Where did the Universe Go?

Light is essential to our well being – a bright clear day is energising, a dull overcast day clouds our emotional wellness. But in our quest for more light we have lost something else essential to our sense of belonging – a truly dark night sky ablaze with stars.

Scientists are finally starting to look at light pollution and find solutions to reconnect humans with their place in the universe, and help nocturnal animals confused and distressed by our insistence on lighting up the night. This article at the National Geographic site explains the problem.

It seems decades since I saw a dark sky filled with stars. When I was a child, I didn’t see as much light pollution as now. Later I saw the sky from the decks of ships in mid ocean, and from campsites in the Australian bush. Letting our children see the the night sky was something we felt was essential to their humanity. A truly dark sky is something you never forget, and almost impossible to describe to younger people who have never seen one. The sheer immensity of space, the uncountable numbers of stars, the ability to see small clusters of stars, clouds of gas and the planets shining so brightly that they rival the moon – it is the most profoundly spiritual experience.

I see a correlation between the disappearance of the night sky and our rampant materialistic selfishness, resulting in the destruction of our community spirit, our care for future generations and our spiritual emptiness. How can you believe anything when the very thing that drove our ancestors to create myths and art and beauty is hidden from us?

The article at Nat Geo talks about changing our approach to night lighting, so we can see more of the sky. I suggest we choose one night of the year to turn all the lights off and let people see what we have been missing. Of course that won’t be a popular suggestion – we have become so afraid of the dark, that everyone will predict lootings, muggings and murders unabated – and perhaps they will be right.

But far too many people today have never seen more than the moon, and a few defiantly bright planets and stars. No wonder they feel so isolated and alone.

What I’ve Been Up To…

I bought a small corner display cupboard from a second hand shop recently. It needed a bit of TLC – the door was faling apart and the shelf surfaces weren’t too flash, so I decided to try my hand at decoupage again. I still have half a tub of that lovely Plaid Antique Decoupage Finish from my last project. So I fixed the door with some wood glue, and started on the fun part.

I used Nerida Singleton’s 1995 Decoupage calender for the images. I picked this up on my forages as well, and I had her book Decoupage (Boolarong Publications 1990) to help me as well. Nerida’s work is utterly gorgeous, but I tried not to let that put me off

This is the top shelf – I used a full sheet from the calendar as a background, setting the corner of the sheet at the top, and cutting the rest away in a curve. That was fun! I added some randon images over the top.

The second shelf is collaged images – I got a few bubbles, but managed to smooth most of them out.

And this is the finished cabinet, with mended door and all my trinkets in place. The Buddha on top was a gift from my daughter Chi.

It is coming up for Christmas, and a Grandma’s thoughts turn to gifts for the grandkids. When I bought this Teddy Bear puzzle box it was plain pine, although the jigsaw pieces are beautifully painted. I decided such gorgeous teddies deserved a better box, so I gave the box several coats in bright primary colours ( child safe paint, of course!), then topped it with a couple of coats of sealer to make it shine like the puzzle pieces. Finally I gave it a coat or two of glitter sealer, which looks absolutely shiny! Now to decide which grandie would love it most…

Making the runes

Here are the runes, about the size of 10 cent coins. I just grabbed little balls of clay, and pressed them down with my thumb into a disc. I tried inscribing the rune shapes into the clay with a stylus but it looked blurred, so I impressed them into the clay with the point of a flathead screwdriver. That’s my clay working tip of the week

I have painted the rune box green, but I haven’t decided how to decorate it yet. The runes I will probably leave as they are. I rather like the look of raw clay.

Rune Box – Messing with Clay

I’ve taken up messing with clay and my first projects are a rune box and a diwali lamp. Here is a picture of the rune box in its very rough first stage – I want it to look rough, as if it was dug up. I will also be making the clay runes to go into it, and possibly a decorated lid, if my meagre capabilities are up to it. I will keep you posted on its progress.

