Barefoot Wanderings

Death of a GMC!

My GMC (similar to a Dremel, but I've been told not as good) started to play up last week. I asked my very unhandy husband if he could take a look. His response: "Oh right, as if I'm going to say it's the alternator!" Anyway, he had a look at it...actually opening it up to look on the inside. I caught a glimpse and my immediate thought was 'Wow, look at all those bits I could use!' but knowing if he actually killed it that I wouldn't get a replacement for a while I was a bit nervous so I walked out of the room. 5 minutes later he had fixed it! His response to how did he do it was "I blew on it and poked a wire in that was sticking out!"

It continued to work for a bit on and off and then finally stopped working altogether on Wednesday night. Again I asked my unhandy husand to look at it. He gave it a whack in the right place and off it went again. This time his success didn't last too long, it sparked and whenever I used it there would be a bad smell. So Yesterday I treated myself to a Dremel. Doesn't she look beautiful!

The Friday Night Knitting Club

by Kate Jacobs.
I finished this book a few weeks ago and found it to be a light and entertaining read.
The tag line, 'It's fun to stitch and bitch', didn't really grab me and almost made me not want to read the book but after I finished the book I found it didn't relate to the story and was a little puzzled as to why it was there.
It' s about how a group of women, most of them strangers, who come together for knitting but end up helping each other out in life. There were a lot of issues that were brought up in this book (like relationships, being unfaithful, single parenting, finding yourself, and so many more) but none of them were really delved into in great detail.

Shoes

.....the most recent theme (no.12) in our Altered Book Round Robin.
I created this in my book. I started playing with paint on the background and was given some wall paper as a gift that went perfectly with the background. After a few more glazes & blending I had a great background but was stuck with what to do. That is until I found the picture of the girl with the georgeous shoes, it just fell into place after that (with a little help from my dear Megan).

Finished Piece from Retreat

                                                   Assemblage
                                             approx 13cm x 14cm

Art in Everyday Life

A sign that art is part of everyday life is when you see something that is not really seen as beautiful but regardless, there you are admiring the texture and form. Wishing you had a camera to capture the object that is intriguing you. These are not unusual occurances, it is often the actual object or location that makes it more interesting, or some would say strange.
Yesterday I was admiring the texture and form of something that really caught my eye. The more I looked the more interesting it became. I started to see what form this object could take, an angel, a wave... I then came back to where I was and what I was looking at. I was in a school toilet (canteen duty) and was looking at a once wet clump of toilet paper flung up high on the wall. On this realisation I did actually chuckle to myself but it certainly did not stop me thinking of how I could use what I had seen back in the studio!
(Sorry there's no picture, didn't have the camera with me!)

GPP Crusade No. 6

PICK YOUR POISON - the stuff you collect.
This month's crusade over at Michelle's GPP Street team is a challenge purely because I have so many collections it was tough deciding which few to choose.
So here they are....

Pencils from my first trip to the UK in 1996, I bought one when I could from various places of interest such as Bath, Castle Howard, Salisbury Catherderal, Sherwood Forest, a tartan one from Scotland, the leprechaun is from the Blarney Castle Ireland (where I kissed the Blarney stone). On the way home we went to Hawaii for a week with one night stop over in LA, so 'Mickey & Minnie' are from Disneyland and the Fish is from Hawaii.

There are few 'Forever Friends Bear' pencils and the holder is one to. I love these bears and have a collection of various items - stationery, mugs, soft toys, photo frames, even toilet paper! - but most of it is boxed up so there is no photo.

Books - some are old and some are new, there are first editions and some that aren't. One thing in common is that I am quite selective in the ones that really capture my heart.
This is a small sample.

Golden Paints & Products  - these are just fabulous.
The quality and the colours make them hard to resist buying.
They've only been available in Australia for a couple of years.

Findings- shown to the right are a few of the findings (jewellery, buttoms, game pieces, etc..) that I collect for my art. I am really lucky as I have my mother, sister and aunt also keeping a look out for interesting things as well.

Rubber Stamps - shown here are the stack of draws that hold all my mounted & unmounted stamps. As you can see why, I don't really buy many these days. 

My latest collection which I'm hoping will grow and deplete as I create is my "junk" which can be seen on my previous post, What A Find!

What A Find!!

