It’s been a while since I have posted any thing. March was such a busy month. I loved everything I did, but I am glad to look at the April calendar and see some free days!
Let me tell you about March….
It is birthday time in my life ~ my birthday, the Fella’s, other relations and my 95 year old friend. She wasn’t going to have a party, but her sons talked her into it. She loved every minute. I have also taken her to a few medical appointments this month too. Other celebrations included an engagement party and my niece’s wedding.
I did cultural things. There was a talk about colonial art at the Incinerator Gallery, the first ballet for the year (The Australian Ballet’s performance of Faster, three modern ballets. It was brilliant.) and the film Hidden Figures. I saw a fabulous exhibition at the NGV, Who’s afraid of colour? The exhibition notes say
This exhibition brings together presentations of work by a broad range of Indigenous women artists, whose practice is unbounded by convention. It includes bold statements that explore colour and assert the politics of identity. Customary woven objects and modern works will jostle in the same space, with digital, synthetic and organic materials alternating unexpectedly. The poetics of mourning will oscillate with paintings of wondrous joy and photographs that expose Indigenous disadvantage and repugnant instances of institutionalised racism.
Go see it if you are in Melbourne!
I caught up with friends: Liz, Tess, friends from school, Mary, Denise was back from overseas and Melanie. Mary, Denise and I went for a drive up to Warburton. It’s a special place for me, because my Mum spent the first few years of her life around there and later moved to Lilydale. Mum and I are going back for a weekend jaunt soon, so I will have lots of stories to tell. This time we went for a walk amongst the sequoia trees that were planted in the 1930s. That was amazing, a little taste of what it must be like to walk among the giants in California.
In amongst all of this I did the usual things ~ the hairdresser, my weekly visit to a friend suffering from dementia, my volunteer work at the Herbarium and then to the painting session, and four Sunday mornings of paid work. Needless to say housework kept falling off the list of things to do. But I did get out into the garden, especially to harvest the tomatoes, beans and strawberries, which have either gone into the the freezer or onto our morning muesli!
Unfortunately blogging and creating kept falling off the list too. I have been trying to keep up with your blogs, but forgive me if I have missed things. I have done two commissions lately, which have been almost all my creative work. One was for a wedding invitation and the other a blessing. I loved working on both of them. So if you have something that you would like me to create, just let me know and we can talk it through.
I have have a couple of plays with Kate’s nest, but nothing satisfactory yet.
So, I am looking forward to an invigorating April, one with open days, time to create and routine. But I will grab anything that comes my way. Life is too good not to enjoy it all!
What have you been up to?
Anne Lawson Art 
24 replies on “It’s been a while…..”
A happy belated birthday Anne.
You might not have been as creative as usual but you spent lots of time with family and friends – your paper, pencil and paints will wait until you have time to get back to them. I love those burnt orange coloured feathers.
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Thanks for the birthday wishes 😘 One of the best things I did was have lunch with my Mum. We always enjoy each other’s company and any time spent with her is special. Those feathers took some time to get right, so I was pleased that the client liked them too. It’s always satisfying to fulfil someone else’s vision.
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Wow…I felt tired just reading about your March! It’s been a fairly hectic month for me too, but nothing on your scale. Love your harvest. I really should plant strawberries again. Since reading about the nasty chemical residues on so many favourite fruit and vegetables, I know I’ll have to start growing more of my own – sans pesticides of course. My first step was to throw out the flatpack greenhouse that was forever falling apart. Today I went to Bunnings and bought a small, plastic covered greenhouse-type-thing. Also flat pack but at least I can yell at Bunnings if it’s too horrible. Tomorrow I’ll put it together.
Hope your April is one of those perfect months when everything is ‘just right’. 😀
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It’s funny how March seems to be a busy month. When I taught I thought it was because I wanted to continue the holidays, so I booked up things in March. Then I was into the busyness of school, and I couldn’t sustain it. Maybe that’s still a pattern that I am continuing.
Strawberries, for me, are the easiest things. They took a few years to take off, but now they roam about, sending out runners, and just produce so much fruit. Good luck with your greenhouse-type thing! The only seeds I bother with are the ones I can plant straight into the ground ~ beans and sweet corn especially. I am going to try buk choy and spinach seeds, as they were a thank you gift from my niece’s wedding.
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I tried strawberries a few years back but they all died. I planted them out into the garden and they were eaten to death by snails and alpacas. Next time I’m going to try them on the deck. 🙂
I’ve had some luck with spinach but never tried buk choy [which we love]. Let me know how it goes.
