random weaving

I have just come across a very exciting  Japanese basketmaker and in doing so, have discovered an inspiring Japanese word. I have always been enamoured of the term ‘wabi-sabi’ referring to the beauty of imperfection found in nature but now it has a rival for my affections.

Yūgen

Yugen is an important descriptor in japanese aethetics for which we in the West have no equivalent and is “strictly speaking” “untranslatable”.  The two parts of the word break down to mean ‘cloudy’ ‘impenatrability’. Deliciously mysterious but familiar.

According to Wikipedia, you can try to understand it as:

“a profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe… and the sad beauty of human suffering”

Zeami Motokiyo used the following examples to help illuminate us:

“To watch the sun sink behind a flower clad hill. To wander on in a huge forest without thought of return. To stand upon the shore and gaze after a boat that disappears behind distant islands. To contemplate the flight of wild geese seen and lost among the clouds. And, subtle shadows of bamboo on bamboo.”

Alan Watts also alluded to it in The Tao Of Philosophy:

However, when the Chinese Taoists say nature is purposeless this is a compliment. It is much like the idea of the Japanese word yugen. They describe yugen as watching wild geese fly and being hidden in the clouds; as watching a ship vanish behind the distant island; as wandering on and on in a great forest with no thought of return. Haven’t you done this? Haven’t you gone on a walk with no particular purpose in mind? You carry a stick with you and you occasionally hit at old stumps and wander along and sometimes twiddle your thumbs. It is at that moment that you become a perfectly rational human being; you have learned purposelessness.”

Oh lord – I wish I was Japanese.   I should be doing more aimless wandering.

At 6am in the morning, driving along a flat country road on my own a long time ago, I cried spontaniously at the beauty of a mailbox and a song on the radio. It was such a strong feeling. Was that yugen? I’ve certainly never forgotten nor been able to explain it.

Why don’t we give voice to those hidden feelings we experience when nature makes us transcend the every day? Or art for that matter?

I am excited to share pictures of this amazing recent weaving in Windmill Palm by Chizu Sekiguchi. Oozy forms – blobby organic, ordered, delicate and at the same time strong.

Chizu Sekiguchi
Windmill Palm Coral,
2008
Windmill Palm
34 x 22 x 22 cm

Chizu Sekiguchi
Flow, 2012
Windmill Palm
30 x 18 x 45 cm

Chizu Sekiguchi
Net Shell, 2012
Windmill Palm
27 x 19 x 24 cm

So, I am off to the studio now but I’m going to walk very slowly and maybe carry a stick…

Images: Cavin-Morris Gallery

Yugen text: thanks to pricklygoo.comPreview

fal·low/ˈfalō/

Noun:

1. A piece of land left unsown for a period to restore fertility.
2. A pale brown or reddish yellow colour (species Fallow Deer)

Adjective: not in use; inactive: My creative energies have lain fallow this year.

Have you ever cooked venison? Food writer, Sophie Hansen, married a farmer. Now they grow deer and then sell their venison at farmers markets. Her especially sweet blog, Local is Lovely is a collection of recipes and resources for people who love farmers and eating locally.

I married a farmer too. We eat mostly only our own meat and vegetables. It’s the way we were raised, super local and as delicious as food can get.  Sophie’s blog celebrates this way of eating with great recipes, interviews with producers, and the prettiest pictures. It feels like reading a great foodie mag and you can almost smell the cakes.

Their farm, Mandagery Creek, is near NSW food mecca, Orange. In the 90′s when I was at uiversity in a nearby town there was not much to see in Orange (except the ag college boys if you hoped to marry a farmer!) but intervening years have seen it blossom into foodie heaven with specialist growers, restaurants, food festivals, markets and vineyards. Many of our friends have relocated their young families there and I have been busting to revisit the region. In particular to eat with two of my childhood friends who run famed foodie hotspots; Jeremy Norris of Byng Street Local Storeand Willa Arantz at restaraunt Racine.

