Lucy Tartan’s review of Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace over at Sorrow at Sills Bend this morning prompted me to go hunting for my sketch of all the quilt square patterns that were used as chapter illustrations. I liked how the motif worked in with the story and themes of each chapter much better than I liked the book overall.
I always intended to make a sketch of all the knots used similarly in E. Annie Proulx’s wonderful book, The Shipping News, but haven’t as yet.
I once heard an interview with Margaret Atwood; it must have been on the ABC. In it I think – and I might be mistaken, I’d like confirmation – she defined the novel as writing that always has the notion of a clock in it. Does anyone else remember that? I guess it implies that there is always a timeline and a narrative, but being me, I started thinking of clocks and watches and other time pieces!
While you are at Sorrow at Sills Bend, don’t miss the rats and hydatid posters!
At the moment I am painting two traffic control boxes in the Urban Services project ‘Colour-in Canberra’. The first one, The Suburban Duck, is on the corner of Yamba Drive and Kitchener St in Garran, just across the road from the Canberra Hospital. It tells a story from my back garden: about how foxes are an ever present danger to ducks in the suburbs, while crows have the place staked out and steal their eggs given half a chance. Its been really enjoyable painting out in the sun on and off the last few weeks.
The US Postal Service is commemorating Jim Henson and the Muppets with these cool stamps.
Here’s Kermit and Miss Piggy checking them out. I might have to see if I can get hold of a set somehow. Seems a long time since my brother and I used to race home from uni to be in time to catch Sesame Street when it was a new program here!
I’m thinking again about the Colour-in Canberra traffic control box designs, as entries are due by the 23rd. The idea is based on a similar project, Artforce, an initiative of Brisbane City Council managed by Queensland Urban Ecology. They have a gallery of their images, and you can see which are regarded as most popular.
Among my favourites is this one by Annique Goldenberg:
‘On the way to the waterfront at Manly – a traditional turtle migration area’.
Updated links 2015
So much interesting material from library and museum collections is becoming available online. It must be intensive work to get it up there, and it seems now as if the technology has been learned and the labour put in, and now we are getting the results. The latest example that caught my attention was the Sydney Powerhouse Museum’s Electronic Swatchbook which displays fabric designs from the 1830s to the 1920s.
Out of curiosity just then I went to check on the Victoria and Albert Museum of Decorative Arts. I visited there many years ago, and loved their collection of textiles, embroidery, laces and so on. They also now have an online image database.
Urban services here in Canberra is running a competition for the opportunity to participate in painting designs on 30 traffic controller boxes around the city. Its a good idea; I hope to put in an entry. The competition was launched a few days ago with the unveiling of this first painted box by Franki Sparke. It’s at the corner of Limestone Avenue and Wakefield Avenue in Ainslie. I’ll have to go for a drive and take a look – I wonder what’s on the other side?
Kath at red current has been blogging about the Craft & Quilt Fair held last weekend, and mentioned really liking a quilt made by Alison Horridge. Here are pictures of three more of Alison’s quilts.
Its crop circle season in England now; well, from May right through to September. Many of the beautiful photographs of crop circles, such as the one here at Milk Hill, are taken by Steve Alexander. At his site, temporarytemples, you can see images of the latest circles as they appear, as well browse back through the library of images from previous years.
There is an ongoing debate about whether the circles are man-made or paranormal. Steve writes about his feeling that some UFOs are living organisms, (native to our atmosphere but in a different reality that we might not usually be able to see), rather than pure nuts-and-bolts craft. His belief that there ‘is connection between the crop circles, the people who are drawn to the
crop circles, and the bio-forms that inhabit the crop circle locations’ is far more attractive than the ‘planks and ropes v. aliens’ argument you usually hear.
The circlemakers have an interesting site too. They track crop circle patterns as well as making some on contract. Here, for example, is a Hello Kitty pattern.
(Image reproduced with permission. Thanks, Steve)