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The first in the Buk Choy Report is that I planted the seeds yesterday, straight into the ground (Not much of a report, really 😃)
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lol – I have an update as well – I bought some seeds online yesterday! I expect them to arrive some time after Easter. I had no idea they were a cold-weather plant so I’m thrilled I’ll be able to plant [and eat] very soon. 🙂
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What a wonderful month Anne, filled with family, friends and activites. I love the pictures from the exhibition and also of the sequoia trees. I have seen them in California and they are spectacular. Enjoy a slower April!
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How wonderful that you saw them in California! That must have been a special treat, and is on my Must See list. Despite all the activity I did enjoy the month and all the events. April should be quieter, but I seem to be making all sorts of mental plans to revamp the garden. That has to be done before the colder Winter months come…..so April might not be much quieter!
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Lovely blessing, lovely feathers to go with it. You’ve had a busy old month, and no mistake. Like you, we went to see Hidden Figures, and I think it’s one of my favourite movies for quite some time. I wish my garden had something to show other than ragged leaves, soggy patches and lots of mud, but we’re working to restore order 🙂
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The blessing was something very different. I did it twice, because the client also wanted one for his brother. Did you loose many plants in the cyclone? I have been thinking of you and all your mud, especially when I watch the news.
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My banana tree is looking very ragged and I lost all the baby limes off the lime tree, one branch of my tree orchid is bent, and we’ve had a lot of palm fronds and acacia trunks and branches to clear up. The worst is the bending over of my huge elephant ear taro; it’s still rooted in the ground but is lying almost flat now. I’m going to try propping it up with a forked stick, like they do with leaning banana trees.
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What a hammering, but it sounds like no big trees were uprooted. What to do with all the muddy, damaged rubbish must be an issue up and down the Qld/NSW coast.
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The council has taken green waste at no charge for 2 weeks, they have made kerbside collections of the larger damaged household stuff and other hard waste, it’s been pretty well managed.
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I like the tree pics and the drawings especially
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Thank you. The trees were so tall that when you looked up you could see the tops swaying but down below it was still and quite. I couldn’t resist taking photos. Also there were these fascinating nest constructions, which need a separate post. Keep tuned!
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What a month! You packed in a lot of wonder and affection! I’m glad you took photos at the museum–that “Yawkyawk” work is gorgeous. And your own work is, too, as well as the photos of the “cathedral” trees!
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I love that phrase “wonder and affection”; it sums up the month perfectly.
The “Yawkyawk” was stunning and quite large ~ over a metre tall. This is what the label says about it:
“This woven figure represents a yawkyawk or a young female spirit. Yawkyawks are usually represented with a fish tail and long hair which is associated with blooms of green algae. They are sometimes compared to the European notion of mermaids because these spiritual beings live in the cool fresh water streams and rock pools in the western Arnhem plateau known as the Stone Country. This yawkyawk carries two babies beautifully woven into her swollen abdomen. Their pale. open-mouthed faces contrast with the swirling optical rows of pink, yellow and orange bands woven rarrk, woven like the crosshatching in a bark painting.” Isn’t that something?
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I have an old fabric in my stash that features a view of sequoias from the ground up, like your pictures. I haven’t been able to figure out how to use it, partly because I can’t reconcile the anomalies in the fauna they included with the vegetation. There is a tiger lurking amongst the tress for heaven’s sake! And a hummingbird as big as the eagle in the print. I may have to send that piece of fabric on to someone who has a far less literal brain than mine!
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I have to say that your material sounds odd! For starters, I am not sure I can visualise that sense of looking up as a pattern, much less with lurking tigers! Fortunately there were no tigers or mega hummingbirds for us to worry about (but perhaps I should have been!); however I did keep a very close eye out for snakes. Didn’t see any of those either. Phew!
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Awesome post, thanks for sharing 💐👌👍😊
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You confirm what we’re experiencing… life is busy. We’ve gifted ourselves a quiet-errr Easter. And I’m on Tafe holidays until the 27th but still need to attend to an assignment as well as day-to-day life. However I’m trying to do a bit of blog reading catch up so it’s good timing that you posted when you did because despite my best efforts & intentions sometimes I just have to delete the backlog of notification emails ♡
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most of my months have been slow – which has been exciting in a funny sort of way – I’m NOT missing my volunteer job (of 16 yrs), not having to manage, buy, sell and so forth – grumpy customers, anticipating what customers wanted and so on…
I haven’t really made any goals or challenges that would take me away from home or my art-making it’s just a time to muse on life etc.
I’ve also not been so well, my regular health issues decided on a bit of a payback so have this slow/quiet time has been good for me…
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Anne, what a wonderful update! You have been busy, but in a good way. Spending time with friends is always precious, and travel is wonderful too. I’m happy to see that you’re still volunteering yet finding time for commissions as well. Your garden harvest looks sumptuous, and what a gorgeous photo capture of the bounty. Happy belated birthday! Thank you for this terrific update.
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