After doing Michael de Mengs workshop I warned my husband that I would be buying even stranger things at garage sales and second hand shops. He didn't even raise an eyebrow, I don't think anything would surprise him anymore in that regard, and he gave up asking a long time ago "Why are you keeping that? What are you going to do with it?" On the way to my sons soccer this morning, at quarter to eight!!!, my husband spotted a sign for a 'Mega Garage Sale' and asked if I wanted to have a look "for some Michael de Meng things". So after the game we detoured there and these are the treasures I found. When I was rumaging thru a box and asked the man if he was selling it as is or separately, he wasn't phased either way, so I asked how much for the lot. When he was justifying his price because of all the gadgets in it he kind of lost me until he said soldering iron! I felt I'd hit the jackpot, This for me is a great day shopping.

The Red Thread

The other day I was early for an appointment and went into a book shop for a browse. I came across this great little book "The Red Thread - A LOVE STORY" Written by Leslie Walters and Designed by Paul Dashwood. It is a wonderful story told as a poem. It was really quick and easy to read, and very touching. The book is also a visual delight. The following is from the first couple of pages....

   "As single threads we join this world,
    As single threads we leave,
    In between we're stitched together
    By the lives that we each weave
    I found myself once woven,
    By a lost but loving heart,
    Into a bright red jacket
    Made of love once torn apart.
    But love's the strongest thread of all,
    It never really breaks,
    In parting it gets stronger,
    And greater love it makes.
    The story that I tell here
    (As you'll gather once you've read),
    Is that when we weave with love
    We need no other thread."

What attracted me to this book at first was the title. I had read a book quite a few years back titled "The Red Thread" by Nicholas Jose which I really enjoyed. It's a love story set in Shaghai. The character's lives mirror those in an old Chinese tale, Six Chapters of a Floating Life. In the book whenever the charcters read/refer to the tale the writing is in red - such a great novelty...I am a really visual person! I can't actually remember much detail about the book and so am very tempted to read it again.

The Return

On my return last night form the Art Retreat in Perth, my beautiful children presented me with these flowers and the words......
"I love you Mummy. I missed you Mummy"
"Mummy, why do your eyes look like they're cyring?"

What a wonderful moment, and yes they were tears of joy. I missed my family and was happy to be home!

I did have an exhaustingly good time at the retreat. Megan & I proved to be great room mates (we'd never been away together before) and shared a love of art, good food, a little alcohol!.....she bought me my first Caprioska! and some really good laughs. We learnt a lot, bought a lot and got to meet some really great people......Ro, Robyn, Chris, Jan, Judy, Marie, to name a few! Jo & Jacky from Artistc Journeys did a great amount of work to put the retreat together, something I think everyone appreciated.

I didn't finish any of the pieces I did in any of the workshops. This didn't worry me as I was most interested in learning techniques and skills. Some of the pieces I will definately finish at home.

The first class I took was Sardine Can Nichos with Michael de Meng. I nearly didn't take this class and it turned out to be the class that I enjoyed the most ....possibly because it was the messiest!!! He is a REALLY great teacher. He's engaging & dynamic. He teaches you his techniques but not his style, he is ever so gentle, subtle with drawing out your own style. Very encouraging. A truly amazing person, and a great sense of humour. The photos of his art work that I have seen in Magazines and on his Blog & Website, I believe, do not capture the life within his work. I never thought I'd be temtped to buy a piece but having seen them I was tempted and now wish I had - here's to other opportunities. I know the 'puprle' piece I have photographed also looks better 'in the flesh'....I had a bonus lesson in finding out how to put the man in the light globe!!!!

The second workshop I did was the Copper Booklace with the very talented Nina Bagley.
When Nina demonstrates she makes it look deceivingly easy!! Maybe with 20 years of practice I will master the technique too!!
It was really great to meet her after seeing her work in so many magazines/books and reading her blog. I did make the most of this opportunity and I bought one of her beautiful pieces of silver jewellery (pictured next to the photo of us). She had forgotten to sign the back and so did so in class, it has been signed 'Nina for Ursula' - how cool is that!!! 
There was so much hammering of metal in this class my ears were ringing!

My third and final class was Lesley Rileys' Stitched Fabric Books.
Lesley was such a warm and generous person. Unfortunately, I had a headache on this day and did not really progress much on the books - particularly the stitching!! I still learnt some things and enjoyed playing, especially with the fluid paints and then burning the Lutrador!!                                                                                          

Retreat Challenges

Above: Altered Playing Cards - for trading.

Below: 1st & 2nd Photo - Paper Doll Challenge (make a Paper Doll out of a bag of materials supplied).
Below: 3rd Photo - Hall of Fame.