a rainbow over Dunmovin

my future next door neighbour Vicki sent this photo of a rainbow over Dunmovin
after a wild lightning storm yesterday evening!

her partner Lee kindly took out the big Photinia that was shading the gazebo, making space for another set of steps
watching the trajectory of the sun to see what sort of plants will suit the spot

all the Photinia hedges needed to be cut back hard & are starting to recover
x fingers they will be leafed up again by settlement which could happen at the earliest in May but will possibly take much longer as there is a backlog of probate cases to get through the courts… I am learning to be patient!

Dunmovin aka the Clayton’s house, the house you have when you don’t have a house!
Last night I dreamed of painting the walls, tracing the shadows made during the day with tones of indigo & sand

On Monday I fiddled around finding the right font and getting the spacing where I wanted it for Torben, a local woodworker to relief carve a sign for the front door. He uses a router with a computer program so although his signs look hand carved they are very affordable, met him late last year at the Blackheath craft market.

In the mean time the guard dragon is happy here at Hat Hill Road

whilst I continue stitching my dreams into the long cloth of grief and wonder

Magic for the Autumn Equinox

a magical bushwalk shrouded in mist for the Autumn Equinox

& today is the New Moon in Aries when anything feels possible
Magic Days!

Leunig with Love

Wild Spirit Dreams in the Big Smoke

We Are Wild Spirit Dreams
ceramic tiles
Jenny Orchard
Inhabitants of the House that refused to Participate
(Mythical and future incarnations of the dissolution) 2019-2023
at Stella Downer Fine Art

Michael the Mermaid
ceramic mosaic 180 x 76 cm
Jenny Orchard

Marching Grass
ceramic 50 x 30 x 30cm
Jenny Orchard

I love how Jenny gently subverts the dominant order with humour and love for the wild beauty
of our beautiful broken world

Vallée de Venéon Diptych III
Armando Chant
hand embroidered linen canvas, graphite, wax, varnish, photographic digital print, graphite stick
42 x 65cm
NAS Award
Dominik Mersch Gallery

detail of stitching, the linen canvases were created in collaboration with master embroiderers in India, Rajat Jain, Mohammed Waseem, Mohammed Irfan, Mohammed Imran, Mohammed Fahim and Mohammed Tasleem

a quick flight through time and space

Last week I made a flying visit to Perth to visit Sculpture by the Sea at Cottesloe Beach

to see my friend Bronwyn Berman’s Dancing on Air in situ

& to see my friend Olga Cironis with her video installation made in collaboration with Duncan Wright for Know thy Neighbor Spaced#3 Group exhibition at Cullity Gallery UWA with Elham Eshraghian, Yabini Kickett, Amy Perejuan-Capone.

I met Gija Jumulu aka the Big Boab at the Botanic Gardens in Kings Park at dawn on Saturday

her spirit is strong

the huge gum nuts & silver foliage of Eucalyptus macrocarpa

the Banksia collection is extraordinary

loved this heart shaped leaf growing out of the trunk of a Salmon White Gum

Olga & I scattered an envelope of Roderick’s ashes at a wild beach down the coast

a playful breeze picked up and blew the ashes back on us! Aaaarrrrkkkk! AAAArrrrkkkk!

Walking Home with Mr Bones

Walking Home with Mr Bones © Rod Morgan 2007

detail of illustration Walking Home with Mr Bones for The illustrated lyrics of Old Man Crow

a story out of time… inspired to share by these words by the poet Kalen Dion

bushwalking and baring the bones in the garden

started the week with a bushwalk along the Popes Glen track to Govetts Leap

the track to Cripps Lookout has just opened!

Popes Glen Creek

Horseshoe Falls from Cripps Lookout

ancient rock formation at Cripps Lookout

Pulpit Rock from Govetts Leap
the next day I started baring the bones of the garden at Dunmovin which has been neglected since 2019 when the previous owner went into a nursing home

cut the Photinia hedge on the driveway back buy a third, a big job that took 4 hours!
the next day Cathy & I went for a bushwalk to Mount Banks

Cathy enjoying the view from the track

Old Man Banksia aka Banksia serrata

Banksia serrata flower

my grin says it all!
the next day I got back to work in the garden, the Buxus & Hebes on the verandah needed sorting

Buxus cut back by a third with a view of the orange flowered Crocosmia a class 4 weed in the Blue Mountains

Roderick’s spirit eyes have been helping, he was so good at pruning hedges!

feels like I am honouring Liesa’s spirit by bringing some order back to her garden

removed all the ivy from under the deck, will plant a Cecil Brunner rose on the white trellis and cut the bamboo back, the good news is it is contained in an old septic tank so it can’t spread

blackberry is also a class 4 weed here so I removed it from the old boat

will add fresh potting mix and plant it out with spring annuals and bulbs

more blackberry behind the garden

the neighbour on the other aside of the back fence had just cut down the blackberry on his side so the timing is good

my ladder & pruning tools in the back shed

so I bought a padlock and in a funny way it makes me feel like this garden and shed and house will be mine one day in the not too faraway!

Limbo aka the space in between Here & There

exploring Do Ho Suh’s sublimely transporting passages at the MCA
photo by Richard Whitfield

Muffin the magic black cat giving me lessons in the Zen of waiting for a month in the city

settlement has been delayed on Dunmovin, the old lady in the nursing home who owned the house died early this month so her estate has to go through probate before I can move in which will take at least 3 to 6 months (or more) to get through the courts

yesterday I hung my 2023 Moon Calendar in the studio here at Hat Hill Road

I don’t have to pack up any time soon so there’s lots of time to ride Free my fabulous electric bicycle

& go bushwalking in these beautiful Blue Mountains

slowly stitching the edge of the long cloth of grief and wonder with red silk

the long cloth is from Japan, indigo dyed, handwoven hemp with the most beautiful hand

Old Man Crow is here with me in spirit, I have been seeing double ever since he died. On New Year’s Eve I realized that this is happening because I am seeing with his spirit eyes as well as my physical eyes so I am learning how to bring these two ways of seeing into focus. I always manifest my metaphors literally, that’s what being an artist is!

A year since Old Man Crow left the stage

photograph courtesy Gab Bates December 2020

It’s a year since Old Man Crow left the stage, the saddest most magical year of my life.

“Poet Kahlil Gibran said, “The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
from The Geometry of Sorrow interview with Francis Weller

It was love at first sight!

Two weeks ago I rode my bike up to look at this place and knew I had come home!

this old row boat in the back garden stole my heart

the sailing ship window in the kitchen with the back deck and garden reflected in the glass
the stars aligned and Dunmovin is mine !

will be taking some time out now to catsit my ex next door neighbour’s little black cat Muffin down in the city for a month
With Best Wishes for 2023!