Honouring Commitments – in Printmaking and Life

Posted on February 7, 2012 by hatchery
City of the World Puzzle Print block - woodcut

City of the World Puzzle Print block - woodcut

The deadline for the return of carved blocks for the City of the World Puzzle Print has been extended to the end of February.  Thankfully, my block is done, sent and received, my commitment fulfilled.  Not so, as yet, for several other participants  in this mammoth project.

I can’t help but feel sympathy for the co-ordinator and organiser of the project, Maria Arango-Diener, a brave, brave printmaker in Las Vegas.  She has put so much time and effort into setting up this project, including designing, cutting and mailing out 114 shaped woodblocks, which fit together to make the total ‘City of the World’.  If not all those blocks are returned, Maria will  have to fill in the gaps.  No mean feat, reconstructing specific shapes and sizes, especially when there is no wood to spare.

How fast the present slips into the past.   I, for one, was stressing over time constraints with a relocation thrust into the mix of other commitments.  Seems silly, considering we, the printmakers, had eleven months to work on our blocks and get them back to Maria.  Now, those months have evaporated.

The older I become the more precious time has become. This year, I am very conscious of the commitments I make.  Already, the shortest month of the year is in progress.  There have been a couple of projects that inspired instant enthusiasm, but I did not commit until I considered the consequences.  What other, ongoing projects would suffer?  Who would be disappointed if I could not fulfil a commitment made in a flush of excitement?  What gap would I leave, and who would have to fill it?  On reflection, some projects were not worth the angst of participation.  Others I have embraced with eagerness.  Not only am I getting older but also growing more choosy over how I spend my time.  It’s a precious currency and certainly not infinite.

A close call with an idiot driver passing a semi, forcing me to brake, hard, and move into the dirt at the edge of the road, to avoid a head-on collision, made me wonder about the other driver’s state of mind.  What commitments would he or she have failed to fulfil if I had not taken avoidance action? Whether we had both lived or died there would have been consequences to the collision, the least of which would be vehicle damage.   What commitments would I have been forced to dishonour because of thoughtless actions of someonelse? What of the 50 prints that are drying in the studio?  Who would know how, when and where to send them for the current SSNW Solstice Mini Print Exchange?

It doesn’t bear dwelling on.  Life is full of close calls of one sort or another.  I’m grateful to be here, to have posted off my block, and to be anticipating the return of some amazing prints, once they are pulled from the puzzle blocks.  Life is good.  I only hope the laggers in the City of the World are fit and working on getting their blocks to Maria, very soon.

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One Life at a Time

Posted on January 13, 2012 by hatchery
A New Year - Altered Book art journal page

A New Year - Altered Book art journal page

How often do we put the ‘shoulds’ before the wants and yearnings of heart and soul?  Far too often, is my guess, for most folk.

With a backlog of cleaning, washing, gardening and general household tasks vying for attention, I decided this morning to art journal instead.  Start as you mean to go on is the well-worn adage.  Wise advice and I refuse to feel guilty, considering January is already barrelling towards the half-way mark.

Perhaps, as  many believe, we live many lives, but we only get to live them one at a time.  Thank the Goddess, I say, as I have enough trouble fitting in all I would like to in one life, let alone trying to live two or three at once.  I have no inkling about what I might or might not have achieved in past lives, who I was, where I fitted in the greater scheme of things, whether peasant or gentry, if my previous self attained each and every goal, or died with dreams unfulfilled. I refuse to worry about what I can’t change in the past.  What I can change is the present and future of my current life.  After all, what I do today will have consequences.  Yes, by putting off the housework I’ll have to put up with the dust on the bookshelves and a load of washing waiting in the laundry nook.  I’ve also made my soul sing.  The consequence of that being intensified feelings of awareness and aliveness, in this my current ‘one’ life.

