wear a different hat today

 Choose a hat (or several) and tell me who you have now become. These were all taken in Japan but I have been watching then all over the world getting up to their pranks. There just seemed to be so many in Japan  they became a bit of an obsession and became my main holiday snap shots (as well as man-hole covers).

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

N

O

P

Q

R

cracked

Some of my regular followers may remember this vermillion cracked crossing taken in Japan in June 2011. 
This time I was excited by some of the cracked white road markings. 

I wonder if the frequent earthquakes have anything to do with producing these. (We had one while we were there at 7.6 which made our 10th floor bedroom sway alarmingly. Just an everyday occurrence apparently.)
 I must admit I have not noticed them so beautifully cracked here in Brisbane but will certainly start looking. 

mail art

yesterday

Just taking a break from the little books and reconnecting with some very old interests of mine. Back to the 70's for me when I got interested in Fluxus, mail art and visual poetry. 

david

Recently, Amanda Watson-Will and her husband Ian showed me some of their collection of mail art and I was hooked again after all these years. I think it's the democratic nature of this art practice which appeals and the low brow inclusivity of it all. I connected up with David Dellafiora and his publications "ReSite" and KART Magazine of Multiplicity and "Field Study". Check out his blog if this type of art interests you and get connected back to the whole world-wide scene that is still going strong today.

queen of colonies

The post cards I'm working on involve old photos taken over the years which invoke strong memories for me and combining them with the daily ephemera that crosses my desk and gets collected in little boxes. I had actually made a tentative start earlier this year which must have been a little seed that was waiting to sprout.

travel = postcards

Just playing with using some old travel photos to make a few postcards(from random places in my memory) to send my friends.

memories

An old abandoned Ford truck gave me a chance to stop, look and think about things of my boyhood and how, now these surfaces and colours appeal to me in a different way.

Someone recently asked me, what do I do with these photos. Well what can I say, except perhaps that I stopped for a moment, looked, and wanted the keep that memory alive somehow.

What will I "use" these images for? What work will I make from my contemplations? Who knows? Or when even? Sometimes it's enough just to take a back seat and fill my head with beautiful stuff. It's just great to let these lovely stimuli wash over me and not think about -the result!.

I find the visual textures are beautiful in themselves and they don't need to go anywhere else for the time being. I hope they do something for you too.

Beauty in the garden

a leaf in the cauli-clouds

a spray of hairy onion -drops

The lovely warm weather and recent showers have transformed the vege patch overnight.
I never cease to be amazed at the simple beauty of our plants. How can we use this visual delight in our art work? I really don't know, maybe words are sometimes better at creating the image in our minds eye.

pickings

todays pickings

The mornings gardening gave us this assorted range of pickings.

tumeric

A good crop of tumeric (More vermillion) this year. Seems to like the extra rain we had.
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a perennial plant of the ginger family. It is quite attractive during the year but dies off in winter ready to be harvested. I started my crop from a piece of root (rhizome) we bought in Byron Bay. I use it fresh in curries now but dried and ground up for the rest of the year.

more vermillion

Found a few more assorted images for vermillion lovers.

lost my beanie

A chilly morning (6C) in Brisbane but we'll have beautiful clear blue skies and a max of 20C. Had to put on my beanie to work out in my studio. Which reminded me of this photo of a cemetery for still born babies. A sad but also positive photo from a special cemetery in Tokyo not far from where we lived for a short while in 2008.

a camelia called Desire

An almost perfect bloom this camelia called Desire never ceases to amaze me with its beauty.