Thursday, March 22, 2012

garden windfall

I've been starting a series of workshops in the studio to unpack what is happening in this space...privileging making is the focus and I'm experimenting with what this means in various ways in the garden and the workroom and hopefully making some more tangible links between the two.  So far I've been thinking about dressing the garden and the workroom and objects within the space...



 It has been a windfall of sorts with a bit of rejuvenation being injected into my work...but I also had a very suprising garden windfall on the weekend...I was weeding and tidying up the garden edging under the apple trees and what I thought was a bit of rubbish (maybe something pulled out of the bin by the doggles or blown into the garden), was a cripsy $20 note!  It might just have been washed and fallen out of a hung on the line garment pocket, but I like to think that like the said rubbish sometimes does, it blew into the garden in a happy accident :o)

























Gem and Hugs also got blessed and dressed by the garden on the weekend...pretty pups!

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

back in not so black...again!

Back towards the beginning of my bloggy happenings I moved away from blackness and into blackness with the blog layout...for a while I've been tired with the black, and even though it is less lit pixels, a pal pointed out to me that a difficult to read screen isn't very sustainable either!   So I've taken the plunge to start redesigning the blog page in line with some new directions I'm taking...it's a work in progress...watch this space!

As I mentioned in the previous post, the uni semester started last week which takes me away from all routine things, and this week has been about developing a new routine...which is kind of nice - means some jiggling of priorities and attending to the really important things.

I didn't touch the garden last week...it has been a very disappointing season with the lack of a real hot stretch and all of the pests (aphids and rats!) that have just caused almost everything to fail.  Even the last hope for apples is out the window as these late season sturmers have been munched away at (I think rats...again!)  When I went to take a pic I discovered european wasps sucking away at the flesh too!
















But I did manage to pick one, the last with no rat chews...and looking at the woodbridge link, it's reassuring that my apple looks the same as theirs, even though it is insanely early compared to the june/july ripening time that they predict...


There are always some lovely things in the garden though, like this orb weaver on one of the rose arches....

































And the zucchinis and cucumbers I planted to replace those pulled out during the dog vs rat debacle are doing well...even though they are late in the season, hopefully I'll get a crop...


































I'm starting some experiments with making vegetables in the studio...not sure where it will go, but I'm doing some plastic crochet Marjorie Bligh style with a twist.  I'm doing some hyperbolic crochet to make some lettuce forms...in this case using glad wrap from a bunch of organic celery...


From sheet to form :o)