I am using air drying clay – my daughter Kat is very talented in this medium and has so much fun that I’ve always wanted to try it. She of course wants to move on to the potter’s wheel and the kiln, which will be exciting.

Brisbane Chinatown and Surfers Paradise

Brisbane Chinatown has had a revamp, with some of the shops giving way to more parking – can’t say I am happy about it, as the old fountain and the line of cherry trees has also gone. But it was a lovely day and the Chinatown Mall still manages to look good.

You can see the pagodas which have stood in the Mall for 10 years have been fenced off – Brisbane Council is concerned that they are unsafe from dry rot. Hopefully they can be saved at least.

Luckily one thing hasn’t changed and that is the Burlington Supermarket, a fabulous cornucopia of all things edible and Asian. This was a shopping trip, needing to stock up on goodies like gunpowder tea, ginger pickles and cakes, and buy some new noodle bowls. This is where you find the best stuff and the best value.

The new fountain is beautiful but kind of small after the last one, with its enchanting little waterfalls – but at least the koi are still there:

Which leads me to the Coy Elf, which my daughter spotted and snapped in one of the local shops:

Enough said. On to Surfers, which proved a crashing disappointment on this visit. Ta, our favourite Japanese restaurant. has gone! Oh the pain. We were craving its delicious food and cheerful staff. Some God-awful apartment block is going up on the site in Cavill Mall, as well as the blighted Soul building.

A Surfer’s night still has a certain enchantment:

We ended the night at the Cavill Mall Timezone, where I found a very dodgy horse:

Aussie Aussie Aussie – Oy Oy Oy!

I’ve been absent from the computer lately, having been sucked into the Olympics again. Not sure what it is, I am normally not a very sporty person, but the spectacle and the drama of the Olympics grabs me every time. I went with my daughters to the Paralympics in Sydney in 2000 and we screamed ourselves hoarse cheering at the basketball and the track and field. We saw Louise Savauge win her gold medal, and watched a basketball match between Australia and Poland. It was poorly attended so we sat with the Poles and cheered for both sides. We had the best time.

So I equate the Olympic Games with having fun, and look forward to the madness every four years. Sadly though, there have been a couple of disappointments this time around and none of them have anything to do with Beijing’s magnificent staging of the games.

Like Australians everywhere, I watched the Opening Ceremony and was stunned by the sheer spectacle. But hey, the Chinese have been doing spectacle for millenia and are very good at it. I was anticipating the entrance of our athlets, crisp and healthy in their green and gold, and instead I saw what appeared to be a shambling disco security crew in shiny blue shell suits. That was a shock – none of the uniforms appeared to fit correctly and the Aussies looked like they’d spent too much time sampling the local food, bulging all over the place. Thankfully it was only the fit of the so-called uniforms that made them look so unfit. Hopefully this will not occur again at the closing ceremony.

Then there is the media, trying to beat up every little thing into a shock-horror headline. Here in Australia, it was claimed that Australian Michael Rogers was `robbed’ of victory by a `cruel cramp’ at the end of the road race. Sorry, I watched that race and Sanchez thoroughly deserved his win. Rogers finished sixth, in no way was he pipped at the post. Where our team have won medals they have done so valiantly and honorably. Rogers rode a great race, but the media shouldn’t imply that he was a contender for the gold. The Spaniards had it wrapped up from the start.

Then there was the reporter who said, “With games being held in Beijing, China finally comes of age.” Excuse me, a 5000 year old civilisation comes of age?

But patronage and patriotic bluster aside, it has been great, and my current favourites are the Brazilian Girls Soccer Team. They are like a bunch of Michell Rodrigez’s (The Latina action star who kicks butt in all her movies) and they whomp the opposition with great style. Love ‘em.

I volunteer at a local charity shop and have set up a display to monitor the Australian medal tally. The macho panda came out of our toy stock – he seemed the perfect mascot. I have promised him to a little boy who fell in love with him.

We also have a little shrine to our heroine, Queensland swimmer Stephanie Rice.

