...failed painter

We have had a week of intense weather here on the Sunshine Coast, a cyclone has been hovering bringing rain, rain and more rain...and of course mud, mud and more mud. I have been at the Woodford Folk Festival since the 27th December and I'm feeling a little mouldy. Almost every venue is smelly and slushy but that didn't stop any one performing.


Yi ( Nic) got to sing for about 40 mins and then introduced his younger brother Sebastian, who sang one song and call me biased—but it was great. If only the two of them got on better and formed a band  ...maybe when then get older.

 
Bad weather in Canada delayed Hawksley Workman's flight and so we didn't get to watch him until the evening of December 29th. I am still in a state of rapture from the experience. We made sure we were there the next evening to catch his last performance at the Festival and were joined by the bird proofer himself, David Howard.


Sebastian and Yi had a chat with Hawksley just prior to this second performance and both describe him as humerous and down to earth and more importantly he seemed genuinely interested in their fledgling musical careers. He spoke to them about his experiences of performing with Music greats like Bowie and The Cure, signing autographs , allowing a photograph to be taken of himself with Yi and to Yi's great delight accepting his CD with promises of feedback. Yi will be checking his email very, very frequently hoping that Hawksley will keep his promise.

As you can see by these photos taken during both concerts, we had front row seats.Wow!

A picture IS sometimes worth a thousand words.
This fab drawing by Nic is his impression of how 'she who must be obeyed' will be spending the next week.
HINT for the obtuse: I'm in the marquee sprouting confabulations on the subject of Art + Artists.
                                 Beloved is in the foreground. Hmm. Off to rustle up some Xmas grub—
                                 a bush turkey or three.

Who in their right mind takes on work over the Christmas break? Ratbag non believers like me.
Too busy to scratch my arse, non the less whilst researching some new technologies I fell on this little nugget. So if any of you kind-hearted, cashed up blog buddies feel so inclined...you can buy me a happiness implant. Perhaps you could pass the cap around?

 
Sooper, sooper busy over the next fortnight...and it's got nothing to do with Xmas. I'm preparing for the Woodford Folk Festival which runs from December 27th to January 1st.

What in blue blazes am I doing?

Why, exactly what I do best—gasbagging!I'm full of so much hot air I have to wear sandbags (no, they're not the things on my hips...they're called saddlebags thenkyou).
I'm presenting an artist's talk each day.

SO

I dunno.Unless I can find some quickies, some nifty links like the one below.

animated portraits - online

The National Portrait Gallery has launched 'Animated', their first online exhibition. Comprising animated self-portraits by fourteen of Australia's most innovative artists, the exhibition revels in its diversion from conventional portraiture.  Representing a wide range of animation styles and techniques, the artists include up-and-coming animators, industry professionals, visual artists and Oscar nominated animator, Anthony Lucas. www.portrait.gov.au/animated/

PLEEZE watch Jonathon Daw's "Seagull" is has Loretta's vsotm

I was going through some old photos— scary stuff; it's quite remarkable how much one ages in just five years! These are some pictures of my studio before Beloved spent weeks rendering and limewashing the walls.

He'd had a lot of practice rendering by then because he'd just finished the outside of the building which is not a small addition. I found the recipe for the limewash on the internet and we applied several coats to the studio, dressing room and bedroom.
In time-honoured 'owner-builder' fashion we haven't got round to doing the bathroom...our bathroom.


We managed without  an inside bathroom for nearly ten years before building the one in the main house. The room originally slated for the job ended up as a bedroom for Oliver—who was not planned. So we had to 'add on' another room accessed through the laundry to accommodate the boys bathroom. I wish we'd kept bathing outside. I didn't ever have to clean, we just hosed the area down occasionally. Try to imagine how much mess my big and little men make. And what's with missing the toilet bowl?

The room that is designated 'our' bathroom has all the fittings just waiting including the bidet that I fought tooth and nail for. It is very large because it was designed for both a party shower recess and a large bathtub. Every time Fong reminds me that I should design the tile patterning and settle on a colour or whatever; I think about all the extra cleaning I'll have to do.

This poem isn't about building; it's about painting and decorating—the 'other' sort.

Enough ©L.M.Noonan

Too brave
too scared
too fixed
too flighty
too dark
too decorative
too subjective
too little
too much
too bad...
tomorrow.

I took this photo yesterday when the sun was actually shining for a change.
We have been having rather a lot of rain—not unusual at this time of the year;
and while it is preferable to otherwise high temperatures, light levels are low
and that definitely effects my state of mind.
The picture is of my new hibiscus which has gorgeous plate-sized blooms.
I put the plant near my Ganeesh outside the studio. He's taller than me...even seated; but he demands flowers, lots of them. 
( If I've written this before, forgive me; however he was a splendid 48th Birthday gift
from beloved). He weighs a great deal and had to be craned into position so that I may both gaze at him while I paint and swim to him—he's at the deep end.
They're looking a tad waterlogged today, their lovely ballerina skirts limp, I hope they adjust to life in the wilds of our recovering garden.
No more hail please!

