monkey business

Overheard at the markets - She said to him "Do you want to go down to Mindil Beach to watch the sunset?'. He replied "No, I saw it last week".

I did some publicity shots yesterday using work in progress.

taro custard

Parap market has the best taro custards baked in banana leaf, slightly sweet, slightly salty, smooth and creamy, they just slip down. I saw a cockatoo this morning carry off a green passionfruit growing on the neighbour's front fence. I then found a wallet on the median strip of Lee Point Road complete with credit cards, but sans money. I rang the owner when I got home, his wife became breathless at the thought that someone had found it and had to turn the phone over to her husband. He wanted to give me fifty dollars as reward. I had an internal moral tussle when he kept on insisting I take it, but couldn't.
My art exhibition scheduled for Sept "Dyad, an unnatural selection" will be pairs of objects using Charles Darwin, small organism shapes and great apes as source material. I finished a pair of protazoan shaped sculptures yesterday using BRT clay and a linocut for surface detail.

Taro Custard Recipe
300mls coconut milk
4 eggs
3/4 cup raw sugar
1 cup steamed and mashed taro (cold)
2 Tbsps rice flour
pinch salt
Mix together and cook gently until slightly thickened. Pour into a tray and bake at 160 degrees C for 30 mins until set.
Serve immediately on banana leaves

For authentic Thai flavour
+ use palm sugar instead of raw sugar
+ gently heat the coconut milk with some pandanus leaf then strain prior to use

territorial chair

My copper red stoneware bowl slipped from the dodgy dishrack this morning and crashed onto the tiled floor, such a pity as it has been my travelling companion for the past few weeks. I've been sitting in the Territory Craft gallery all day working on my protazoan lino cut while people wander in looking lost and asking where the Northern Territory museum is. I have to explain why I'm using lino cuts for ceramic work and then I redirect them through to the museum. I unloaded the kiln this afternoon with only one breakage due to a concave kiln shelf. Ceramics is a life of hits and misses.

arafura dreaming

I've been waking each night as I turn over on the blow-up mattress which threatens to turf me onto the floor each time I move. I can hear the sound of scrub hens fighting in the garden and the night plovers and eagles whirling above. There is the unmistakable sound of a peacock calling in a yard nearby. The sun doesn't rise until 7am and there is a strange mixture of mist and smoke from the big fire at Berry Springs hugging the ground. I'm making paper clay so I sit in bed methodically shredding toilet paper into a bucket between my legs. I'm thinking that my flat mates are probably wondering what is the strange noise coming from my bedroom in the wee hours of the night.

Today in the studios of Territory Craft I finally made something with clay. Up to now I've be plaster casting and linocutting in preparation for ceramic work. I slab rolled the clay and made two protazoan inspired clocks.

studio report

My studio at Territory Craft is surrounded by venetian windows with the humid Arafura winds blowing through to ventilate the space. The smell is of damp clay. I have banished my leather sandals which have become foetid with fungus. I am working on some moulds for platters and clocks today. I'm also doing some design work for a repeating pattern using protazoan shapes.