Christmas this year will be spend with good friends who are currently inflating the blow-up pool where we will sip Margaritas in the sunshine and then probably need a 7 hour nap and then some more food (including a prawn and tomatillo nachos), and then more napping. A summer Christmas with an NM twist.
Arriving home 3 days before it has cancelled out time for card writing and tinsel twirling but the offcuts of xmas paper and shiny ribbon trapped in the tumbleweeds of dog hair have added a festive feel to home.
The recent travels have allowed lots of time for thoughts about work to come. There are many things I still want to work through with the bottle trees, and for a few years now I’ve been gathering scribbles and photos and disjointed thoughts around the alpine plants of Tasmania, in southern Australia. It was amazing to see some related plants on the subantarctic islands recently (we got as far as 53˚ south), as well as the gigantism of some of the alpine island plants known as megaherbs.
I think I’m just going to have to start scribbling in the New Year and see what comes, as it currently feels related and not. And the amazing sight of 50,000+ penguins has to work it’s way in there somehow. I’m thinking they could be quite beautiful as embossings like the recent bottle tree collagraph embossings.
And somewhere in amongst all that sits the black gesso, the fledgeling skills in woodcut and hectograph, and the urge to stretch up a gigantic canvas. It’s going to be an interesting year.
Merry Christmas and thanks for making my 2013 such a great year.
Wide Bay - High Desert 