 

Heap Thief © L.M.Noonan

Rags on razorwire
an annotated footprint
detonation
and silken rustlings.

Desperate scramble
rough coughing caws
and booty
amidst chewed wing tips
moist shells
curling peels
magpie epithets

  
Back in November, Minx awarded my blog a 'ROAR'. Now anybody who knows me well also knows I'm a sucker for any praise, so how this this little beauty escaped my notice, I do not know.
Seamus started this Roar For Powerful Words, an award that sets out to recognize good and powerful writing in the blogosphere.If you've read his recent blog post you will know that it has taken off like a bushfire.

A recipient has to think of three things deemed necessary for powerful writing and nominate five other bloggers.

So...

One - Write without censor, making sure that your candour is mostly kind.
Two - Write with your inner voice, your true self. We're all over the stereotypes, those who want to read about society's demigods can catch up at the checkout counter —by reading the plethora of gossip magazines.
Three - Write to communicate, disseminate and with a bit of luck...propagate all those good ideas that come from many wonderfully written,thought provoking blogs and websites and let's not forget books.

The five Bloggers that I am awarding the "ROAR" are...drum roll please:

Seamus the shamelessly indefatigable promoter of good writing. The original and still the best for me.

Colette Amelia who's self pronounced blatherings always make me stop and think and kindness restores my faith in humankind.

Lee, writer of extraordinary ability who's occasional thoughts send me down the back alleys of the internet to discover places I would never find otherwise.

Jafabrit who makes me laugh, makes me welcome and sometimes makes me jealous of her ability.

AND

Michael who's pictures really do paint a thousand words—I know...it's a cliché but well-it's bloody true! I can feel that snow, I can walk through those amazing forests and I can smell those flowers.

Yesterday we celebrated Nicholas's 18th birthday by doing whatever he wanted to do.
That meant a barbeque at the beach and mini golf afterwards—this is not something we usually do:the mini golf that is. It seemed that Nic's inner nerd won the day.

Despite my reservations and the diabolical summer heat, he, Sebastian, Oliver and Charlotte
(Nic's girlfriend) had good fun and I enjoyed watching them.

It brought back memories of when we used to have drive-in movie theatres. During intermission; dressed in our baby doll pyjamas  we and the other pyjama clad children played mini golf. Gone are those naive days when we could walk home from school, play unsupervised in the bush and run around in nothing but our singlets tucked into our cottontails. Now there are people called pedophiles. We've always had them but we were blissfully unaware. We've come along way but we seemed to have lost a lot during the journey.

Those times—

those sometimes short times;

chittering,

clattering,

careering at intersections.

Now and then

a collision.

Now and then:

missing.

Afterwards,

the humming,

the gentle insistence,

the barely inaudible scratch

at the door to your good graces.

 

©L.M.Noonan

Thanks for the response to yesterday's tale blog peers and cobbers. I was so thrilled I dashed off another. I felt a picture was in order so I've cropped out a character from the slowest painting in my universe—the one I've been adding a few dabs to every so often for the last two years+.



Toad in a Hole © L.M.Noonan

     ‘I’d love to help ya luv, but it’s me arms—see’

Really. I couldn’t be bothered to see; I felt really knackered. This is the thirteenth bucket I’ve fetched today. If only some bright spark could think of another material to make a bucket from. Oak is so heavy.

     ‘You’d probably brush up orright—not that yer my type.’

Bloody hell; anyone would think it was an oil painting speaking. I put the bucket down sloshing a good third onto the muddy bank.

     ‘Look, I dunno what yer game is…fatso; but keep it up and I’m gunna let some of our more bored local yokels know that there’s a highly suspicious character loitering around the pond. A possible child molester, a rapist…’

     ‘Hah, excu…use me, but your Dah will be putting you out to pasture come another year or so…old maid. And as for rape — here he spat out a spectacular glob of flem onto the lily pad just to the left of me— I don’t do that.’He started laughing, from the belly out—a sort of Krakatoa effect.

     ‘Laugh it up frog boy,’ he did—now that I was really taking proper notice look like a frog; no…a toad. Too ugly to be called a frog. The filthy rag he had knotted around his distended guts barely covered his privates, but I could tell from the bulge that it matched his belly. My face reddened at the thought.

     ‘Caught ya looking. Fancy a cuddle?’

     ‘Piss off.’