When Sophie asked me if I would like to do a basket making workshop at her newly opened Farm Kitchen as part of Frost Fest 2012, I said “Oh yes please!” and we set a date. She surprised me slightly last night by telling me the workshop on 10th August has already half sold out but there are still five places left. If your creativity has been lying fallow or you fancy a taste of venison and a foodie long weekend (the farmer’s markets are on the Saturday morning) then pop over to the workshops page for booking links. I’m sure Sophie could help point you to acommodation options around Orange.

She kindly suggested I might also like to have a wander and find some broken antler pieces in the paddocks. Really??

Consider that cake iced!

Photos: Sophie Hansen

image: Paul Barbera

Woven from 11, 000 hazelnut branchespainted electric blue, Paola Navone’s installation of ‘nests’ for ‘barovier&toso’ in the Orto Botanico di Brera, for Milan Design week was a protective enclosed space for multi-colored hand-blown murano glass chandeliers. Visitors were encouraged to peek through openings to the brightly lit interiors.

image © designboom

If my dedication to weaving begins to wane or should my fingers start to ache…

…I am going think of Gareth Wynne Fitzpatrick and his suspended nest project. Ouch!

Bundled up; an old woollen jumper and beanie. Barefoot.

Just a few tiny souls, bobbing out beyond the white, in full dark skins. A lonely liner on the charcoal horizon and one sailing eagle.

Wind snaking ghostly tracts of sand across the flat as the cliffs of the green headland loom.

Bleached edges emerging from the sand; grey rounded driftwood, luminous fragments of glass, shells, tiny bones. Into the bag.

Retreating inward for steaming comfort and to tumble the flotsam out on the timber. Categorise the new collection.

After lunch, settle in for an afternoon of creating by the fire.

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If this sounds lovely to you, bring your found treasures and spend the day with me on 16th June at a mid-winter workshop, learning to weave your finds into a beach-inspired basket  at luxury contemporary beach-house “Fishcakes” at Seal Rocks, on the NSW mid-north coast.

“Fishcakes” draws its name from creation of a master chef along with designers and artists, sports people, all who have stayed. The Seal Rocks Village is where the road meets the Pacific Ocean, it is secluded and private, ecological and wild . This scarcely inhabited corner where an old world fishing cove and National Park beach merge on the front door of this home. Two surf beaches, two bay beaches and the SugarLoaf Point 1875 heritage lighthouse.

Download a booking form on my workshops page.  As always, numbers are limited.

P.S. If I were you, I’d go for a couple of days and stay at the Sugarloaf Point lighthouse cottages. A lighthouse. What could be more evocative of winter at the beach? And it’s whale season.

It may appear I have been a little quiet  lately. The truth is I have been extraordinarily busy with one of the most intense creative experiences imaginable…

My father was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer just after Mat and I got engaged 6 years ago so we postponed our wedding. I’m thrilled to say that he is alive and kicking and an amazing grandfather to four babes all born since his diagnosis. After a huge operation and much chemo he has now been clear of cancer for quite a few years.  So we decided it was time to put our wedding back on the agenda.

To be authentically us, we of course, wanted to do/make/grow everything ourselves and have a big party in my parent’s garden. So we invited 120 people and the planning involved graphic design, event management, floral design, menu creation, crafting, recruitment, fabric design, growing vegetables, making place cards, animal husbandry, wood chopping, lighting design etc etc.  So that’s why I have neglected my weaving and blogging for a little while. The best excuse possible though, right?

I previously hinted at the fact I was eco-printing my dress using leaves and flowers etc and my next post  here will be a photo-journal of the process of printing and designing my dress which I absolutely loved learning and some of you may be interested in too.

Til then, if you are curious, you can have a peek at a couple of the wedding shots from incredible local photographer Tim Coulson.  If you are a lover of love then take fifteen minutes, turn your speakers up and watch this slideshow he put together . So beautiful.

Anyhow, as Tex said, the honeymoon is over baby. I’m back.

x

a working kitchen garden, the old dairy, twelve stools, sweet cake, the hay shed, twelve histories, gumboots, loud rain on tin, sorrel soup, warm home-made bread, hands working cane, a long lunch table, garden envy, happy tears, a tangle of vines, frustration, wet hair, beautiful wonky accidents, tea, laughter..

… Glenmore House, yesterday.

To book into the May 4 workshop at Glenmore House, click here.

We’ll add the crackle of the fire.

