I'm still here

I never meant for this blog to slowly fade away. I did intend to keep it up and to post all the lovely things I do and make.

However, life got in the way. More accurately, a small wonderful little person got in the way!

Turns out my son is not a 'sleeper'. He doesn't take long naps during the day. He doesn't like to play alone. He doesn't like for me to be busy in another room or working on something he can't touch. He wants me to play with him, to talk to him and interact with him. He is curious and loves to explore. This all means my grand plans to make things for him (and myself!) while on maternity leave have not really happened. Instead I've been playing games, going for walks and singing songs to my son. 

I've made very little but I'm trying to work on a little bit of something every day.

Slowly I made my son a cardigan. I mixed four different yarns together to get a dappled effect. 

I'm back at ceramics. This time at the wheel, not just hand building. After almost 300 hours at ceramics I'm starting to make nice things that turn out how I want them to.

This bowl is wood fired in a dragon kiln. The colour comes from the ash in the kiln. Its magical.

I also look for workshops to attend while my husband baby sits.

I've taken up tapestry weaving and I love it. Its so exciting to see a piece develop.

This is the third part of a triptych I made for my living room wall.

Rather than blogging, I'm posting images of my work on Pinterest as Ellen Blue Triangle.

I'm still on Ravelry as Mrs Teapot. I just began updating the last 2 years worth of work!

And still working on my own little design collection now on sale in Japan.

And the exciting thing: my son loves texture. Its fun to watch him exploring with his hands, fingernails, teeth and tongue and even feet. He gets into all sorts of fabric and yarn and materials. He loves highly textured watercolour paper and paper string and things that crunch or are fluffy or smooth.

Maybe a love of yarn and fabric is genetic...

Feet

My major creative project for the last 9 months has been growing a baby.

Hence the quiet blog and the resting.

My world is upside down in the best possible way.

Here are my 'feet' pictures from the first week of pregnancy until delivery. I took one picture per week for 40 weeks.

Growing a baby is an extraordinary thing.

Meeting the baby that has grown inside you is even more extraordinary.

I stare at his little face in wonder and awe.

How can it be that I'm his mother. What a privilege.

New Things and Old Things

Recently I have been very interested in time and its effects on surfaces.

How time changes things

How time reveals

How time is

Based on this idea I designed a sculpture for a national competition.

And got shortlisted!

(Hope I win!)

In the strange twilight of midday

The Haze has a strange quality.

Its in some ways terrifying and some ways beautiful. 

Is this the sublime?

The smoke was so thick the landscape turned into a painting of itself.

The sun turned into a glowing orb of pink through the thick air.

Avoiding products with Palm Oil in them might help.

Ordinary Everyday Beauty

I try to not get too caught up in the busyness of life to not notice the moments of extra-ordinary beauty around me. Here are some from my past week.

 I managed to cut this Avocado perfectly and it was perfect inside. Positive and negative space!

 Light coming through the shower curtain. Pure and even bright light.

 Lights on the ceiling of a Restaurant. Each light had little glass prisms or beads of amber and blue and clear. They refracted the light into beautiful colours and shapes.

 Sunset last night over Singapore. 

Light coming through the bathroom window. The light is rippled and refracted by the glass and wire.

You may have guessed from this post that I'm rather obsessed with light. I think its an architect thing. Though it is a beautiful thing. Light is life.

Birds Still Make Me Happy

This photo is my computer desktop at the moment. I love the colours of the feather so much - the depth of softness in the fluffy ends and the way the tones shade from grey to orange. Looking at it and thinking of what amazing bird dropped it gives me joy (I have carefully stashed the feather in the back of my diary and carry it around with me to enjoy). Its amazing that something so small and insignificant can be so beautiful and bring so much joy. Its a little reassurance that things are all not so bad as they often seem. 

I'm still sick. I've been sick now constantly since September. I've lost 8.5kg and now sport a BMI to rival a catwalk model and shoulders like a coat-hanger. My hair is falling out and none of the medicines are working. But there is still beauty, there is still love and there is still hope in my corner of the world.

Little things, insignificant things in the scheme of the big bad wide world, matter.

