Earlier this year I made the set and props for Flotsam and Jetsam, a production for children which tells stories about living on Australian lighthouse islands in the past. The script was written by Greg Lissaman, from recollections gathered by Chrissie Shaw, the actor. Catherine Roach is the director.

The set is an island, panels painted in a pointalist style, which can concertina into different shapes and be dismantle for touring. The lighthouse is modelled on the historic lighthouse at Cape Otway in Victoria, and Tasman Island in Tasmania was among other sources of stories and images, such as the flying fox access to the island. There were numerous props – seaweed, wooden chests, a porcelain doll, an albatross, and a sea buoy. There are more photos of these in my  Flotsam and Jetsam photoset.

Touring dates and booking details for Flotsam and Jetsam are listed at Chrissie’s site. On 19 – 21 August it has a short season at the Maritime Museum in Sydney, and then it will tour coastal community venues in NSW. Chrissie also performs The Keeper, an adult play also based on lighthouse stories.

I chanced on these ceramic precision cutters by Slice the other day in a Howard’s Storage shop. I’d never heard of ceramic cutters before, and I’m still a bit in the dark about what exactly the ceramic material is, but they are very effective. The blade is tiny when compared to hobby knives, ideal for fine work that doesn’t require much depth of cut, and for opening those horrible plastic packs that electronic gear comes in. The overall design is cool and nice to handle, too. OhGizmo has a review of the Slice range.

This suggestion of a seagull skeleton is a prop for a new play I’m working on, but I rather like it as an object for itself. It’s given me some ideas for making some stranger ones when I get some time later.

By coincidence, today I happened across Chris Jordan’s photographic collection Midway: Message form the Gyre, a photographic documentation how albatross chicks on Midway Atoll ban in the middle of the Pacific Ocean often die because they end up being fed heaps of plastic junk. It’s shocking – only look if you are feeling strong.

This face is essentially calico over foam.

The following one is foam at the moment, but I am going to try a cracked surface on it.

I have some catching up to do on posting about my work projects.

First up is the cross-section wheat seed that I made for CSIRO Plant Industry, for their annual display at Floriade in September. In other years I’ve made a caterpillar and cross-section flower for them.  The wheat seed is carved out of polystyrene, and surfaced with a mixture of materials: fabric, paper mache, paint and latex. There is a photoset of the process.

I was pleased when I realized I could use a strange stretchy and very synthetic fabric for instant and variable cell textures.  I had used this fabric for skin texture on a goanna puppet in a TV pilot years ago.  At the time the pilot program was taken to a childrens’ program market in Cannes, and there was hopeful anticipation of it being sold to China. Someone with dollars in their eyes advised buying up extra fabric against the day when we went into full goanna and other animal puppet production, but there I was ten years later cutting into it for the first time!

The unlikeliest thing about the wheat seed was how cute it was. Everyone who picked it up cradled it like a baby, and admired its cute little tuft of bristles!

I finished the red bird creature today and started a yellow one. I keep on thinking of this look as baleful, but the dictionary definition has more of a connotation of menace than I’m reading into it.

Not finished yet.