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Early on Saturday morning,  just before my workshop, collecting ivy on the side of the road. An unexpected discovery.  It must have been the days and days of rain dissolving the leaves quicker than they could dry on the branch and fall I suppose. All skeletonised and even in colour; a rich tan. It made me so happy to have some new treasure for the group of weavers I was about to meet.

The timing was serendipitous (as usual) because just last week I saw this extraordinary work by sculptor and installation artist Jenine Shereos  on Colossal and was planning to put some pictures here.

Jenine creates these delicate, near weightless tree leaves by tying together individual strands of human hair.  There is a bit of a trick to it though (thank goodness!). She says

Inspired by the delicate and detailed venation of a leaf, I began stitching individual strands of hair by hand into a water- soluble backing material. At each point where one strand of hair intersected another, I stitched a tiny knot, so that when the backing was dissolved, the entire piece was able to hold its form. Creating this work was a very meditative process for me, as I found myself lost in the detail of the small, organic microcosms that began taking shape.

Photos above courtesy Robert Diamante.

Below are some great pictures taken at Saturday’s workshop by my new colourful gypsy friend Kaspia.

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Japanese-American, Ruth Asawa began crocheting in wire in the early 1950′s because it was an artform she could practice while supervising her six children. Yes six.  Here she is surrounded by some of her early works.

She successfully exhibited and became a sculptor of renown creating many public fountains in San Fransisco but I particularly like these basket-esque forms within forms…

…and drawings with wire she called tied-wire sculptures.

She also went on to set-up education programs encourage children’s creativity and problem-solving through art and gardening.

Inspirational woman.

Hello and welcome 2012!

I loves me a new year. So much room for reflection and regeneration. So much give.  So many sparklers. This holiday period I gave myself permission to have a few late night parties, to stay in my pyjamas all day, eat crackers in bed with the kids (everyone else is at the beach right?) and to have a break from my  basketry studio. These are the days before the launch. Cleaning out the cobwebs and opening virgin pages of a diary with no scribbles or coffee stains. Time to look back, breathe and lunge forward again.

Reflection was thrust upon me when I was asked  by Natalie Walton to be interviewed for her blog, daily imprint. It was really challenging to be candid and realistic in my answers but a great exercise in self-analysis (and great amunition for the family to have fun at my expense).  Procrastination warning… daily imprint is a vortex of interesting reading, make sure you have something to drink.

We have been somewhat reluctantly rebirthed this year with a smart phone and a flat television (a little overdue afer 12 years of reading out the subtitles to the person on the other sofa!). Our 18-month-old daughter now makes a beeping noise any time she sees something resembling a remote control. Yeesh.  On the more familiar, organic front, Mat has harvested and part-way sold his first garlic crop under the moniker Green Heart Garlic (yay) and I have experimented with my first ever vegetable dying a la the queen of the eco-print,  India Flint. For those of you who haven’t discovered her mark-making magic I recommend a visit to her website. One of my workshop participants from Queensland, Linda Parmenter stayed over recently to teach my beautiful sister-in-love (the name we prefer to the legal speak) Caroline  and I. Here are some pics from our first efforts.

bracken, rose leaves, onion skins, japanese maple ready to roll

Cool hey? It’s actually super easy and addictive. Such an extraordinary range of colours and patterns from a bunch of leaves in a pot! I have a very special personal project I am working on it for (oo-ooo) which will be revealed in a few months.

So now the year is  underway, new basketry workshop dates have just gone up on my workshops page and places are going quickly. I sent out a little preview email to my waiting list naturally, so there are only two spots left on the Saturday workshop. Just so you know!

After quite a few requests I am holding a 2-day ILLUMINATE workshop towards the end of February so if you have a bare lightbulb in your house that’s screaming for a nesty pendant, come along and I will help you make your own. I can help you find accomodation and it’s a lovely area to explore if you haven’t been here before.

The new year is a little bit like making an eco-print I suppose; starting with a blank sheet, laying down the patterns, cooking it all up and at the end of the year you shake off the spent leaf matter and marks are left on the fabric for you to make something with.

I wonder what the colours and marks of this year will be?

I hope yours are beautiful. x