Postcards

So yeah, here are my little territory postcards. One or two I might play with as a full scale painting.

I found these

I love these paintings by Australian Carl Plate. I wish I knew more about him. I can see a trip to the library coming on.
You know when you see something and you pine a little because someone has succeeded in doing work that you aspire to? The little journeys I've been scribbling for example (which I'll bring in and scan tomorrow)... My favourite's the olive green one called 'Spring'.

The nature of ideas

Some ideas are gestated at length; the end results evolving through time spent on exploration, by following a deliberately convoluted path with the end point obscured to retain the mystery. The process is a delight and the results are often enriched by the series of trial and error discoveries and the depth of the research and thinking.

Other creative ideas arrive fully formed as lanky young concepts, lacking grace but full of enthusiasm - or like soft spoken ingenues peering out from behind a fringe. (OK enough of that syrupy prologue...)

And then some spark ignites an idea - and like a small flash, you can see the whole finished work in it's entirety. (Like a Paul Simon song).

Who's to say this is not how it should be done?

I've been spending a bit of time recently surrounded by handbags. No, not my new fetish - just the result of a serendipitous meeting, some interesting work and the opportunity to try my hand at a little creative marketing for a new friend's leather goods store.

She and I have talked at length about what a handbag expresses of a woman, what we carry in them and why... the need to equip ourselves with a beautiful receptacle into which we cram every earthly thing we may need to face the world at our best.

It's led me to think about the kinds of homilies that are shared as part of preparing for adulthood, parenting and dating - the kind of wise (or silly) advice that's passed down from generations to daughters and sons. Has it changed? What wisdom has crossed over? And what about the debunked outmoded or obscure advice? Is it still stuffed into the handbag of things that might come in handy along with the clean hanky?

The studio is beginning to be a place to stash the kinds of stuff I might use one day - you know the sort - paper, paints, wallpaper, handbag handles...

Today I'm seeing a collection of small bags (some of the handles I have acquired are art deco) and recticules made of elaborately pleated, folded or embellished paper - a support for drawing or painting that explores this notion of carrying useful wisdom as a defence against the ills of the world.

I'm not at all sure that attaching paper to these little brass fittings will work - but I'll give it a go.

So, I've begun a notebook of homilies. I want to collect them from a wide range of people and see what results.

Here's one from Sarah's mother : 'you can tell how organised a person is by the way they hang their washing'.
And one from Bob (though he credits it as emanating from certain Catholic boy's schools - and I know he didn't attend one of those) 'don't open your Xmas presents before Xmas'.

See what I mean?
Feel free to leave me a homily here that means something to you - either because you find it comforting or wise (still), or because it's ridiculous and you've exposed it as foolish.