 20, 2014
May Morning

May Mornings blow the air off the snow around about and bring the first, promising, chill of Winter.

I am thrilled.

A day begun well enough, with porridge and foggy windows which revealed hidden handprints and sifted the light through our bamboo forest. The kids often paint in their books in the morning and this morning practiced their target practice with the bamboo bows and arrows I made them. They actually work, but they will not last long, still totally renewable and not a milligram of plastic in sight! That’s my kind of toy. The later half of this day was spent in bed watching Pride and Prejudice as I’ve lately had the flu and was fading fast…so it actually ended pretty well too!

A capsicum from our garden – did not get enough sun to bloom red.

This boy cuddles legs. He injects love and sunshine into our lives.

This little girl loves the industry of painting, the only problem – her paints do not last long.

The ‘burbs.

Mm, here’s a handiwork. I’ve been making planters with coconut shells, this one’s new and is an ‘upside down planter’. Very nifty. I’ll see how it goes.

May 4, 2014
National Folk Festival 2014

I can not believe it is that time of year again, where we don our velvet rags, our tasseled tops and, upon entering the gates of Epic in Canberra, become engulfed in the other world of folk.

This year I fell in love with Morris Dancing (I never thought I’d every say that).

Found Jordie Lane.

And added certain folkie clothing staples to my wardrobe.

I think I’ve been to every Folk festival 7 years running now. Yikes.

April 22, 2014
Soph Turns 5

I managed to pull together a small party for Sophia a couple of weekends ago. We always seem to be busy around her birthday. This past one we we traveled to Wagga and then Canberra in the weekend, so I deliberately kept the party size manageable.

I really love to cater a party all on my own. I like the food to all be complimentary and according to my tastes, I like to serve people new things that they might not have tried before, my version of food – and then I like the idea of getting the same when other’s hold parties.

However, reality intervenes and my ideal isn’t realised very often, so another great and equally good option is to ask people to bring something to share and few friends helped me out this time (thanks Julie, Keren & Fi – my homies!)

I think the kids loved it. It was themed ‘Magical Forest Party’ and they spent a lot of time running around in the trees.

Later in Young we had a small party with the other side of the family, which my beautiful SIL, Glenda, made so lovely, and Sophia’s thrown-together mushroom cake received a reincarnation as a Number 5 cake.

Note on decorations: Not quite as many or exactly how I imagined these. They were supposed to be mushrooms, but Sophia had a hand in them and I don’t know what I’d call them now (‘Pretty, trippy, bally things’?). My favourite thing about these is that they are totally recyclable, in fact I’ve already recycled the felt balls into a necklace and the string into bracelets for some clay beads we made, only the paper tops had to go into the recycling bin, but I intend to get/make a paper making kit and then I can DIY it all!

Felt is a wonderful medium which can be almost endlessly reused/recycled and comes from a completely renewable source. I’m thinking of doing more around it (I get totally frustrated with all those craft projects out there which require buying plastic doovas which can only end up in the bin once you are sick of it. Anyway, watch this space, maybe during Uni break!!)

Our hoard: When did this happen? (Absent: Hector, Dulcie, Michael & Emerald)

Following face guaranteed when a Pinata is involved:

April 15, 2014
Photography

I caught sight of a photograph of myself dancing.

Now, I do find dancing rather ridiculous. Mostly I see people dance and I think: ‘why would you dance?’ And other times I just wanna DANCE!

Dancing is an ephemeral activity, it is being at one with the moment and its translation to photography totally changes its meaning and purpose.

For one, my memory of dancing is contained through my own eyes, and photographing it to ‘capture’ that memory is hardly possible while you are boogeying your behind. To see a photograph of the act is to accept another persons translation of your own activity, it changes the memory, it even changes the activity.

For me, dancing is completely in the moment. It is, primarily, an experience for the dancer. It is, secondarily, a spectacle for the spectator. I wish I had done dancing lessons as a child. The experience of using your body to engage with the present moment is one I just love. It is freedom and joy and life. It is cathartic.

Once it is over it becomes a fuzzy memory. Maybe something I will not participate in for a long while yet. Something that in many ways I am glad to forget about or reduce to a fuzzy memory, where I don’t think about what an idiot I looked like (as I am certain I do!) but I remember my feelings in that moment, my beingness, these can’t be captured on film, they just become a part of your whole being, a sum of who you are and who you have been.

Sometimes photography fails us.

Do we have to reduce everything to a 2D image? Can’t some things, many things, most things remain inside our souls. The visual is not all there is to life. Reducing something to a visual diminishes life in many ways I think.

Photography is valuable in many ways, but it can not replace memories and it definitely can not replace being in the present moment. We can not remember everything, though it seems, through our addiction to the medium (I wonder if we can blame our online lives for this), that we are trying to.

April 11, 2014
The Bus in Pictures

We have been working on getting the bus painted and sealed before Winter sets in, but it seems every time we go to do something we end up completely detoured and working on something else. We knew this side would be a problem and it has been. Henry has had to cut out a lot of the steel frame, which has been bent up and bashed a bit, he will have to weld in some new steel. Meanwhile, while we had the frame ripped out, he decided to refurb the fuel tank and retro fit the grey water tank and so we have been doing that all week. The fuel tank is red for speed…or danger.