     ‘C’mon just a kiss then,’ his wide, almost lipless mouth curved into a smile—not entirely off-putting ‘…I’m good with me tongue.’ Out shot a slim black—black? tongue that looped and curled inwards on itself in a dainty curlicue.

What the?

     ‘It’s true; yer past yer prime. Doesn’t worry me. I like experienced females. I’ve been watching you. Yer strong. A nice broad back, a bit of a gut, thin in the shanks.’ His wide set eyes unashamedly slid all over me.

I was angry but strangely turned on. Now, it’s true, I’m no virgin and no serf worth his salt is gunna trade a goat or heaven forbid a pig for me. But; a girl…er woman, in her prime, has to have standards. Time to change the subject. ‘How ‘bout you carry the bucket up to our hovel…in exchange for a kiss?’

     ‘Love to oblige darling, but like I said…it’s me arms. Kinda weak they are.’

I could see he wasn’t exaggerating. They were long, thin and spindly…as were his legs. ‘Yer pegs look like they’re suffering too. I’m surprised you get around at all.’

     ‘Oh…get around. Pah; I get around plenty! Been all over the place. Planning a trip right now,’ he said moving to my side in one sort of…hopping motion, ‘—looking for a travelling companion.’

What can I say; he was right about the gymnastic abilities of his tongue. And the rest; as they say…is history. Before I went ‘all the way’ though. I made him spit up a copper —literally; to cross the palm of a gypsy hurriedly passing through and pursued by some unsavoury characters. She said that our descendants were going to do very well for themselves. They were going to emigrate to some place called. ..er Goodwonderlund? Nah—I got it now, Gondwana.
Sounds posh; don’t it?

Leonardo's masterpiece 'The Last supper' is viewed by 350,000 people every year and rising. Now a 16 billion pixel image is available online. Cleaned and restored , groups of 25 visitors must pass through a filtration system designed to reduce the painting’s exposure to dust and pollutants to view it for 15 minutes before the next lot are ushered in. Can the 16 billion-pixel online image of The Last Supper have the same aura?

The real summer weather has kicked in during the last couple of days, it's very hot and humid—sarong weather. Adam, son number one left this morning after spending a few days with us. He's off on an extended holiday in SE Asia. Thailand, Philippines and India or maybe China. He'll be away for six months or longer depending on how frugal he is. Ah the life of a bachelor boy!

Our local library has regular book sales that I try not to miss. This morning we all hit the stands...even Adsy because he needs something to read when he's not surfing or partying. The car was groaning with the weight of our treasure and one of the librarians commented that I should be very happy with some of the titles I snagged. One in particular is no longer published and I swear I've borrowed it at least six times for the maximum six week loan period each time (I also think I may have been the only person interested in it). I had vowed to scan the book the next time I took it out, when lo and behold it was there along with too many good artbooks to mention. Fong was happy with his Noguchi score, the only book on the great man he didn't already own and Josh cleaned out the fantasy section. Bas got a book that he has paid a hefty overdue fine for along with many other music and film titles.

It's too hot to do anything today except peruse our swag of coffee table tomes, eat mangoes and jump in the pool to cool off. Bugger!

Oh...I did write these few silly lines for Minxy needs your stories and poems. She's called for some fairy tales, 900 words or less. This came to me over my first coffee this morning. Tried not to embellish it and keep it sort of off the cuff.

Dragontale © L.M.Noonan

My mother was a dragon.

Did my father know?

Well not until the moment of his passing—gods rest his ignorant soul.

Ah, I see the doubt, I hear the chary thoughts—another gift of my ancestors.

How could he not know? Or; how could…he know a dragon?

She was bathing in an icy puddle of snow-melt, surrounded, suffused with steam and dragonbreath. The milk thistle sun glancing off her scales created a hall of mirrors effect. My father— hallucinatingly malnourished survivor of the harsh northern winter but rather handsome in his gauntness; caught sight of himself reflected, refracted as hundreds of winsome, angular girls, all with the same startled blue eyes.

What can I say in his defense—there are no mirrors in the village, no reflective surfaces, the only potable water, dull, tea coloured, choked with debris; what can I say…I have my mother’s intellect.

Any normal yokel would have turned tail or hurled a testing stone or two. My father began instead to stroke her scales so enchanted was he with the fractured vision. He didn’t stop to wonder when they rippled beneath his hands—she says she will always remember his touch. He dropped his trews and pressed himself close to her trembling scutes, rubbing, caressing—she turning, turning.

Just as Daddy found the chink in her armour, a place less hard, less chitinous and—it seemed; a perfect temperature, she opened one dreaming eye to regard her lover.

She assures me that he died instantly.
The human heart can only take so much, which is why….it is a good thing I have a dragon’s heart.
But still, she wishes that her dragongirl had at least a few scales.