Go search for a feather. Tell someone you love them. Watch the clouds go by and look for funny shapes. Make something (I've been knitting lots of baby vests recently - all my friends keep having babies - proof  if any that there is goodness and hope left in the world). I'll post some pictures of my latest baby vest knitting soon. I've been having fun playing with colours. Perhaps I should make a vest based on the colours of the feather...

A Tale of 3 Vases

Today I bring to you the story of three very different vases from three very different times...

The first is a vase that belonged to my great grandmother. Its not an expensive vase. Its not particually well made or finished. The printed pattern is fuzzy and uneven. But it belonged to her. It used to have a lid, but that got broken. I think it was designed to store sweets or perhaps small trinkets. When I look at it I think of her. She died when I was 2 years old, but I have memories of her. Of her house and garden and of her goat... This is the memory vase. Its a vase of my past, threads that I carry around with me of where I come from. I keep it to remind me of where I come from, now that I've strayed so far from home.

The second vase was given to me by my sister when I first moved out of home and set up my own place with the Mr. The vase is uncompromisingly an 'architects' vase. The sort of vase you might put twigs and pieces of artfully laser-cut cardboard in rather than flowers. Its structural and angular. It is a vase of promise - of a stylish designer life with perfect everything. This too is a world I've left behind. Its been a decision. I'm not that type of designer. I'm not that rigorous with aesthetics. I care more about heart than form. Its a vase from an alternative life. I keep it to remind me of these things, to never put form before heart.

The third vase was given to me just yesterday. It was unearthed by one of the Mr's aunts during a clean up. Its turkish leaded crystal, still in its original box, dating from probably the 1980s. Its heavy and expensive. Its the vase of a sort of settled, rooted, permanent life I know I'll never have. Its a vase to go with fine china, silver spoons and afternoon teas. Its a vase from another age. Its a vase of another life I've decided to leave behind. I'm not that type of wife, nor home making extrodinaire. I have my silver spoons and forks, but I'm as likely to use them to eat cereal as to serve delicate petit fours. I believe in using precious things everyday. This vase I'll keep to use for my twigs and roses. Its a reminder to live fully, now.

And what vase would I reach for the most? Probably it would be an ordinary old bottle that I've pulled out of the recycling bin at the last minute because I've found an interesting branch or flower or paper leaf I've made. The recycled bottle reminds me not to be attached to things. That things are not important in the scheme of it all.

Selvedge Magazine project image from here

This I what I plan to make to put into one of these vases, fabric flowers (free tutorial here at Selvedge Magazine). I've finally started to get to the bottom of my boxes and unearth my fabric scraps and wire and felt pieces and things for making. I've missed making things so much these past few months!

Grey is Not Boring

Grey is Not Boring!

The love affair I have with grey continues. This delightful hat is made from handspun alpaca that I got from here. Its pretty rough handspun and still contains lots of little bits of straw that I had to pick out while knitting. The spinning is also uneven so some parts of the hat are thicker and some parts thinner. Also the colour is not consistent, if you look closely you can see the top of the hat is slightly darker than the edges. This is all part of the charm of handspun for me. This wool was spun by a human not a machine. A human with hands and alpacas and bits of straw everywhere and probably she stopped for lunch and the family dog slept on it as well. Its real and that's what I like about it. Wabi-Sabi sort of beautiful.

One of my professors recently said that the most rebellious thing you can do now in terms of design and art and theory is to simply make something because its beautiful. I like this because its something I've been feeling for some time. Why must art be ugly to be poignant and thoughtful and interesting? Why can't it be beautiful?

This wool is beautiful. I think the spinner intended it to be so despite the straw and unevenness. This I hope comes through in the hat. I just wanted a texture that would show off the wool as it is. The cables of the hat kind of fade away into the background and the wool and greyness of it come forward.

The pattern is called 'Gretel' by ysolda in the latest Stitch n' Bitch book. Even though I haven't done much cabling before the pattern was really easy to follow and went without a hitch (except for not being able to do the tubular cast on successfully even with 5 attempts!)

The Underside of the Hat.

Living in the Silence Between Movements of a Symphony

I read the new Toast travel article today about the Arctic & Antarctic travels of Sara Wheeler. I was struck by the poetry of that line:

"Life was absent from our landscape; it was like living in the silence between movements of a symphony."