Yesterday, tired after a lengthy drive, preceded by a morning of physical work, I was more than pleased to arrive home to my cottage.  After taking a turn around the property, checking for any havoc wreaked by high winds, I woman-handled the ladder to the front verandah to clean out the gutters clogged with gum leaves.  I’m not exactly comfortable perched on anything higher than the first rung, but it needed doing. Twenty-five years ago, sever symptoms of Meniere’s Disease resulted in the need for a Vestibular Nerve Section (VNS).  Since then, keeping my balance has been an ongoing test.  Nevertheless, certain things just have to be done, like cleaning the gutters – where I can manage – to minimise fire risk and clogged downpipes.

At roof height, hanging on to the guttering with one hand, scooping out leaves and black gooey mulch with the other while being buffeted by gusts of wind, I paused a moment to survey my domain, from a ‘higher’ perspective.  The iron roof is painted a dull red, a pleasing contrast against the white weatherboards.  It’s in good nick, considering its age, as is the supporting timber-work.  The doll’s house-sized cottage is closely flanked by huge old gum trees, thus the leafy build up and the reason I braved the ladder.  There, I looked around me in wonder.  It’s mine.  My dream fulfilled in this my one-lifetime.

I’m half expecting one of the neighbours to quizz me on my doings, considering the unabashed laughter and aloud exclamations of, “Yes! It is really mine!”

Amazing what a change in perspective, or a re-ordering of priorities can do for my state of mind, adding a real sense of satisfaction in the present and anticipation for the future.

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The Memory Thief and the Joy Angel

Posted on January 10, 2012 by hatchery
Doily Angel

Doily Angel

Anyone over the age of fifty is familiar with the acceleration of time with each passing year.  Already, more than a week of the New Year has disappeared into the past.  Sucked into memory, it will remain there for some time.  How long is a mystery, also in what form.  After several years, or perhaps only weeks or months, I will remember only fragments of the first days  of this year. Emotions tend to linger longer than image-perfect recollections of events.

What I hope to remember in years to come are the laughter of my grandchildren, the smiles and conversations of my children.  The thrill from the adventure of launching drink-bottle boats, with twig and serviette sails, and watching the breeze propel them across the dam, excited shouts urging them on.  The amazement on city-faces  when watching a family of ducks skim the water, ripples in their wake.  The joy of family being together at the beginning of a new year, an occurrence that will not be so frequent or regular, now the physical distance between us is greater than it was.

Perhaps the Memory Thief will do a good deed, for a change, and steal the mood-dampeners, tossing them into a scrunched up ball in a waste basket in a very dark corner of my mind.  You know, the inevitable moments that become awkward for onlookers who care – the railing at young children by a parent dissatisfied with life, the furrowed brow on one who  seems rarely to be truly happy, with anything, at any time, unless everything revolves around that person as the sun in a solar system.

Still, if we didn’t have the sad or disturbing moments, would we appreciate so wholely the precious ones?  Probably not.  So, perhaps the Memory Thief should leave all the memories un-scrunched and laid out on the table of life.  Just for future reference and ah-ha moments, when joy overwhelms disgruntlement.  It does happen, sometimes.  Though, I promise not to focus too much on the sad-bad memories and I certainly don’t wish to be forced to review them, time after time during the coming months, as if issuing from a jammed slide projector.  I would much prefer the Memory Thief to snaffle them rather than the good-happy recollections.

If I were granted only one wish for the coming year, it would be for a Joy Angel to sit on the shoulders of each member of my extended family.  Maybe that way the Memory Thief would become bored and take a hike.  After all, we too often appear to cherish the sad-bad memories, wrap them in black tissue paper to protect them and keep out the light.  How much better to expose them for what they are, chances to observe, review, change, or to perhaps inspire others to see the changes they can make.

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Just a Little Flutter

Posted on December 14, 2011 by hatchery
The Wing Master - Zetti-Style Postcard

The Wing Master - Zetti-Style Postcard

A recent visit to my previous home town was a period of mixed emotions, to be expected, I suppose during a time when I’m still trying to find my feet, let alone some of my belongings, in a new home in an unfamiliar region.