Oh well, back to the Games. Have I got my popcorn? Yep, I’m set.

Soul Journal: My House

This is our blue `beach house’ sitting on top of a mountain miles away from the sea. The other page shows our local clock tower and shops in the high street. Like Jill, I wasn’t keen on making paper dolls – my family is HUGE and I couldn’t contemplate leaving anyone out, so I left the journal lying open and went off in search of coffee and inspiration.

When I got back, my 2-year-old grandson Jei had decided to add his own interpretation to the pages. Laughing at his joyful, energetic swirls and squiggles, I grabbed green and blue crayons and joined in. And that’s where we left it, Jei and I, for these pages now express everything I feel about my home and my family. The joy of creating bubbles like laughter from one generation to the next, and its so good to share my life with them.

Soul Journal Treasure Hunt and Taped Pages

I had a lot of fun with this page, treasure hunting for images. That’s the Mona Lisa Smile in the top left hand corner, followed by Something Beautiful – a full blown rose. On the second line, a traffic light is my Something Red (No Left Turn – probably something deep and meaningful here), some nice stones for Something Blue, a very comfortable looking cat for the prompt `Comfortable’ and a Lotus perfume label for Something Exotic.

Line three starts with Something I Want – this house looks like my second favourite John Williamson song `A home among the gum tees’ (the first is Cootamundra Wattle), followed by Something I Own -I am a believer in impermanence, the only thing I really own is my past – the line ends with something that smells nice -lavender!

Line four stars with Something That Tastes Good – a golden plum- yum! Then I had to find eyes like my own. Mine are green. The circle, the hand and the butterfly are self explanatory, and the letters we had to find cunningly spell ART.

As I am using a large book,everything fit on the one page. We had doodle on the page after, but I used way more than eight words. Just can’t shut up once I get started.

This was fun too – we had to chuck tape all over the pages,sand it off then finish with a colour we hadn’t used before. I chose a mix of green and gold – yes, I’ve used gold before, but I loved it here, blending into the green. Besides, the Olympics start soon, and it seemed the patriotic thing to do.

Days Two and Three

The Claiming my Book page turned out to be quite hard, as other journalers have found – in my case, I have never found my name to be terribly inspiring anyway. But I struggled on and then realized I had a chance to use my new glittery gel pens and practice some calligraphy – so that’s what I did.

The Protecting Our Creative Souls page also stumped me for a bit. I really had to think about how I do this, because I have never imagined myself with a suit of armour, or any other protective gear – then it struck me. I have always protected myself with the guise of a clown – long ago, when I was growing up as a traveller and performer, I wore clown clothes to hide myself from the audience – I was shy and didn’t really like performing. When I need to protect myself, I do it with laughter, I turn the situation into a joke – I still wear the mask of a clown. After that, it was easy – there is a small suit of armour inside, but it’s the clown who still shields me. I found a paper Columbine doll that I had been keeping for something special and painted a white clown face on her. The background is red and gold paint mixed together – real circus colors.

Soul Journaling

I have taken up Caspiana’s Soul Journaling challenge, and will be documenting my progress here. I’m already out of sync, having started late, but I think the main thing here is to dive in and enjoy the inspiration this challenge offers, Besides, I have only dabbled in visual journaling before and this is a way to get my feet really wet.

Below is my work area – my daughter and son-in-law bought me the wonderful cubby hole desk with all its little nooks and crannies where I can store art materials and display bits and pieces that I love.It is here that I will be working on my journal every day.

On the first day of the challenge you have to choose your journal. I bought another of the art sketchbooks that I really love, and gesso’d the cover. I will be pimping that as I go along as well.

Here are my first two pages. On the first day you have to cover the first three pages with newsprint or pages from a dictionary – I chose pages from an old household management book that has been a source of collage bits for a while now. The pages have a really lovely brown edged sepia look.

This is the book – it’s going to be a rich source of collage material for some time yet!

Finally, the journalling – I love warm colors!

And that’s it for today – now I need to get out the gesso and start on the next pages.