Poetry Thursday

The Fox, the Owl, the Beetle and the Bat,
By sweet reserve and modesty get fat.

William Blake

A fragment of a sonnet rather than an entire poem, but it has stuck in my head since I saw it in Blake's notebook at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, last January. There's something quite perfect in the rhythm, the images and the sounds. And like everything Blake wrote, engraved, drew and painted, mysterious and rich and evocative. You can see  the notebook here in the British Library's collection.

And this, equally mysterious, detail of his painting in Tate Britain The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth 1805.

Wordless Wednesday

Naomi Eller at Heide Gallery

I spent a lovely couple of hours at the Heide Museum of Modern Art. I went specifically to see a small but wonderful exhibition of sculptures by Naomi Eller.

These are mysterious and wonderful things - although you know they are made of branches, ceramic, paint, wax and shellac, they have a puzzling life that is not animal, not plant, not mineral. The textures and colours remind you of many conflicting things: kelp, bone, alabaster, marble, skin.

Heide kindly allow photography but I was too absorbed to take many photos - 

Naomi Eller if not bones then stones is on at Heide Museum of Modern Art until the end of October.  I'll definitely be going back.

new toy

I have been keeping an eye out on Ebay for a book press for some time and finally one turned up that was a) in great condition, b) affordable and c) in Melbourne.

We drove off up the freeway to the mountains to pick it up

 and it is just beautiful.

I have been studying this book 

and will start off simply, playing with linocuts and collagraphs in monochrome. I think there are a lot of possibilities with this new toy.

blue moon

This weekend sees a blue moon - where there are two full moons in a calendar month. A full moon is always mesmerising - a winter one even more so.

Looking down the bike path on our walk to one of our favourite restaurants for dinner.

On the way home - moon through the sparse branches of bare poplars

Then, through the branches of the lemon tree in our back courtyard.

Spring is coming

after a great deal of this 

 

we are now seeing more blue sky

 and blossom!

studio news

I'm playing with slip and feathers

 slip and textiles

ultramarine and silk

ultramarine and paper

and fierce wool