It was pleasant to walk down the street and say g’day to folk I know. Those same actions also brought feelings of loss tweaked with sadness for what is leaving my life.

Walking along Main Street in Maldon, I was caught unawares by a new shopfront, featuring an amazing display of prints.  Set up by Cascade Print Workshop, the premises had only opened the previous day.  I’ve enjoyed the privilege and benefit from participating in a workshop run by Jeff Gardner and Kareen Anchen and was intrigued by their new business venture.  I was also thrilled to see prints and their makers being given a dedicated venue.

With my own printmaking being in hiatus during moving house and settling in, the variety of nature prints, woodcuts and engravings and lino prints had me yearning for time in the studio, carving blocks, and pulling prints of my own.

The past couple of weeks have found me questioning recent decisions.  Have I done the right thing?  Will I make connections, and friends? Will I ever get the soil to retain water, in spite of the drying seasonal winds? Will I have the energy and persistence to make the beginnings of my dream home into the finished product?  Will my knew studio be as conducive to work and play as my old one?

In other words, I was feeling a tad sorry for myself, and a little lonely.

Although the return to Maldon invited recognition of all sorts of losses, it also inspired a renewed determination to prove to myself that recent choices were indeed the right ones, at least for this period of my life.  Back home, here, the cawing of crows, the high-pitched chatter of willy-wagtails, and the song of a magpie inspire a renewed stretching and opening of wings – mine.

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Mapping the Course to a New Life

Posted on December 4, 2011 by hatchery
Behind the Wheel - altered book spread

Behind the Wheel - altered book spread

Two months on and I’m still getting organised in my new home.  Mixed with the exhaustion of lugging cartons from one place to another, unpacking, and making my new home an appealing place to ‘be’, is a degree of impatience to be settled, to well and truly ‘be-long’.

The Studio, an initial priority, has already undergone rearranging.  About the same size in area as the old one, but a different shape and with different placement of doors and windows, the workspace felt cramped and claustrophobic.  Now, there is a natural walk-through that encourages rather than inhibits a flow of thought and activity.  I’m hoping it will also encourage the muse.

I’m yet to find out. There are still boxes to unpack, supplies to sort and, works in progress to re-find and complete.  It’s a time of discovery, of both objects and of what works for me.  It’s a time of frustration while excitement sits on the shelf preparing to leap onto my back, once my new living and working space is truly sorted.

Christmas is rushing towards me like an Olympic Luge sled.  As always, I’ve left things to the last moment, despite promises made to myself twelve months ago. That, at least, has not changed.  The holiday season will be different, too, this year, the logistics of travel, and distance from my children and grandchildren, an obstacle to be accepted as a challenge and overcome with organisation – something which has never been my forte when it comes to my personal life.

With all the changes taking place, I’m making the map as I go.  A novice cartographer, I’m using the eraser regularly!  It adds to the sense of adventure, not to mention frustration.  Character building, some might say, and I have no doubt I will be stronger and more able, more familiar with Change, once I’ve mapped my own personal course.  Friends and family can advise and suggest, but in the end it is I that must travel the journey, most of the time alone. Rather than wait until every guidepost is labelled, every rest-stop, and each speed hump is duly noted, I’m proceeding with a measure of caution.

Approaching newly-discovered crests and pockets of mist, my grip tightens and my knuckles whiten on the steering wheel.  There’s a lot of talking to myself!  There is also great satisfaction at having embarked on this particular journey, of being behind the wheel on the way to an unknown destination.

Regularly pausing a while to drink in the scenery, to marvel at the wheeling and excited chatting of flocks of Corellas, or watch the ease with which ducks propel themselves into flight from the dam is more refreshing than a glass of homemade lemonade on a boiler of a day.   No regrets.

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