Sometimes things just reach into you and dig deep resonating with somewhere deep inside. I like this line because it does seem to me that the essence of our lives are not found in moving from one activity to another but in the stillness in between. Not of doing but of being (we are human beings after all, not human doings). In these moments where everything comes into this strange clarity and makes sense just for a moment, very briefly. The sunlight falling across autumn leaves, the clearing in the clouds, the smile of a friend.

Quietness, stillness, silence.

Card Making

Tracing paper Christmas Trees made by the mr. which I love (both the mr. and the trees!)

Sneak peek at this year's Christmas cards in progress

Its a tradition with me to make my own Christmas cards. I can't possibly buy gifts for everyone (and ensure that its not another white elephant gift thats not used), so I like to give cards. I find handmade ones more special and more personal. Each card is different due to being handmade and I make only a few of each type (as I prefer things to be unique). I like the slightly imperfect quality of the handmade, what the Japanese would call 'wabi sabi'. There is a beauty in that is held because of the flaws, not in-spite of them. I made some of the cards on handmade paper as well, so there really is a sense of making with the cards. In the paper, in the print, the artists hands are visible. Its not like the mass-produced card, where the precision of the machine cut and the sharpness of the printing are evident. The mass-produced is about speed, about minimum effort, a results-oriented product, precision and economics. The handmade is almost counter-cultural (in fact, it is counter-cultural). It makes little sense to spend hours making cards when you can buy them in under a minute. But I find a connection here with slowness. Here are slow cards for a season which should be marked with slowness. Slowness of spending time with family, of lingering over the dinner-table chatting, of making space for reconnection with the spirit.

Why I don't post every day, or every week for that matter...

Photocopy art

Blue Eggshell I found on my way to my office

My work is often very busy, but is also a source of inspiration. Though most days don't leave me time to sit down, let alone make things, I'm still constantly thinking of new ideas and finding new possibilities in that which surrounds me. Having 5 minutes after doing some photocopying, I considered the possibility of the photocopier in front of me. After experimenting over a few sheets, I found I was able to create multiple mirror images, stretch text and make things disappear. The potential for this machine of the office, is exciting. Then there was the eggshell I found on my way from the carpark to my office. The colour is so beautiful, so bright and so lovely. The colour alone is inspiration enough to want to get to making things. Which brings me to the busyness. Below was my yesterday for contemplation:

6:40 wake up, prise eyes open, get ready for work

7:56 leave for work

8:30 arrive at work, pick up eggshell

8:35 photograph eggshell while waiting for computer to start up

8:40-8:50 check emails

8:50 Roll call for critique, arrange furniture, take attendance again (88 students, takes a while)

9-11:20 Critique

11:20-11:35 answer students questions

11:35-11:45 run upstairs to eat lunch, answer questions about crochet from my collegue

1150 - Roll call for critique again, take attendance again

12- 2:10 Critique

2:10-2:20 check emails again, photograph students work for web

2:20 Roll call for critique again! talk to students

2:30 - 4:20 Critique

4:20-4:50 answer students questions

4:50 - 6:15 reply to all those emails, imput attendance data into system

6:20 finally leave work, only to be stuck in a traffic jam

7:15 arrive home, wash up, chuck bag inside, greet husband

7:25 leave for dinner appointment (luckily just around the corner)

7:30 - 10:15 dinner at friends place

10:20 head home, get ready for sleep

10:30 fall asleep pretty much instantaneously!

wake up, repeat.

(for those of you who don't know, critique is what we have in design school in place of exams - students have time to present their work to a panel of lecturers and guests from practice who examine the student's designs and the students have to explain their work)

Philosophy Podcasts

I've been listening to philosophy podcasts as well as design podcasts for a few years now. This one by Nigel Wharburton is quite good and his explanations are clear and concise. He examines the original texts and summaries them too. I've listened to only Aristotle so far, but will eventually go through the others. I also like ABC Radio Nationals Philosopher's Zone, where they interview academics and authors about philosophy and questions of the day.

Its good stuff for the brain in an age where we always just sit in front of the TV and receive easily digestible information. I'm privileged to teach philosophy and debate philosophical questions for a living but I need the reminder too, to fully engage with the world around me instead of being a passive observer.