The grey water tank is not finished yet. It was fitted out beautifully, but then we realised there was no drop between the inlet hole and the shower drain hole…and water doesn’t really flow uphill – according to the laws of physics…or so Henry tells me (not really, I’m not that dumb, promise!). So we will have to redo that.

Meanwhile, instead of getting depressed about it all, we installed the drain holes in the shower and basically one-third of all our plumbing. (When I say ‘we’ I mean Henry does about 85% of the work and I just pass him the drill.)

On the homefront (mostly only mornings and nights are spent at ‘home’) it’s funny learning more about your children as they change and grow over the days/months/years. Gunther has learnt that he really likes snuggling and so a few times Soph helps him bring his bed into the living area and he snuggles on the floor. Yes, I know, cute.

And Sophia is picking up photography, as no doubt all of her generation will, this was only the second attempt and, sure thing, I am in focus! However she asked me to do it one more time as my hand was ‘in the way’ (she’s already considering composition), but that third attempt – definitely not in focus.

April 8, 2014
Martin Buber showed me the light

Martin Buber showed me the light.

Martin Buber was a philosopher on education. Now, that sounds slightly dull but, truly, it is not. If we take the point of view that education occurs every day of our lives through nearly every relationship then really he educates on relationships.

He was declared an exceptional teacher by his students (and you’d think they ought to know):

(He was) the greatest teacher of our generation. He was an educator in the true sense of the word and within the limits of his own definition of it. He did not try to impose a self-evident formula upon his pupils, but posed questions which forced them to find their own answers. He did not want his pupils to follow him docilely, but to take their own individual paths

(http://infed.org/mobi/martin-buber-on-education/)

The right way to teach, he said, was ‘the personal example springing spontaneously and naturally from the whole man’. This meant that the teacher should constantly examine his conscience. Indeed, every man should do this; but a teacher most of all, as he could not teach others if his own example was flawed.

(http://infed.org/mobi/martin-buber-on-education/)

What struck me while reading through some of Buber’s philosophies was his extraction of the term ‘dialogue’. Dialogue is what occurs between people.

There are three types of dialogue:

Technical (based on the need to acquire an objective understanding)

Monologue (men talking to themselves really, while pretending to talk to another) (this happens most of the time)

Genuine (meeting of souls, ‘I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being’ (Buber 1958, 24). It is turning towards the other, is not found by seeking, but by grace

Too often (most often) our interactions with each other revolve around monologue. I say my monologue while you barely listen and then you say your monologue while I barely listen. I might seem to agree but my thoughts are still my own and your thoughts hardly affect mine. This is not true conversation, but it is what people often call dialogue, this is how people usually relate.

Buber’s take on dialogue firstly involves the important step of inclusion, which is not empathy, it is the ability to extend oneself and experience an event from the point of view of oneself as well as of the other at the same point in time, he called it developing a ‘dual sensation’.

What Buber is essentially prescribing as true dialogue is a connection of souls. He talks much of the in-between, what is in-between our words, what is in-between two people, he talks of walking the path where ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ becomes ‘we’.

Towards the end of his life he valued highly the state of silence, attentive silence where there was space, space to feel and to know.

I have seen the light because I used to be quite good at finding the in-between and connecting with ‘the divine’, and also I felt I was better able to reach the hearts of other people, or perhaps it was that my heart was involved in the connection more than it is today.

Over the years I’ve lost a little of this. I’ve become a lot more concerned with my own opinion and so I’ve become too monologous for my liking. (Would it be accurate to say that I lost my heart behind all my head knowledge? Perhaps)

I’ve lost too much dialogue in life.

There is not enough silence.

Actually I found this occurring more and more after having kids. I had to talk more with children (give instruction etc) and I had less time to talk adult to adult, and even less time to find space. When I met with friends I just regurgitated information or blurted out everything I’d not been able to all week or month or however long.

Sometimes I stepped back from myself and asked: ‘is this me?’

It was a different me.

I have also stepped into a realm of head knowledge, both through discussing the things my husband likes to discuss and through university studies. I am glad about this, but it has made me a little opinionated….

…now, I am pretty happy to be opinionated about some things. I am so passionate about human beings treatment of this planet and its other inhabitants (both human and other) that I find it hard to see any greys (though I am realising that there are differences of ways here). And there are a bunch of ethical issues that I am pretty black and white about. I am anti-corporation and I despise global markets and abuse of military power….etc etc. blah blah. You get the picture.

But in all this lambasting there are people.

There are the people involved.

There are the people listening to me.

There are still the people around me.

And while it’s good to take a moral standpoint, it’s even more important to create a silence for truth (of heart) to emerge, to create with words and with silence an atmosphere of love and acceptance and stillness.

I’m going to have to rediscover this stillness, I’m going to have to still myself and my busy mind to get there.

But I like this in-betweenness, I get it and I want it.

*This is personal, but I feel it’s an important truth/philosophy/understanding to share. Maybe you will relate? In the quest for a pared back, less consumerist life, one that does not buy into some of our unchallenged Western ideas of ‘a good life’, I feel it is important to raise this issue as, surely, it is relationship that lies at the heart of meaningful living and understanding of ourselves.

April 1, 2014